Feeling Them Up!

Ah.... I've waited for soooo long. Finally, for 2 hours, I wrapped my hand around the hard bodies of my dreams - Nikon D50, Nikon D40, Nikon D80, Canon Rebel XTi, Pentax K100D. What were you thinking?

If the shop had carried the Olympus EVOLT E-500, then the line up will be truly complete for comparison purpose.

The D80 was the largest of them all and also the highest in price. Here's the size ranking according to my grip:

D80 -> D50 -> Pentax K100D -> Rebel XTi -> D40 (smallest).

D80
- heavy and solid

D50
- clunky and ergonomically like a block

D40
- my gosh that's a cute camera, small grip, my pinky definitely has to go under the camera

Pentax K100D
- surprisingly very solid feel to the camera in between D50 and D40. Perfect grip.


The 2 hours went fast, mostly just taking snap shots and the customer rep was really helpful to explain the features and differences between the dSLRs. His preference? Nikon, being a long time Nikon user. Although he did recommend the Pentax system. I wonder if it's because they were running a special on it? Regardless when asked about how useful is the top LCD and the control dials on the Nikon, the rep said that he thinks it's pretty useful as he illustrated just holding down a button and scrolling with the dial control one is able to change the ISO, shutter speed settings for example rather quickly.

D40 lacked external jog controller and missing the ability to auto focus other than AF-S lenses was a biggie for me. I reallly realllly liked the prime lenses after snapping some shots with them at the store. It was just amazing how fast the shutter was able to go with those fast prime lenses. The 50 mm f/1.4 .. nice.... very nice. (*droool*)

Also heard a rumor that D50 is being discontinued.

After having the chance to hold the D50 longer in my hands and shoot with it, the size actually wasn't too bad. I can now see why a lot of people think the the Canon's grip is too small. If you have a larger hand, then yes, the Canon is probably harder to wrap the hand around with.

So I think it comes down to the following for me:

1 - Do I prefer to have the top LCD and jog dial for faster access to control settings?
2 - Do I want to have a bigger LCD screen?
3 - Do I even need to have jog dial and quick controls to settings?
4 - I guess what pictures am I planning to take? mostly composed or action?
5 - Ergonomically which one will my hand like better?
6 - Which one will I take out with me to places?

Decisions decisions...

Monster Element

Today's Mission:

# Buy the bargain marked down sofa and lug it back!

Sofa Dimensions: 70"Wx43"Dx32"H


Believe it. This sofa from Crate and Barrel's outlet in Cranbury, NJ was transported sitting upright using my Honda Element!



Note:
Objects are larger than they appear.

Honda Element Dimensions:

Headroom = 39.4 inches
Cargo Volume = 77.1 cubic foot



I LOOOOOOVE my car. It's such a cool little all around reliable car that could.

Now how many other vehicles on the market today (exclude cargo vans and utility trucks) can cart following items within the vehicle with all doors and hatches closed?

- 1 large snow blower + 2 passengers
- 1 large lawn mowner + 2 passengers
- 2 standard size bikes + 2 passengers
- 1 two-seater sofa + 2 passengers
- a whole trunk load of boxes
- 20 plastic bins + 3 passengers

Whohoo! Go Element, go Element, go go go Element..

Buy one and stop drooling.

Phone Interview

Hmm...

Earlier today, I had my first formal phone interview since my job search begun.

The entire conversation lasted around 30 minutes. The first level of phone interview is done by the HR recruiter. Standard questions were asked:

- Why work for us?
- Why are you leaving your present job?
- Are you okay with traveling?
- Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
- Do you have any questions for me?
- Tell me about your projects?
- How much do you make currently?


I was not too happy with myself on this interview. Blame it on lack of human interaction, well more like business face to face interaction could be part, the other is just that I am not used to having to impress others or toot my own horn. Whatever my excuse is, I thought I did a bad job today.

Surprised, I was to hear that I'll be having a second phone interview with the company next week. Interesting. This time it'll be with the technical officers at the firm.

The funny thing is, when I was talking to the lady, I knew I did not sound like someone who is really excited about the job. Perhaps my inner self knows that this is not something I really want to do. What then, what are my alternatives? Thoughts of - watching stocks, browsing, working for cousins, go back to school, start online business - flashed through my mind when I answered with "I have other prospects." to HR's question - "Are you talking to other companies right now?"

It's not a lie.

Do I really want this? Million dollar question.

Subjective

It's 13 minutes till 5PM. The closing time of my local library where I seeked refuge for the last 3 hours. It's too dam cold in the house for my blood to circulate so I must find somewhere warmer in order to have those digits functioning.

As I walked towards the front door, I noticed the yellow sign that's posted on the front door which reads - "Reception 2 - 4 pm". Ohhh.. what is this? I thought to myself. I soon found out that the library is hosting a reception for a local photographer. A wall of black and white photos with the theme snow is displayed in black frame. My excitement soon diminished as I scanned over the photos. Most of them were distant shots of central park in the winter. Trees and few people in the background. I didn't feel it. I didn't feel the serenity, tPublishhe calmness that the photographer wrote on the stand. And I sure didn't get the prices she tagged onto those photos - over $300 each! What the ...

Photos I guess are just like paintings or other forms of artistic expression - subjective.

What is beautiful and memorable for each person is quite different.

For me those pictures are very mediocre. I could've done those shots! But alas, I wouldn't have the clout to have the local lib host a reception for me.

I guess that's one factor that makes one an artist vs a casual photographer.

Hurry! Click!

Freebies, everyone wants them, especially when you make it into a competition.

Take for example, crowd goes wild when parade participants throws out bits of candy. It's a peppermint for crying aloud! No need to poke someone's eye out to get to it. If that peppermint wasn't thrown into a crow and instead placed in a jar on the side of the table somewhere, will we see the people do a mad dash for it? I highly doubt it.

So what is it that makes us go ga ga whenever there's free stuff handed out but in limited supplies? Perhaps it's more of the rush knowing that you beat out others, making us feel somewhat superior.. even if it's just for a wrapped candy.

American Express brought the fun to a whole new level with their introduction of My Wishlist.

Now it's like participating in a lotto.. instead of picking the numbers, you click and click with your mouse and test your typing skills to fill out the information in time to gain the prize.

I got all 3 coupons today. Amazon, Best Buy, and Home Depot.

Dam I am good!

True Cost of Time = More Time

Today was one of those days that timing really screwed with me...

Morning sun made its way through my windows to conspire with my bladder to wake me up from my slumber. It was 8 am. I turned on my celly to hear the voicemail of a friend that today's meetup is on. Since it looked like a clear, sunny, but brisk day out, I thought a walk to the post office to pickup my certified mail would be a good idea. Then I can come back and catch the 9:35 am train into the city.

Mistake #1. I got there around 8:30 am only to find that the post office does not open until 9. What to do, what to do.. do I run back or just hang around the empty parking lot until the gates are lifted? I opted to head home to shower and then drive back. Mistake #2.

Although my friend would appreciated my clean scent, it sure did cut things tight. By the time I drove back to the post office, it was already 9:17 am. As soon as I stepped in, I silently cursed, "Are you F* kidding me?" To my horror, there's already a line with at least 5 people in front of me and 2 of which had at least 6 boxes to ship out. So I thought to myself, "Okay, let's see the man is going to the back room, maybe to ask for a 3rd person to help in the front."

Noooooooo........ instead of putting another man up to the front desk to help with other customers, yes, customers, the long line continues to accrue more and more people as we watch the 2 front desk people manage each box. Let's just say 5 minutes per box X 6 = 30 minutes at least. That's 30 minutes at least of waiting time for the rest of us.

Inefficiencies... a good business manager would've put another person to help out with a line that has 8+ people in it. Do you think Kinkos would let a line get 8 people long when there's others around to help? Most likely not! Perhaps this says something about the efficiency within the US government.

When my brain finally gave in to the idea that I am not going to get my mail today, it was already 9:25 am. Due to no parking is available near the train station without permit, I had to park on residential streets. By the time I ran down the hill, my train was whizzing by. "Great, F* great." To catch the next train, I ran back to my car to drive it to the next train station hoping to beat the train.

I finally released a sigh of relief as I stood on the platform, ticket in hand, waiting for my 10:10 am train to pull in.

10:05 am - whohoooo my train arrives!!! Mistake #3.

It was not my train. Yes, unfortunately I found out only after I heard the announcement WHILE sitting on the train which is now taking me further away from the city. Great, this is turning out to be a nightmarish day.

That one I had no one to blame but myself.

I made the best of my time as I waited at the next station to catch the city bound train this time. At 10:36 am. The train finally came. The old lady confirmed that this is the train to get on. Thank goodness for old ladies. They don't judge.

Finally, I made it to the city and just in time to submit my name in the lottery drawings for Wicked and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. This would be my 3rd attempt to get lottery tickets for Wicked. Long behold, I wasn't surprised when my name wasn't called for Wicked. Still we had one more chance at getting cheap tickets. After spending 30 minutes at Cosi's for lunch, we were back in front of the door for the drawing. Names after names were announced, sorely defeated I was ready to walk away when my name was called out!! Whooo!!! I did a little hop "that's me!" yeaaaaaahhh... finally I won something!

See that little pin? Each of the lottery winners gets one for keepsake. Aww......


One word to describe the show - cozy. It was a small theater staged as a school's stadium which is really great cuz I hate it when big head sit right in front of me. Not that I would have problem this time because as lottery winners, some gets front center, others get first row on the sides.

For $25, I can't complain about seeing mostly the side profile of the actors.

Fun show to go and if you go for the lottery, you have a really good chance of getting picked due to the small number of people that actually show up for the lottery. Dunno why.


Even though I wasted a lot of time waiting this morning to get to my final destination, the day turned out pretty good. Saw a show, spent time with 2 friends, and had a filling dinner in Chinatown.

A Good Day

What a gift! Today was the most perfect November day ever! Well at least the most perfect for me when I do venture outside.

Ahh.. that breeze .... you know the day's gotta be great when you walk out and immediate enveloped by this most warm feeling... kinda like the powers telling you "Hey there! Go have fun now. It's a good day."

A beeeeauutiful day. This is the kind of day where every creature comes out of hiding... the 4 legged critters, the 2 legged ones, the old, the young, even the ones that can't even walk yet. After some box moving, it was time for a short hike!

My hiking buddy found a little park that was in between our locations - Lord Stirling Park. The description on the site mentioned some swamp land and level trails. Since we had limited daylight now that sun sets quite early, a short hike for today is perfect.

We got to the park at 2:40pm and got out of the park by 5:15pm.

During those brief 2 hours, plenty of pit stops were made to allow for proper picture taking time. We traveled across swamp patches on boardwalks and by the end of the day it was more like trudging through mud patches. Squish.. Squish.. the sound my sneakers made as I attempted to walking through another wet muddy section of the trail. By the end of our 3.5 mile leisure hike, I satisfied my outdoor exposure for the day and was happy with some of the shots that I took. A digi SLR and a tripod would've made me a lot happier but hey it's all good.

Thanks to the Garmin, we found a place to feed our tummies - Thai Thai. Aptly named, the Thai restaurant was surprising good and very busy.

I hiked.
I took.
I ate.

A very good day indeed.

In The Name of Greater Good

Channel surfing after Smallville ended when I saw a PBS documentary presentation on chimpanzees once used as lab animals for various medical products and procedures.

For the next 40 minutes, I watched as the camera showed the chimps in their man-made habitat, which, for the most part consisted of concrete floors and metal bars. I listened as the narrators and their caretakers re account the harsh life these animals endured. It was absolutely heart wrenching to see these creatures, humans' distant cousins, so used to living in cages that when given freedom to explore green pastures, they were afraid to step off the hard concrete.

In the name of greater good, we have done so many things.

Survival of the fittest, I get that. The strong shall survive and get the bragging rights to write history.

Will I stop using modern medication? No. But when I do take it next time, I'll think of those that made it possible for me to suffer a little less and live a little longer.

Personal Productivity

How does one measure personal productivity?

Work? Work productivity is easy to calculate. Someone has already setup metrics, goals, target dates, billable hours, and other standards to which you are to meet to be deemed productive. But what about in our own lives? Who decides when we are productive and when we are just globs taking up space?

Me, I say me. I get to decide. Some days I give myself a big pat on the ass just for getting up to shower and eat. Other days, when the nagging me takes over, I force myself to make up TODO lists and do them (or try very hard). Today is one of those days.

The notepad is full of items to cross off by the end of the day. It's funny how the most important and the most pressing items are always passed over until all the easier, minor tasks are finished and you have no excuse but to tackle the big ones.

I did a lot today I have to say. Balancing accounts, scanning in sheets (joyful task but not for 5 hours), financial research, browsing, and lastly the most important item - sending out the referral form. Phew... I was drained by dinner time. Sorting through records really takes a toll. During one of my many mini breaks to keep sanity in check, I found a pretty cool site - 37signals.

The founders of the site are developers for simple, and intuitive software. One of which I found useful right away - Ta-da List. It's an online ToDo list keeper. How convenient. Now I can be reminded everywhere I go that I got crap loads of things that are yet to be finished. Do I really need additional stress?

Tomorrow, tomorrow will be play day.

What Did I Miss

I am an emotional mess.

Just finished watching Click and blew my nose 3 times already. If I wore make-up, I would be streaking like those 80s rockers. This, was a total surprise of a tear jerker. Adam Sandler's recent movies do do justice to the word "dramadey".

Armed with a brilliant script, Adam Sandler leads us through a refreshing premise to reiterate the important things in life....

- family comes first
- live and engage each moment

I identify with Michael Newman - the main character of the movie 100%. Well not so much the part where he has a gorgeous wife, 2 cute kids, and a humping dog, but with the work part. Where work monopolized all his time and focus. To get work done everything else takes the back burner; let it be personal projects, family, friends, ... life. Years later, like Michael, I am asking myself what did I miss and how can I miss all that. Everyone got older, including myself, the little ones grew up and the old... passed on.

Not to reveal too much of the movie, we often don't appreciate the things we've got until they are gone.

I shook my head at a lot of the scenes in the movie. Why? Because I see myself doing the exact same thing everyday. What a schmuck.

Great movie. Shame on me.

Annual Things

"... the doctor mentioned that I might have to go for a second surgery because..."

(pause)

I believe the doc recognized the onset of uncontrollable fits of giggles if she did not immediately stop what she was doing -- so she did. I managed to act my age and not burst out laughing.

God, it never gets any easier. Perhaps when my boobs shrinks down to flaps of skin is when I will no longer find it funny when someone pinches and squeezes my nipples.

Annual physicals, don't we all love them?

They make you put on a gown, usually made out of paper, with armpit cutouts big enough to fit a thigh through, why bother being modest? But I still fumbled with the little string, trying to tie up the make shift robe when my breasts are still visible from the sides. Hey it kept me warm.

It wasn't long until the next embarrassing moment. As part of the examination, skin is being evaluated. First for me.

"Okay, take off the gown. I need to check your skin so I need to see all of you."

Already... ... so I tried to act as if disrobing in front of strangers is norm for me. I had to do a little twirl too! Maybe next time I'll imagine myself posing for art students instead. Perhaps that'll help. I don't know many people who are completely at ease with baring it all.

"You are in perfect health. See you next year!" With those parting words marked the end of my annual exam for 2006.

You know the drill..
- get into the doc's office
- wait for name to be called
- rummage through the stacks of magazines
- read an article
- whohoooo!! you are called
- get into a smaller room
- wait for nurse
- rummage through the smaller stack of magazines
- wish you brought your own reading material
- read several more articles
- whoohooo!! nurse comes in
- you are informed the doc will be in soon, get naked and into the gown
- back to rummaging through magazines
- again, really wishing you brought other stuff to read
- finally found a good article to read
- half way through the article the doc shows up
- usually 10 minutes later you are out of there with $35 dollar less in the pocket


I'll live for another year.


Halloween, another annual thing.

It's been a long while since I dished out teeth rotting sweets to young children. The act of giving does release some endorphins. I was giddy with joy when I see the kids walk up to the door. Rushing down, I got there even before little monsters had the chance to ring the bell. Quickly, the candy in the bowl diminished. By 7pm, I was out of goodies. Feeling bad, I ran out to CVS to lug back enough candy to induce root canals. But my efforts went unappreciated. Only 4 more kiddies came by the house.

So here I am, with a bag of candy ready for next year's Halloween.

Eragon

A boy, a dragon, and adventures that span deserts and kingdoms. Cross into land of elves, dwarfs and thrown into battles of good versus evil. What's not to like!


Hmm.. this book to me is a marriage between Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. 5 stars for it. A good book to me is one that makes me feel and see. I felt the sand whip across my face as I soar through the air on the back of a scaly dragon. I stood amongst the elves waiting, waiting for the imminent attacks of the Urgals.

What impressed me the most is that it was written by a boy at the age of fifteen. Now that's an inspiration.

If you like epic adventures checkout the book and start on the journey.

For more information on the book or the author go to: http://www.alagaesia.com

Now I hope the movie will do the book justice.

Fanfiction - Thank You

I've been busy lately. Fine. I've been lazy lately. Well, I shouldn't be so hard on myself, so sue me if I like reading fanfiction over doing work. Doesn't everyone? If not, then please do yourselves a favor, venture out and read some internet fiction. Like published works, there are some mediocre ones, some really bad ones, and then you hit the jackpot with the ones that grab you with the first sentence and keep you awake way past your bedtime.

I hit a jackpot this week. Found another author whose work I enjoyed immensely. I liked her novel so much that I even wrote an e-mail to thank her for sharing the stories. Hmm... she would be the 5th author that I wrote to thank. After reading so many stories, I have to say the yearning to write one myself is strong. To think about writing is one thing, to actually have something to write about is another.

I like to read the authors interviews on how they go about writing their story. A lot of them says the characters come to them. I think that'll be the way for me. I would have to be able to see the characters or the storyline play out in my head first than to conjure up something from thin air. Maybe my dreams can help me out. They are pretty intense most of the time, battle vampires, slaying monsters, chasing evil warlords and rescuing the world. Think I have a hero's complex?

The little scratch pad that I bought while I was in Taiwan holds a lot of my notes. Like a little journal/note book. Everyone should carry a pencil and a notepad around. Especially, for one as forgetful as me. That's the main reason I painstakingly write, scan, and take pictures. For my memory is not to be trusted. I am afraid if I don't do some type of recording, I wouldn't remember what my life was like, what I was like.

Anyways, I digress. To all the fanfiction writers out there, big thanks to you all for creating such lively characters and for taking me on journeys across time and space.

Write on!!

Blood Work

It's that time of the year. The annual physical exam. Hopefully one of the rare times where you actually pay strangers to checkout your most intimate parts.

But, alas, I am getting ahead of myself. Before the detail examination, comes the blood taking.

I woke up late this morning. My cellphone alarm failed me. The appointment was at 8am. I didn't get to the doc's office until 8:25am. I wasn't that worried because most of the time they make you wait at least 45 minutes, sitting in a room with a bunch of patients like yourself, avoiding direct eye contact and desperately trying to find a worthy magazine to pass the time.

I brought Eragon with me but didn't get to it as I was called in within 5 minutes after arrival. It's good to have early appointments, that or it's a really slow day. Cotton ball with rubbing alcohol wipes across my skin as I watch the Quest lady prepped me for the needle. I notice that in this last 2 years, I make sure that I watch as the needle goes into my vein. Perhaps it's getting older, but I want to avoid turning into one of those people that get squeamish when it comes to needles and blood. So I watched as the red liquid shoots into two little vials tagged with my name, capped and ready for the labs. Next, comes the urine sample. I hate peeing into a cup. Why? Why the hell not! Most of the time I end up peeing on my hand. Sigh. Oh they also should remind patients not to pee before they come into appointments. Good thing I still had some left in the bladder. Holding the cup, I noticed something. The little cup had a notch! Yah, it's got a built in notch so that it makes it easier to pure into the tube. My entrepreneur mind kicks in and asks, "I wonder how much money they are making off this little improvement?"

I felt awkward handing my urine to some stranger. I mean what do you say? There you go! I did it! Here take it! I think I ended up saying, "uhmmm here .. " She took it. But I noticed she still had gloves on.

Then I was handed an envelope.

"One more thing", she said. "We'll need a stool sample. All the instructions are in the packet with a self addressed envelope to mail the samples in."

I was intrigued, "Oh, this is much different, usually they ask for samples in the big jars." No idea why I wanted to discuss my previous stool sample experiences with her but it came out.

"Oh yes, those test more items, the ones you are doing tests for things like blood in stool etc." She then laughs, "The other ones are fun aren't they? Remember what your mama told chu when you were young? Uh huhhhh.. don't play with those!"

I cracked up laughing. Who knew talking about stool samples can be so much fun.

Do You Think We Are Deaf!!!!!!

All these networks are now showing episodes of prime time TV shows on the web. I love it. There's limited commercials and the quality is decent. The best perk is that it's on demand. You can watch the missed episodes whenever you want. TiVo watch out. But for crying out loud does, the freaking commercials have to turn up the volume enough to shake the windows? Good God!!! Yo commercial people listen up! Your viewing audience for the most part are not hard of hearing and if you think by ruining our ear drums are going to persuade us from buying your product, you are dead wrong.

Do you know what I do when the commercials come on? I move my little mouse as fast as I can to the mute button so that I can turn off the offending noise and then I switch focus to my other browser windows until the commercials are over.

So please, if you actually want the viewers to watch the dam clips, make it so that at least it's bearable to be in the same room when they are playing.

Sex and Food

Daytime job was almost nonexistent today. My mind was just not on looking at XML and troubleshooting, thus the day ended quite early for me - 5ish. Then began the 2 hour cooking session. Been out of practice with cooking and this time I really wanted to make some good dishes to treat my cousin and her hubby. I wasn't disappointed. Two hours and many cutting, chopping, stirring, frying, and washing, later I had an island full of dishes.

Dinner was great but wayyy to much food. Very little self control, we humans are. The more food that's available the more we feel the need to eat. I was punished for the gluttony I was still feeling full hours later. But interesting topics came up during dinner. I forgot how we got on the subject but ooh.. wait I remember, I mentioned that I saw Pornocoupia, a HBO late night 'documentary', on HBO last night. That then spawned a whole slew of interesting discussions from how much porno video stars make to size of a man's mini-me.

'Documentary' or not, I was very surprised by several things while watching:
1 - Porno video stars can make up to 10k a month. Wholly crap!!
2 - Another thing that stood out (heheh) well is that during the porn clips, I mean 'documentary', you only see full nudity of the women and not the men. Even though they show some serious intimate closeups but the men's member is always blocked out strategically, say by someone's head, a setting prop, cameras etc..
3 - Most of the women they interviewed are very forthcoming and funny. One of the best line from the episode was '... on the set everyone is waiting for lunch .. ' in the context of the conversation on how the pressure is on the men. They really need to perform on the spot to not delay everyone else.
4 - There's a whole community of people selling webcast subscriptions of home-made porn and making six figures a year! Wholly crap again! Isn't that illegal?

Anyways.... food and sex, they do seem to go together right?

No Bites

Kinda disappointed that no new employers or headhunters viewed my resume. The count still remains at 3 ladies and gentlemen.

Work was not particular productive today. I started out at 10 am due to sleeping late last night. Then the weather was so nice that I ran around the house opening all the windows to let the cold air out. Yes, let the freezing cold air out of the house in exchange for perhaps the last pleasant warm breeze of the season. Mid afternoon I read about 2 more uber fictions from the top 25 list of the week. Then I really got restless so it was an hour walk with pit stop at the library. Came back did maybe 20 minutes of work and it was time to cook.

Let's just say the best concoction I made tonight was the fruit yogurt smoothie. Loosing my chef's skills there from lack of cooking in the past 4 months.

At 9:30, the brainstorming weekly session kicked off. We came up with some good ideas but to my dismay most of the ones I though of were already implemented. Darn them!!!!!!! Others require substantial time and money, something none of us has right now.. so the search continues.

Sometime between 2 am and 3 am, I heard the song Everything by Lifehouse (heck, look at that, there's a fan site for a song..) playing from my iTunes. Must have been a freebie at some point. Immediately, scenes from Xena played back in my head. "This is a great song for a Xena video!!!", my inner voice glees. So I had to print the lyrics out and listened to it again to jot down notes for my future production of a Xena video. Perhaps I can submit it into the contest and get some recognition.. but that's if I ever get around to making the dam thing.

Afterwards, I listed to more Lifehouse songs and had the urge to play my guitar to the music. I don't know how to pay the guitar, but still, strumming along..

And that's how I end up sleeping at 5ish in the morning.

More School Shootings?

What the F@!K is going on in this world!!? Another shooting in schools and this time the victims little girls were shot execution style. What is wrong with these people!
This past weeks has just been one shooting after one another on school grounds.. is anyone else concerned that psychos are now using schools as butcher shops?

Gun control.. that's one thing that comes to mind. Will the law makers pass stricter laws around owning guns or obtaining them? Will we now have the schools in lock down mode or post guards to keep out crazies?

Will the kids ever feel safe in public places again? What about that room where the carnage took place? How will they treat it who would want to ever step into that room again?

This world we live in contains some really messed up people.

Resume Now Public in Monster

Finally! Good golly! For crying out loud! Yeeeeehhhhhaaaa!!!!!!! The sanitized version of my resume is now loaded for public search on Monster!

That only took like 4 years to do. Pathetic.. but it's done. I don't know if I can go through another round of fine tuning the 1 page history of my career. Let's see today is Sunday now.. 5 am in the morning, but I feel accomplished. Wonder how many "bites" will I get on Monday? 0? 1? 100?

After going through your own resume writing process, I think one can't help but to gain a profound admiration for those who can weave beautifully scripted words to highlight their strong points on a piece of paper. I wonder what's the going rate for professional resume writers? What would that be like? To have a job just to work on people's resumes? Would you develop a set of words or phrases that are general enough for each category of professions?

Burr.. It's getting cold.. can't wait to get under the covers. Maybe it's time to pile on the 2nd blanket.. toasty.. that's a good feeling. Toasty.

Perseverance Pays Off

This morning started out great.

I woke up around 8:30 am and felt restless. Haven't been out of the house for couple days now and I am way overdue for a walk/jog. After the bladder letting, I put on my tennis shoes and head out to great the brisk morning air. The sun was out and moving steadily towards 12, perfect. A few minutes of walking then I started my slow but nonetheless jog around the neighborhood. My lungs thanked me for breathing in fresh air. After a good 40 minutes of cardio, I came back to even better news.

The medical clinic called me back! It turned out that after the gastroenterologist reviewed the 20+ pages of medical records I faxed last week, he has decided to take my dad's case and set him up with an endoscopy to check out my father's recovery progress!

Awesome! Perseverance pays off and it never hurts to try. Sometimes, human kindness surprises us. Good surprise, definitely good.

Way Too Relaxed

I just realized that it's been over a year since I started this blog. Happy blogannsery!! Yeahhhh... happy happy joy joy happy happy joy joy.

Now that celebration is done, back to the present. I actually went out this last couple of weekends. It's dangerous to lead a normal weekend life. Why? Cuz it spills out to the weekdays. For the last 2 weeks, I've been a total slacker in both work and personal items to get done. Like balancing accounts, finish writing resume, call relatives, and call grandma. Bad very bad. I just feel so lazy and look at the freaking time! It's only 1 AM!! What the hell is happening.

TV and soap occupied most of my time. There's just too many shows available over the internet these days, I don't even need to move an inch to watch my fav shows now. Click click click, launch.. and viola, it's on my LCD screen.

Weather's been turning colder.. hmmm maybe that's one of the reasons I am feeling so lethargic.. maybe I am cold blooded and like snakes I need to just lay and rest. Walking has dwindled to like 2x a week. Burrr.. instead I've started to do situps with twists too. The bulging stomach will be reigned in.

Look at me, I look like a racoon. But why won't I just go to bed? I should just go to bed.

Brain Storming Sessions Kickoff

Tonight was the first (hopefully weekly) brain storming session. There are 4 of us total and all at one time co-workers.

Communication was taken care of using:

Voice conference: conference phone number
Document sharing: www.writely.com

Hopefully we'll be able to move off conference number and move to using either Skype or Yahoo Messenger as soon as the conference plugin is released.

For the first session, I thought we did fairly well. In that one hour, several ideas were thrown out and constructive arguments were made. Nice. The goal of these sessions is that we all want to do something on the side (for now) while keeping a day job. Hopefully we'll be able to come up with some viable business venture ideas.

Gooooooooo brains!

Little Miss Sunshine

We decided to use our free movie tickets on Little Miss Sunshine after seeing the rare 90+ rating on RottenTomatoes. The movie gotta be at least decent to go watch right?

Little Miss Sunshine is about a family and all those ups and downs that binds us together. We can call them dysfunctional, troubled, or down on their luck, or maybe just a dramatized version of the average family unit on earth. We got the rebellious teenager, the old crazy grandpa, the innocent little one, the embarrassing family relative, the dad who has to spew out wisdom in every single sentence, and the mom whose just trying to keep sane.

The ball (or car, you'll see) starts rolling when the little girl finds out that she's a finalist in a beauty pageant. The entire family piles into the old van and off they go towards the competition in California. What can happen when you pile 6 very different individuals across different generations into a confined space?

A lot.

It's a good movie with some scenes that'll cause you to laugh and snort. Another dramady. Well.. I would say slightly more comedy than drama so make that comdrama.

Invincible

Thanks to American Express Membership giveaways, I was able to watch Invincible tonight with my free ticket. Watching a movie on a week night definitely has its perks.
1 - The entire theatre is practically yours.
2 - No big heads in front of you.
3 - No obnoxious people talking throughout the movie.

Back to the movie...

Invincible is based on the life of Vince Papale. Director Ericson Core took his time telling the story of how a 30-year old devout fan of Philadelphia Eagles went from watching the game to playing on the field. I liked that. Most sports movies these days are more about giving more screen time to the action on the field rather than allowing the audience to learn and hopefully care for the characters.

Like most Disney movies, there's a underlying theme of the human spirit (whether it's depicted through animated animals or humans), which makes these movies feel good movies and entertaining to watch. Mark Wahlberg is really wise in his pick of roles. His acting is sincere and genuine and you find yourself rooting for the man, chanting, don't listen to others, you can do it.

Now couple of things that caught my attention. First the opening credits. It's been so long since I've see the Magic Kingdom splashed on the big screen. When it came up with the shooting star, I couldn't help to let out a little "yeahh! Disney!" Disney make more films!!

Second, the music and montage of life in southern Philly during the 70s was very well done. It established genera, pace of life and struggles during the time all by the time the 3 - 5 minute song was over. Brilliant.

Last, the first scene that introduces Vince and his pals as they watch a dismal game up on the stadium benches. It's a snowy day and obviously cold but I don't see no frosty air as Vince chatted with his friends! That was quite a distraction for me for at least good 5 minutes.

Good movie. If you like character development, Invincible did a great job.

dirty filthy love

My tears are still drying as I write this entry, but I've got a smile on my face.

I've just finished watching one of the best DVDs that I've rented in a long while - dirty filthy love, thanks to the recommendation of the local Blockbuster employee. Sorry to disappoint some but this is not a porno flick.

This film revolves around a man named Mark played by Michael Sheen. We discover along with Mark that he has OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and also Tourette syndrome through the help of Charlotte (played by Shirley Henderson).

The film gives the audience a look-see into Mark's struggle with the disorder and his attempts to get his wife back. The director, Adrian Shergold, along with the two leading actors are fantastic. It's one of those movies that makes you cry one second but can't help to bust out laughing the next knowing very well you shouldn't be laughing.

It's a film that provokes emotions. Brilliantly acted and brilliantly directed.

A story well told. Rent it.

Freshmen at College

Remember what it was like? That very first year where you meet so many different strangers whose lives will cross yours for the next 4 years of your lives?

Quite a change, at least for me. Coming from a small, mostly white town to a 40,000 undergrad state university was an experience for me. That first year I met friends who are still my friends 10 years later. That first year I also found others who were just like me. It was the year to explore so many different things and reaffirm others. Such as my distaste for rowdy places or to get drunk. Alcohol in the blood stream never had the tipsy affect on me. It just puts me to bed.

A refresher down memory lane came tonight while I was chatting with younger, distant cousins. It's their first month in college and gauging from their responses, sounds like overall they are having a great time as well. Good for them.. Freshmen year was the most memorable and my most cherished year out of the 5 years I was at school. All the others were just a blur, labs after labs, sleeping in the labrooms, sleeping on the common room benches.. and a heck of a lot of frustration and swearing, and then came the awful coffee incident that prompts me to politely reject coffee offers.

Goodbye Note

This morning started out great!

I received a goodbye note from a fellow co-worker who will soon be leaving the company. Since it's his goodbye note, I am not going to paste the whole thing in .. but the gist of it is that he had better days being hit by cars than traveling cross country to perform validation tasks.

HA!!!! I bursted out laughing and banged the table it was that good. Awesome goodbye note. Well I guess he's never planning to come back to work for big blue or at least not the current division.

hehe.. *sigh* when will I write mine? Even when I do write mine it won't be as funny cuz I am not planning to burn any bridges. Hmmm on second thought, will I ever come back to work once I leave? Probably not.... hm still.. probably better just to keep my sarcastic remarks to myself in the official goodbye e-mails. Chicken!!!! I know.

What's Your Dream?

Lucas Rossi, for those of you non Rockstar Supernova fans out there, is the ex-Hooters employee turned super rockstar as announced in the season finale.

What's your dream? Lucas got his. Who knew with his porcupine hairdo, eye shadowed (sometimes glittery) eyes, his signature raspy, a lot of times indecipherable voice will win over the voters and the band members. Lucas got the edge alright and he can sing! I have to say I did enjoy his performances the most, just fun to watch him, with his crazy dance and expressions.

Favorite performance by Lucas is week 7, his rendition of Hero. Now that's a song for Batman!



There's not many other countries in the world that allows one to propel from a restaurant worker status to instant super stardom. Only in America.. Only in America..

Elvish Sideburns

It's been more than a month, maybe even 2 months since I last received a haircut. So a trip into Flushing, NY it is. A train, a subway, and an hour and a half later, I arrived in Flushing and headed up to my usual haircut place to see Gary - the haircut guy. He didn't earn the right to be addressed as a hair stylist and never will, not from me at least.

The place wasn't that crowded today so the assistant spent at least half an hour washing my hair. It was starting to hurt before she took me to the rinse station. Thirty minutes later, I ended up with the same haircut I get every, freaking, single time! Gary has no creative abilities when it comes to styling a look. I ended up looking 25 years younger, not particularly a fitting look when I am approaching my 30th birthday. Along with the short bangs, I also got a pair of elvishly long sideburns/bangs. Lovely.

The rest of the day turned out much better. A friend met me at Flushing Mall foodcourt where we giggled like animated Japanese girls when we smelled the familiar food and saw boards of neon lit menus. The feeding frenzy continued for about 2 hours until we were stuffed and can eat no more.

Parted in the afternoon, I headed to visit elder family friends. I was treated to a homey casual dinner and in return they found my lack of sports understanding unbelievable.

On the train ride back, I finally got to the last chapter of my most recent reading, trying to understand where is the next energy boom. Whoooohooo! Overall a very productive day. Oh, and did I mention it was gorgeous weather?

Power of the People - Power of a Fan Base

Don't ever under estimate the power of the people.

We got a first hand look at the power of a fan base on the FOX Celebrity Duets results show tonight with the surprising elimination of Lea Thompson as the next celebrity to get booted off the show.

Come on! She was definitely a better singer than Cheech Marin and Carly Patterson. But the fans of the other 2 celebrities voted and Lea's supporters didn't. That or she didn't have much of a fan base to begin with. By the way did Lea Thompson looked like she was about to cry when she was kicked into the bottom three or was it just me?

Like I keep saying, the executive producers of Fox's Celebrity Duets is smart. They went after the gay population this time. Casting 3 gay icons on the show, Fox is going after viewers not quality. We can all be honest here. The singing and content caliber is no competition for CBS's Rock Star Supernova, but what the heck it's for charity they are not signing the singers after the shows. So with todays results, this confirms my belief that Lucy Lawless, the Xena warrior princess will be one of the last ones to be kicked off the show. Yep, mark my words. The fan base for Xena/Lucy is GIGANTOUS. Xena the show, inspired thousands of uber fan fiction and it's still going. As a side bar, Lucy Lawless changed her wardrobe strategy today. I have to say it's a much better improvement than the previous form fitting gowns she wore. It made her look like she was in a beauty pageant or something. Tonight she really flaunted it.



Those tassels were just going round and round.. swing baby swing! ya! Hmm.. sorry a bit of Austin Power just slipped in.

Anyways, where was I, oh yes. The loyalty of followers should not be overlooked in any fashion or form. Even though Lucy Lawless is not the best singer on the show, what do I care. She's Xena, and Xena will get the votes. Life ain't fair so stop the bitchin. What would make Celebrity Duets even sillier and more transparent as the real viewer hoarder as it is now, is to have casted Patrick Stewart.

Who cares if Captain Jean-Luc Picard can sing or not!

He can be rehearsing his lines and I am willing to wager that Trekkie fans will still vote for him! Hell Captain Picard might actually win the show!


It basically comes down to loyalty/image doesn't it, for choosing one thing over the other. Grocery shopping is a good example. How many of us will walk down the cereal isle and go for the brand name boxes instead of the generic grocery store versions of the same cereal?

Bridging The Distance With Google Talk

Hey I did something productive today -- teaching my mom how to use Google Talk to talk to my aunt overseas. Now that's an accomplishment!

Ever since I signed on with Voiceral, I've been doing 3 way calling between parents and relatives overseas. Saves money and the call quality is much better than phonecards. But as soon as I got my mom connected with my aunt tonight, she's like "well we are good now, don't need you as our bridge anymore!" Ha!

It's all good they can talk for as long as they like. Technology can be such a wonderful thing. Now...only if I can setup my grandma with a laptop.. now that would be cool..

The Crocodile Hunter Has Fallen

On my drive back from Maryland, I heard on the radio the unbelievable news of Steve Irwin, better known as "The Crocodile Hunter" died from a stingray barb piercing his heart.

What a freak accident. I am genuinely saddened by the news. I liked watching Steve Irwin's show. Althought he can be a bit over the top sometimes, but that's what makes his show different from others and it was educational and entertaining at the same time. I think like many of his fans, we have learned a lot about our fellow creatures through Steve.

He lived his life doing what he loves and probably has no regrets. But to die from a stingray and esp pierced in the heart is a especially rare, freak thing to have happened. My thoughts goes out to his wife and two young kids.

Thank you Steve Irwin for bringing forth the magnificent creatures that live amongst us. You'll be missed.

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth

Secrets of the Millionaire Mind: Mastering the Inner Game of Wealth
by T. Harv Eker

I finished the latter half of this book at the library before I returned it with a late fee. But it's the library. I don't mind paying late fees for it. So on with the review...

Come on! I don't believe you if you said you said you never wondered about how the rich got rich. Not even a little curious? Yah right. So I admit it. I saw the title of the book and decided why not, give a whirl. The book surprised me.

The author had a bit of humor so that's always a good way to engage a variety of readers. What I came to realize is that what all these books about becoming rich are more like self help books. The intent of the book is to make you realize that you can be more than what you are capable of, and that being rich is not a pipe dream reserved only for those that have luck or talent. Not saying the rest of us don't, it's just that most of us is stuck at one of the following stages
1 - we haven't realized our potential
2 - we are scared to get out of our comfort zone
3 - we don't really believe that we can achieve the next level
4 - we are lying to ourselves that money is not important

It's not a thick book to read and it was written in a conversational way. The author is trying to pump up your ego as if you were at one of his seminars (which is not so subtly mentioned every other page).

At the end of the book, you know what? I do have a little more faith in myself! It's amazing how positive reinforcements can affect a person right? Some of the things I learned and which also serves as a summarization of the book:

1 - The key is to believe in yourself.
2 - Truly believe that you can make as much money as the next person and that being rich is not something to be ashamed of. Money is important to achieve the things we want to do.
3 - Need to get out of the comfort zone and dedicate yourself to a goal.
4 - You'll never be rich working for a steady income.
5 - Make your money work for you, invest, buy land.
6 - Your attitude makes a heck a lot of a difference. Think positive, you'll attract positive things. Think negative, you'll be a crap magnet.

Pennsylvania Dutch Buffet

The planned trip to Shady Maple finally arrived. The time has come for us to step into this building. What is this place? If you can read the writing on the building it says "Shady Maple Banquets". Is it an building for big events? Well sorta. The official claim is that we are about to enter "Lancaster County's LARGEST Smorgasbord".

They weren't kidding. No false advertising there. My friend told me ahead of time it's a big place. This place was humongus! Imagine a Costco's or a BJ's... yep that's how big it was. Shady Maple is a dining place located in East Earl, PA. It serves real PA Dutch foods.. aka.. tastes great but you probably should not eat more than 2 plates type of place.

The restaurant can handle up to 1000 people. Crazy! I have never been to a buffet like this. Lines of food.. and lines of people waiting to devour the lines of food.

The food was good. Hmmm.. briskets.. 2 days later I still feel bloated! I didn't even eat that much!

After the feeding frenzy, we took a walk down to the 20,000 sq ft gift shop right below the restaurant. That's where we spotted the very very scary dolls. I've never liked dolls and this is why I never will.....ewwww.....

"Invictus" - By William Earnest Henley

While surfing through blog sites, I came up one that introduced me to William Earnest Henley's poem - "Invictus".
I love it. It's simple, yet it riles up the emotions.

"Invictus"

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud,
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishment the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
I am the captain of my soul.

Three Months

Words came to me when I was out walking this morning.

Came back and finished in 2 hours. Here goes:

Three Months

Three months granted indirectly to find myself,
Two months left, as things calmed down.
One month left, as I mingled through blood.
All three gone and I’m still on the same ground.

Three more months, I gave myself.
Three more months to figure things out.
Three more months to make a change.
Three more months to leave this state.

One month gone, as I sat on the bench.
One month gone, as I am thrown back into things.
One more month, the deadline nears.
One more month, until I face my fears.

I am trapped in a time capsule of five or so years
Screaming loud but no one can hear.
I watch as the world goes round and round
Colors red, blue, green and white, cycles about.

Churning, night and day, churning of the mind.
Tick -- , Tock --, time slips by.
Immobilized by the very nature of what makes me
Scared by what I can’t foresee.

In my journal there’s a dialogue, pitting me against me,
A testament of my madness if I let things be.
A complete breakdown is required now
Even if that means shattering to the ground.

I will mend from the many pieces of my ragged, weary self
Start afresh, reconstructed to face new crowds.
Not quite healed I will travel forth,
Destination unknown, and there’s no reverse.

Days left until I do the deed
Days left until I leave it all behind
Days left until I regain what was me
Days left until I am set free.

Stock Spam

It's amazing how the days just disappears.

Wrapping up this week, I was quite annoyed when I noticed I am getting stock spammed. I was more upset because it was my GMail account! WTF, I mean the reason why created like 8 e-mail accounts is so that I would only have 1 where it's not used by anything else but friends and family, and resumes.

They got to me after all. I never knew about this type of spamming. Apparantly these spammers are a bit sneakier. They use various address and the product they are pushing on you is not in the e-mail content. Instead it's in the form of a GIF attachment. The content of the e-mail is some poetic type of writing.

It's hard to create filters for these spams cuz it's sent from different addresses. Searched online a bit, there doesn't seem to be any legal action victims can take besides forwarding the e-mails to anti-spam sites for them to list and track. But how much that'll do is unknown.

Whoever sold my e-mail out, you suck!

Mt Tammany at the Delaware Water Gap

This is the best picture, well, best non human picture I should stress (just in case one of my friends is reading this) that I took on this trip.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous. The day started at 6:30 AM. After making sure my other friend is awake, I went about getting ready for the first hike of the summer. Wow, it was the first hike. The drive to the location was not bad at all, about an hour and a half. Beautiful to drive in the morning with little traffic. A lot of people on the road were heading for the mountains as well. Such a day to waste if not to immerse oneself in the great outdoors.

Today's goal was to climb Mt. Tammany via the red trail. The red trail is pretty steep, about say, 30-45 degrees incline and the first leg of it is very rocky. I believe some website said it's about a 30-foot high rock climb. True that. I sure got a workout.

Oh be sure to put on some bug repellant. Even at 10 am in the morning the little gnats were in our face, prehaps looking for leftover breakfast?

Where was I, yes, although it's not a long hike, 1.5 miles up to the peak, the red trail does test your legs and balance. Once you get to the top, which is named the
"Indian Head", you get to see this spectacular view of the Delaware River:



We had our lunch at the top. Enjoyed gabbing with fellow hikers, trading stories, and even had somewhat of a close encounter with 2 black bears.

It was a great day.

The Other Half

Weddings are abound this time of the year. Yesterday, I was invited to witness another ceremony to put the official seal on commitment between 2 people, and it was a lovely event.

I think yesterday was the first time when I looked at a couple that I see the distinct difference of personalities and a voice popped in my head "She's really good for him."

My friend is or I can happily say that he was a corporate drone like me. Where our lives are run by the invisible corporate puppet master, our daily schedule revolves around requirements and deadlines. But no more, not for him at least. From mutual friends and new acquaintances at the dinner table, I learned and saw more evidences of changes in the groom after he met his now bride. Good for you H!!!! He now leaves work like a normal person, plays soccer, shakes his tush on the dance floor and there's that happiness oozing.

So that's it, magic of love. One powerful element in nature, that can so profoundly change us.

Whiplash

That's what you'll get if you've been following the market lately. Uppppp Upppp there it goes!!! Then Bam!!! Down 100+.

Been reading a lot more financial blogs lately. The whole dynamics of price movement, psychology of trading, global events, the market ties it all together. Perfect example of how one thing leads to another, cause and effect.

So like many others, why is the market up on days where we have global terrorism threatening our very lives by blowing up planes? Esp the airline stocks? Who the hell knows.

My guess is that either America is very much in denial or that Americans are saying screw you all, we are going to live our lives the way we want, who knows what tomorrow will bring, so we'll keep buying houses that are way out of our budget, keep driving our SUVs across the 50 states, we've got to eat, our kids have to go to school.. so there! Live in the moment.

Either way, sure makes the market interesting.

It's All Coming Back ..... And Out

Do you ever remember a meal?

Well, I am getting not so subtle reminders of my feeding frenzy over Popeyes chicken bucket from 2 days ago. In fact, I think I had anal leakage of chicken fat. Yes, if you think it's gross reading about it, imagine sitting in the bathroom smelling it, with it leaking out of your body orifice. It is true that if you mostly eat a vegetarian diet, once you eat meat or oily stuff, you'll know the difference. Proof is in the pudding, if you know what I mean.

Nasty.

Other random thoughts.. Stopped by blockbuster during my late night walk and what I saw there mildly surprised me. Have you checked out your local Blockbuster lately? Do you see the increase in the number of Japanese horror flicks!! And what's more surprising is the Japanese anime section.

Soon, someone will catch on to that Asians love to watch soap. I am just wondering which one will it be, Blockbuster or Netflix, to nab the Asian soaps.

Yuck, still tasting the chicken grease coming up my throat.. that teaches me to binge on fried food.

I just found out about AIM Phoneline, the free internet phone service from AIM. So the deal is that you get to pick a local phone number that others can call. The call goes through AIM program and alerts you when someone is calling. Click to answer and viola, you got phone service through your fav headset. So far, pretty happy with the quality.

Crap Magnet

You ever notice how when you are down everything and everyone seems to be pushing on your head making you feel lower and lower, crappier and crappier?

Well at least so it seems. Morning was goooooorgeous. Bit chilly than other days, but goooooorgeous... slight breeze, bright blue skies, fluffy clouds. I am sitting outside eating my cereal and reading the new library book that I brought back from my t-shirt clinging, sweat permeated walk last night, when I read this passage:

When you are complaining you become a living, breathing
"crap magnet".

Great. Now I am a crap magnet. Have been for last 3 years. It's true right? When you complain you need someone to affirm your crappiness. You don't need someone there to tell you to shutup and move on. You want to hear others complain about similar situations, to agree with you that everything that's going wrong is because of the situation, not you. Not ever. So I fit the description of a "victim", according to the book Secrets of the Millionaire Mind.

Funny thing was when I came back from the lib, my cousin saw the 2 books I brought back and pointed out, "Hmm... The Universe In A Single Atom by Dali Lama and Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, what are you looking for spiritual freedom or financial freedom?" In response, I said, "I am a very spiritual 21st century person, who wants spiritual freedom and also financial freedom!"

Blink

I finally finished the book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell. To sum it up, this book directs our attention to something we humans pay so little attention to each day yet it's something that affects possibly every thought we have -- our perception.

As humans we are lucky enough to be granted vision and a brain that can correlate and process amazing amount of information in an instant and thus we are armed with a double edge sword. In a blink of an eye, our brains takes in the snap shot offered to us through the sensory organ and there dissects it into millions of different pieces and based on what we see and our gut feelings, past experiences, and culture, we piece it all back and form an opinion about something.

The book offers many examples of how our perception influences our thoughts and behaviors. It hits both ends of the spectrums, recognizing a fake piece of art work even though all current evidences and tests are saying it's a genuine article to the incident where several cops open fired on an innocent man when they thought they saw him pull out a gun, but later to find out the killed man was only trying to pull out his wallet to show proof of ID.

When I finished the last page, the line from Spiderman "With great power, comes great responsibility" popped into my head. Within each one of us we have the capability to take in thousands of factors and formulate an opinion/thought in a split second based on all the input. Malcolm Gladwell has successfully heightened my awareness that yes, what we see does influence our thoughts greatly without us even realizing it. As much as we would all like to say that "no I don't fall in the category of 'judging a book by its cover' , we all do it whether we like it or it.

Ups and Downs

The stock market for one, suits the up and down pattern.

What is it with this market? I got cash waiting on the side trying to find a good spot to get in and everytime I am just about to jump in the market does a 180.

Fed meeting coming up and job reports coming up. Should be very interesting to watch. Definitely more interesting that what I've been working on, which amounts to desire to finish work but mostly end up conked out after 11pm. Perhaps it's part of getting older? Maybe my body knows that I am about to reach the big 3 0. OOOO.... Ahhh.....

Why 30? Why is that labeled a big one? What is so special about turning 30? Gosh, it's depressing just thinking about it..

Anyways.. wanted to post before I fall succumb to the beckoning of my bed. Couple more documents to read then it's time to hit the pillows.

Superman Returns

This movie felt right. Thank you Bryan Singer for bringing back Superman to the big screen. I appreciate when a film takes the time to setup the characters and the storyline, and Superman Returns did just that.

I liked the casting in this film. Definetely a good DVD to be collected and rewatched. This movie has the those edge of the seat scenes, quiet reflections, more emotionally revealing bits to what it's like to be Superman besides saving the world, and of course the super human strength and the heat vision.

While watching the movie, esp the more reflective scenes where Superman flies above the planet and watches it from space. It's quiet. You just see this beautiful blue planet below the floating Superman. I watch him watching earth, the absence of sound, and then we get to hear what Superman hears - everything. Conversations, traffic, clink, clunk, sirens, all the noise in emitted the man can hear. Yet, he chooses to go back down there, to do what he can to help a race that he's so immersed in yet feels so detached from at the same time.

This to me is what makes him Superman.

Will I

"Will I loose my dignity? Will someone care erreerr.. ?
Will I wake tomorrow, from this nightmarerrrr??

Will I loose my dignity? Will someone care errrerrr..?
Will I wake tomorrow, from this nightmarerrrr?? "


This has to be my 2nd fav song from Rent, ranked right after Seasons of Love.
The lyric is especially moving to me right now. "Will I loose my dignity? Will someone care?" I think that's a question we've all asked ourselves one time or the other, and hopefully at least one person comes to mind who will care very much.

If grandma can understand English, I'd think she would identify with this song. Lying there not knowing when you can recover gotta be depressing as hell and you got your own children debating who should take care of you, passing you around like a hotcake, yah.. she would've identified.

69 and 29

Before dirty minds starts to flash images of various sex positions, this entry is not even close to that so move on to the next blog avoid dissapointment.

5 AM, I am watching my dad doing his little pre-walk stretch routine from the window. He rolls his head, neck, and shoulders, then swings his arms about to loosen up the waist. Pop is doing that swinging a little too fast. I'll have to remind him when he gets back.

Then he's off. In his khaki shorts and turquois polo, topped with my white EmigrantDirect.com promotional hat. It's still dark out at this hour, but the man is off doing his morning ritual.

Ohh there' he goes again! He lapped past this window 3 times now. Why am I not out there.. .. okie work is not that important. 1 hour won't make a difference in my work.

Here I go.. I am 29, and I want to go walk in the morning with my dad, 69 years old, walking his way back to full recovery, a step at a time.

Screw work.

Melting Pot

Why America is such an attractive country to be in? Anyone can answer that question after taking a train ride into the city.

While I am squished against the inner wall of the train cabin, trying very hard to avoid further contact of legs from the guy across from me, I looked about, uncomfortably aware how it was probably not the best idea to wear short shorts in cramped spaces. I am flanked on my right by one of the Eastern European women, absorbed and animated in their own conversation. The guy across from me, with his leg occasionally bumping into mine bare ones sports the latest gadgets, iPod/T-Mobile SideKick, sunglasses made popular by George Michael - African American. Standing in the aisle of the packed train, we got a burly African American body builder whose bulging biceps and enormous chest kept me fascinated for a while. Down the line we have some blond teenagers, grey haired white father, tan looking guy, red haired lady, freckled woman, tall, skinny, short, wide, extra tall..

This is America, welcome to the melting pot.

A Very Long Day

Reaccounting the day in reverse...

It's Friday 4AM, I just finished helping a friend/ex-coworker work on VBA Excel macro code for his first project at his new job. That dam thing took me a lot longer than it should've have. Loosing my touch. A sign that I am not meant to be a programmer.

8:40pm - 10pm, came back from a nice night walk. I met a dog along the way. It was looking at me and I was looking at him. I don't think either one of us can see much cuz it was rather dark out. I talked to it, but it didn't answer back. So I just told the doggie to go home. It's so nice to see fireflies these days. Blink.. Blink.. Blink... kinda like walking through an air strip with miniaturized airplanes.

7:30 pm - 8:30 pm, hmm dinner, dinner and smoothes.. fruit ones at that.. nice.

9 am - 7:15 pm, right.. those are the typical work hours plus ones at night. lovely.

8 am - 9 am, whohoo.. i finally got a CT Scan. Well it's about time. Been getting those same symptoms again several days ago. Eye sensitive to bright light, esp the right eye, pressure on the top of the eye, mucus discharge at the back of the throat, headaches, and the bumped spot feels weird as well. In couple of days, the doc will probably call me back to notify me everything looked normal in my head so I must just be crazy or paranoid.

Great.

Oh god.. it's 4 am.. 4 hours of sleep left and I probably won't get even 2.

Fan Error Strikes Again!!!

Fan Error


And the screen goes to black. Not another one!!! So this is the 2nd laptop of mine that fell to the fan error problem. I can't help it if it's hot and my notebook is running huge memory intensive applications.

Calling the tech support dept second time around went much faster. Practice, practice, practice right? I was supprised the tech team didn't question why I am sending in another laptop for repair with the same problem within 2 weeks.

Afraid of getting charged by the dept, I've decided to purchase one of those notebook coolers. Hopefully that'll blow away my problems.. get it blow away.. righhhhhht...

"Positive Feedback Loop"

I find myself really liking this new magazine - Seed. It contains more of science technology infused articles. Today I learned about the surprising affects of global warming on the rain forests.

An excerpt from the article:

"CO2 causes warming which slows growth, which reduces CO2 update, which causes warming." --> "positive feedback loop"

I was quite surprised by the findings. I think majority of us think if we plant more trees now it'll help with the whole global warming issue. But now with this new knowledge, the future doesn't look so green anymore. The concern is that we still do not have the capability to predict when will we finally cross that tipping point. That's when the affects of global warming will be irreversible.

Will 80 degree weather in the winter on the Northeast be considered typical?

Time will tell and it might be soon.

The "Stuff" We Buy

Okay, we as humans are a silly funny race. Case in point, look at some of the things for sale these days.

Exhibit #1: MobiBLU

MP3 Toys for the Hobbits in their infant stages.


Come on now!! Why? I ask why do we need to miniaturize to the point where you would need a magnify glass to find the Play button?


Exhibit #2: Girlfriend Pillow

For those days you can't sleep without her.



I hope for one these things are mainly purchased as gag gifts, but who knows.. there are some really kinky people out there.

*Shudder*

It's Baaaaaaaaaaaack!

@#$!!%#$%#*((&#!~~!!!!!

Is what I said when the eerie feeling of mucus/post nasal drip + headache + eyes sensitivity to light sensation returned.

F@#~ing infections are back. I really don't want to go on Zithromax again, for the fear of building up the resistance of bacterias running around in my body. I must be the perfect host. First it was the intestines, now they've traveled to a new place - up to my head. I ain't no doc.. but I sure hope it's just a simple sinus infection and nothing more.

For all I know, bacteria can be eating my brain. The brain has no feelings, isn't that ironic? For all the amazing things that can be achieved by the human brain, it has no feelings.

Crest White Strips

Finally decided to give Crest White Strips a try. I got the Classic pack, the 14 day treatment. Let's just say those things are nasty. Imagine putting on a wet strip of peroxide soaked thingy onto your teeth and leave that thing there for 30 minutes. Yah, gross. I mean it's not that horrible but not the most pleasant thing I've had in my mouth.

I applied 3 strips so far. Stopped due to the sensitive feeling I am getting from my teeth. You know that feeling you get when you drink something too cold or too hot. I am not sure, but I think my teeth does look a bit whiter. Not much, maybe it's just the lighting.

I'll start back up on the treatment later on, not that my teeth were horrible before! Non smoker here. No tobacco chewing or nothing. Just naturally yellow shaded teeth. Maybe I had too much carrots when I was a babe?

Quiet Moments

I enjoy moments like these. Slight breeze coming through the windows, it's dark out, most creatures are asleep, including the chattery birds and the yelping mini dogs.
Got my muffins with a nice upbeat tune playing. This is nice.


I worked today. Actually worked a lot today. I should be laying in bed now. Soon, soon I'll join you Mr. Bear. He's covered by a nice blankie right now. One of those keepsake things. Mr. Bear will probably be with me until the very raggedly end.

Thought of some rhymes after I stepped out of the shower tonight. Maybe I'll have more after a good night sleep. Haven't wrote a poem in a while.

Good night.

Stuffing & Root

Feeling utterly disgusted with myself right now. Rightly so after consuming, what, a fellow creature from every meat group?

Most of the day was spent on the "grill-a-meat" tradition, widely known as "BBQ". Then came the "stuff your face" phase. Now I am at the "feel utterly disgusted with yourself" stage.

Why do we feel compelled to shove down as much food as we can when it's all laid out infront of us? You know.. you go into a buffet and you count the number of plates you went through, calculating whether you are breaking even with the price of admission.

Sad. Greedy things we are.

Anyways, while whirling the t-shirt above my head mimicking helicopter blades (trying to cool myself down after a shower), I recalled the conversation I had with my mom earlier today. It was a short one, about how neither of us have a real home right now and how without one we feel like we are not rooted. That's a good word, "rooted". So that's the next goal to find a place to grow our roots. Then I went on to explain the whole global warming situation and how we need to pick a place that's not too close to the water or streams so that we won't be flooded and a spot where it's relatively safe from tornados and earthquakes.

That reminds me, there's a good quote in Al Gore's book "An Inconvenient Truth" that rings so true:


"Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood - it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words 'Too late'. There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance in our neglect. .."
- Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.


Yah, back to the immediate task at hand - turn in code.

Happy Birthday America

Boom! Boom! Boom! SHHHHhh......

Watching fireworks shooting off towards the sky and exploding into hundreds of bright sparkles of light is one of those timeless things. During the spectacular displays you took some quick trips down memory lane. Whether it be a visit back to the first firework show you've ever seen or reminiscing that person(s) you were with at the last event.

This year's display had some new ones that I haven't seen or heard before. It starts up as others, shooting for the stars, then it explodes into that "fireworks" pattern but.. wait..wait.. there's a surprise at the end of each string of light.. another spot of colorful light illuminates and kinda fizzes through the air before disappearing into the night. The other one explodes and it makes this loud shussshhhh.. sound.

Cool. By the end of the show, I have reverted back to 5 years old, and was calling out "Booom! Boom!! Booom!!" with each firework that exploded up in the air.

What tickled me as well was when one of the performer at the town event wanted everyone to pull out their cellphones and wave them in the air as we all sing along with him to the theme song.

Brilliant.. that man is brilliant. And like he wanted, a lot of us in the crowd whipped out our gadgets and proudly displayed our love for the country through the sea of brightly lit, swaying, LED screens.

Happy Birthday - United States of America.

Love At First Sight

Do you believe in love at first sight?

I think it's possibly but extremely rare. Never to commit, that's a good answer right? Well, I should correct myself, not that I don't give out definite answers, but unless you can prove it for certain, it should remain open to what is possible and what is not. It's like winning the lotto. Will I be the lucky winner one day? Highly unlikely but it is plausible.

Anyways, for me, I think I am more like a crock pot. Instant attraction maybe, but, I wouldn't call it love. What's love anyways? With one glance can I tell this is the person I am meant to be with the rest of my life? Nah.. I am too practical and skeptical to let my gut feeling take over. It really sucks being a Virgo + Asian combo sometimes. Practicality rules every decision, well not if I have to pee or not, you know what I mean. By the time I justify my choices, several times, opportunities have slipped away. For example, those nice clothe belts I should've bought in Taiwan, even though the colors weren't the exact ones I was looking for, but darn it! It's good enough, just buy the dam thing! Frivolous example, but ..

Regrets, unfortunate by products of a too practical person.

A sweet movie Imagine Me & You, predictable and somewhat unrealistic, but it's a romantic comedy so one shouldn't concern themselves with those details. The heart of the story is about meeting that one person that you click with and know with a strong degree of certainty that, yup, this is it, this is the person I am meant to be with.

The cast is gorgeous. Very pleasant on the eyes indeed. After watching a British production, I've always end up talking with a British clip, or trying at least for several days. Anyways, another bit of useless info I like to throw out about myself.

Back to the movie... I liked it, I liked it a lot. I read a lot of different books and watch whole array of movies, but always am a sucker for a story with happy endings for all. Piper Perabo's performance was surprisingly pleasant. I've seen her in couple other movies but this one so far showed off her incredibly convincing British accent and her acting! Quite different from her previous dark roles. Lena Headey, I sure would like to see more of her work in the future. After looking up her info, found that Lena Headey was the woman from Brothers Grimm. No wonder she looked a bit familiar. Liked the director later revealed in the commentary, the slight lingering glances said it all.

Together, Piper (Rachel) and Lena's (Luce) characters made a cute couple. They had great on-screen chemistry. Actually, the 4 main characters had pretty good rapport, believable.




Mathew Goode is just down right charmingly handsome. He seemed so tall and upright in the scenes. This is the first time I've actually found a guy's neckline attractive and incredibly sexy? Puzzling to me as well. The region from the base of Mathew Goode's neck to his shoulder is just soo.. soo... good to look at! Casting director -- you did well. Which is what I can't say about the Da Vinci Code's picks.

Imagine Me & You is PG-13 in my books. Which is fine. You don't need much spit trading to tell a sweet story. There are a lot of tender moments in the movie and that's what made this pic a joy to watch.

Love at first sight, although highly unlikely, I sure wouldn't mind getting zapped one day or zap someone.

Rewards and Points

Drenched. That's how the entire North East Coast felt over the weekend. Rain, rain, and more rain.

Pride and Prejudice was the Saturday night entertainment. I have to join the nay-sayers. The movie gets thumbs down from me. It was long and boring. I fell asleep and possibly snored? The performances were flat and seemed a bit forced on Keira Knightley's part. Go back Keria! Go and make more Pirates sequels! I liked her better as a sword wielding lady than this dull character. This interpretation version of Jane Austen's book is sooo weak when compared to the 1995 Sense and Sensibility. What am I saying, it's weak regardless. With Ang Lee's direction and Emma Thompson's script, the dialogues in Sense and Sensibility came alive and the wit, the humor, and of course superbly executed by Emma Thompson. Bottom line, Pride and Prejuice --- Booo! Sense and Sensibility --- Yeahhhh!


Sunday afternoon I was tempted to go outside in my slickers to scrub the streak of bird poop off my Element until my cousin informed me that in the event I do get struck by lightening, she will not be collecting my body until the rain has stopped. After some careful consideration, I went back to working on the dam RSA portal server setup, and there I remained in my room as a prisoner tied by the 2 laptops for the rest of the night into the wee hours of the morning.

Which leads me to the subject of this particular blog entry. Rewards. What better way to break from work than to figure out how many reward points one has earned while swiping away? After reviewing all my credit cards, looks like Discover and Citibank Dividend Platinum are the winners in the point rewarding world right now. 5% back on gas, grocers, and drug stores.

Bye bye Chase.

RSA

Rational .. wait.. wait.. I know this.. "RSA", "Rational Software Architect". Fine, so I cheated.. anyways.. back to the coding grind again. It's definetely a shocker to the system to be coding again after a good 9 month of non-programming work. Blah.. first day I got the laptop with all the build environment shipped to me, I must have swore at least 200 times. I think I went from a sailor to like captian of the boat.

Black Cloud

Weather this weekend have been sweaty. That's one word to describe it. Sunny as hell (oxymoron there), but I see shadows wherever I go, black clouds hanging.

Father's day -- my dad is with my uncle in PA, my mom is in Louisiana, my bro in Hawaii, and I myself is in NJ. "4 people, 4 different places" as my grandma puts it. Grandma, in bed, not able to move due to injury from falling in the middle of the night 2 weeks ago. The phrase "I've fallen and I can't get up." will no longer be a silly TV ad to me. I've the image of my grandma hurt, silently calling for help in the middle of the night laying there cuz she really cannot move.

Black clouds.

I couldn't even think of what mental thoughts to jot down on the train ride home tonight. It's all so jumbled up here.

Music once again expresses what I can't in words: Elba by E.S. Posthumus.

Semester Bills

While watching "So You Think You Can Dance", yes, lovely program, I was sorting out the boxes of memories from my younger days. Tonight in particular I went through my past academic "stuff".

I am a packrat. I still got my elementary school report cards. Hey those are important!! If I ever have kids, I'll make them keep it as well and the only chance they'll get to throw them away is when they burn it along with me when I finally croak. Yah, I wouldn't want to be buried. Such a confined space. I would rather be spread into the ocean or sea or wherever, preferably somewhere with clean air and water. Take note future child.

Anyways, so I was talking about my inability to part with things. But tonight, I made some progress. Thank goodness for scanners! Whoever invented the scanner is a genius and perhaps the biggest packrat of them all. The mother of all packrats! the ancestor! the master! the legend!

Okie.. off my meds tonight.. so.. I digress again. I love scanning, scanning and filing all of it away in my computer, makes me so happy.

Here I am close to midnight scanning in my semester bills from college days.

It's a good day.

Hustle & Flow

Just finished watching Terrence Dashon Howard in the film Hustle & Flow. Great film. You got the non-typical protagonist of the story -- a pimp, and the supporting cast, mainly -- his hos. Pardon the language, but just going with the flow now. With these characters to start with how can the movie ever get boring?

We get a glimpse of what it's like to be DJay, even if just for a little bit. A man going through his midlife crisis, questioning "is this it for me?" Now that's a man I can relate to; a character all of us can identify with at one point or the other.

"It ain't over for me. No, it ain't over for me." DJay raps over and over. Everyman's got to have a dream.

It ain't over for me either.

Karoke in My Room

Now, I am sure everyone, even those that won't admit it to others, when there's no one else in the car with ya and the radio is up playing your favorite tune, you find yourself start with the humming. Then your foot taps along with the beat, next comes your fingers on the steering wheel. You gain that little bit of confidence (well since you can hardly hear yourself because the music is loud enough for the car next to you to name that tune even with the windows up) and the head start bobbing and then all of a sudden you hear yourself belting out that favorite line "I believe I can fly! I believe I can touch the sky!..." ehhh.. or whatever is on your CD at the moment.

It's a nice moment isn't it?

No one around to critic you on how off key you are or to suggest that you take a lesson before ever consider singing infront of children.

Anyways, I had those moments today. Instead of doing my work, well, I did some work, but mostly I was engrossed recording myself singing along with my fav songs.

Three tracks. I recorded 3 tracks last night. They sounded alright. I wouldn't be distributing them anytime soon.

DIY - Saved Some Money

I didn't save any money on my car insurance today but I did save some $$ by changing out the wiperblades on my car. Well technically only the refills for the blades.

Yah really nothing to brag about, but I do feel better about myself. Cheap therapy.

Whole process took me a good 30 minutes at least. Cuz I am slow and didn't realize the trick to it until I've mucked around for 15 minutes. Hopefully this set of blades refills will last at least another 3 years.

2 front refills = 6.38
1 rear refill = 3.19

Total cost = 9.57

Not bad, not bad at all. Now my little Element is ready for the rain.

Thanks H and A Accessories!