Him, Him, Him!

I just bought Rupert Holmes' Partners In Crime album from the iTunes Music Store. I didn't buy it for The Pina Colada Song or because I like the plays that he wrote - not that they are bad or anything. In my little corner of the world, Holmes' song Him holds special significance.

It was the early 1980's when I first settled down in the U.S., a mere lad in a family of six. We just arrived from the refugee camp and started adjusting to the new life. I had about one year of private English school but it wasn't enough to carry out fluent conversation. Someone, whether my late father or a cousin I cannot remember, said that when my English was good enough, I would be able to comprehend what was said or sung on the radio. Sure enough, whatever on the radio sounded so fast I couldn't understand much. Still, as I explored American music I discovered that, unlike Vietnamese music, there was much repetition as far as the lyric went. Even though I didn't understand all the words of a song, there was always certain phrases or words that were repeated over and over. As we didn't have a TV and I didn't read the newspaper, there was no way to confirm it but I was sure I knew the names of certain songs, simply based on the repeated words or phrase. One of the songs I like in those early days on American soil was Holmes' Him.

I didn't catch the lyric enough to know the entire story, but just hearing "Him! Him! Him!" and "It's me or it's him" I could interpret that it was about some guy telling his gal to choose one guy or the other. Love songs are usually about pain and suffering, universally.

I knew there was some reference to the window in the first line. I don't recall knowing back then what do without someone means, so even if I caught the phrase She's gonna have to do without him, I doubt I would know what it meant. Especially the gonna part, as it was a while before I learned the slang words.

Back to the present, I now can easily pick up the whole lyric for Him. I can even detect wrong lyric on some web site. I could have bought the song on CD elsewhere on the Internet but buying through the iTunes Music Store and have the song synchronized to the iPod has special significance. It's amazing how much technology changed over almost thirty years. Years ago I first listened to the song on some low-quality radio, now I have the song on an MP3 player the size of a pack of playing cards, along with many other songs.

My First Thanksgiving Parade

After living in New York City for so long but still haven't gone to a single Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, I agreed wholeheartedly when Wife suggested that we go this year. The weather was great, not raining and not cold. There was only one problem - time. We didn't bother to get up early and got to Columbus Circle around 10 a.m. The video above pretty tells the story. Layers and layers of people lining the streets, even the side streets. Sure you can see the big balloons quasi-floating in the air, but there were much other things to see on the floats, too. Some people, perhaps living near the parade route, brought 2-step ladders to get themselves above the wall of people. Good move, I will consider lugging one along all the way from Brooklyn the next time I go, if I ever go again.

I thought the Border's Bookstore in the New York Coliseum, uh, Time-Warner Center, would be open, so last night I told my Son that we would visit the store after we were done with the parade. Son re-prioritized the whole thing and was a nag the whole time, complained that the parade was boring and that we should go to the bookstore instead. After running south a few streets in hoping of catching a better glimpse of the parade, I gave up and broke from the group (Wife and In-Laws), and went to Border's with Son. The store was closed, it was Thanksgiving Day after all, what was I thinking? Not giving up, I trekked uptown to the Barnes & Noble just outside Lincoln Center, only to discover that it too was closed. The only stores that seemed to open were the ten (I exaggerated) Starbucks I came across during the trip from Columbus Circle (around 57th Street) to Lincoln Center (around 65th Street). Not to waste a nice chance to be alone with my Son, with no other kids to fight with him, I bought tickets to see a 12:45 p.m. show of The Bee Movie. We had about two hours to kill so I took Son over to Central Park and let him roam the two playgrounds at West 67th Street (Adventure Playground and the unimaginatively named W. 67th Street Playground). With about 45 minutes until show time, we each had a hot dog for lunch, eaten on the bench just opposite the hot dog stand. Not only Son enjoyed Bee Movie, I too had a few good giggles as it has many jokes for adults, like a mosquito that ended up being a lawyer said it was an easy move for him because he was already a bloodsucking parasite in the first place.

It was a great day to spend with my Son, but there was one big issue. In the morning, fearing my weak bladder would cause troubles while watching the parade, I skipped both my OPC-3 drink and, more importantly coffee. I was supposed to pick one up at a Starbuck's later on, but didn't. Combined with a dubious egg-filled pastry piece for breakfast and just the hot dog for lunch, topped with the stale air in the movie room in the basement, the lack of coffee gave me a nasty headache by the time the movie ended. I spent the rest of the day feeling awful and sickish, but otherwise it was a great day, parade or not.

Lanyard, I'll Tumble For Ya!

With my new cell phone, I made a change to the way I carry the device. Up to now, I have been carrying phones on the hip. Now I use a lanyard to dangle the phone from my neck. For me, the hip is the worst place to carry a cell phone, pager, or PDA. So many times I suddenly discovered that the phone was no longer clipped onto the belt and had to scramble about finding it. I have been lucky so far and always found the cell phone either in the car or at home in some places that I recently knelt down, perhaps to tie shoelaces. I still remember the time the nice $50 PDA Skins flew off the belt, the clip completely ripped off, when I squeezed through a conference desk and an arm chair too fast. Then there was the time the PDA, in some belt-clipped case, fell from the belt unnoticed. I discovered it absence shortly afterward, but only after I ran over it with my own car!

Hopefully with the lanyard such disaster will not happen. I do have to be careful not to swing the Razr² against some hard object. For now, with the cold weather, I can ensure that won't happen by nesting the phone between the layers of clothes I wear.

I like the fact that the lanyard sports a breakaway connector. It is a safety feature involving a mechanism that when pressed releases the device from the lanyard. Good thing to have, in case one's device get stuck between a subway car's closing doors. Better lose the gadget than your life, no?

One thing I am tempted to use is a Bluetooth headset. When the lanyard is used together with a wired headset, the two tends to tangle up. A Bluetooth headset would solve the problem easily. I vow not to become one of those annoying lunatic talking on their Bluetooth headsets in public. I think those people should be made to wear a sandwich board that declares, "I am on the phone, I am not talking to you" whenever they use the headsets, so that passersby can safely ignore them instead of responding to them out of courtesy, only to be embarrassed.

Razr2 v8

The pleasant surprises in life, I love them. This past weekend I went through the bi-annual ritual of selecting a different cell phone plan and upgrading the device. I am aware of the unnecessary amount of trash generated by cell phones that got discarded simply because they lack certain whiz-bang features. I plan to eventually donate my old phone via Staples. For details, visit http://www.collectivegood.com/donate_phone_Staples.asp

I would rather keep using the old cell phone, even with a cracked outside screen a few weeks after I had it. Napping on the couch with a cell phone clipped to the belt is not a wise thing to do, trust me. But then some of the number keys were falling off, the antenna came off a few times and had to put back with Crazy Glue. Worst of all, the device had so little memory. For a while, I was using it as a personal digital assistant (PDA), entering notes, reminders, alerts, etc. but the phone quickly ran out of memory. With the new Razr2 v8's 2 gigabytes of memory, I am sure I will finally have a decent PDA to us one-handed while riding the subway or waiting on the platform. I still keep the Handspring Deluxe for other PDA tasks, but for simple tasks likes reminders, I would rather save on AAA batteries by using the cell phone's rechargeable battery.

The last time I changed cell phone, I didn't care too much about cell phones and regarded them just as tools, something to get a job done, i.e. stay connected. The iTune Phone was just out and the phone rep suckered me into getting a rip-off phone, from Motorola but not the real thing. There was some problem with it, besides the inability to easily load and play music, and I traded in for a Nokia phone. It served its goal, albeit I could use more, lots more, memory space.

Two years later, the iPhone, the real McKoy, is out and much as I love it I am not too keen on paying the premium it demands. A couple hundred dollars for the phone, stuck with AT&T possibly forever, limited number of apps, plus the costly monthly fee. This time next year maybe there will be more apps to make the device more useful, but for now I am not ready for it. I just wanted a cell phone with lots of memory to store my notes and calendar entries. The rep suggested the Motorola Razr2. I heard about the Razr before but never researched about it.

Ten hours after the phone was charged I started to play with it. It has one port mini-USB port for everything, from power to headset to data transmission. At 2 megapixel, the camera is pretty decent. My first digital camera was 2.2 MP. The nice thing is iPhoto readily recognized the phone's camera. With my old phone, I had to email myself photos taken with the phone camera, incurring whatever cents that do accumulate over time. The best feature I like so far is the ability to play music on the device. Bluetooth provides a somewhat painless way to send the music files over the air. I probably will explore the possibility of using the USB cable to send tons of files to fill up the 2 GB of memory quickly, but for now I don't mind sending songs one at a time. I get a peek at how iTunes categorize my music by digging into the its folder structure.

I especially like the Razr's ability to use any music files as ringtones or alarm sound. In these dark days of Digital Rights Management, it is probably illegal to do so, but at least there is no technical hurdle to overcome. With the iPhone, one needs to shell out $1 for the song then another dollar to convert it to a ringtone. Or rely on hacks and fight a game of cat-and-mouse with Apple.

My goal for now is to load all the songs in my son's playlist on the iPod to the Razr. It is only about 200 MB so in between I also sneaked in some from my own list. Now only if the Razr came with some decent full games instead of the lame demos...

Bitten By the Twitter Bug

I have finally succumbed to the Twitter bug. Twitter's motto is "What are you doing?" and you are supposed to constantly update your Twitter home page with notes about, uh, what you are doing. You are limited to 140 characters, so this is not the time and place to rant and rave about something dear to your heart. AFAIK, text only, too, so no worries about picture file formats or lengthy videos. Ideally, you update the site from your iPhones or whatever Internet-capable device you carry around with you all day.

I don't expect to have any followers more than the Blogger site, but it is fun to use Twitter nevertheless. There are times when you simply don't have enough time to pour your heart out, like on Blogger, so Twitter fits in nicely. Sort of like a personal diary, just really short. Blogging for the lazy, I sometimes think of Twitter that way. I cheat every now and then and write about something that happened a few hours earlier, but hey, if someone posts "Taking a shower", does he not really meant he took the shower? Unless he has a waterproof laptop and cannot possibly do a very good job of cleaning himself if he has to type and shower at the same time.

I cannot help but think of the movie The Truman Show starring Jim Carrey. Carrey's character was the center of a reality TV show without him knowing it. Every moment of his life was recorded and aired for the show audience to enjoy. Except with Twitter's case, the writer has control on what to put out there.

Troubles In MeatSpace Part 2

Some months ago, I acquired an Amiga 500 computer, or A500 for short. In its heyday of late 1980's, the Amiga computer platform was touted as the best for desktop video. I dabbled a bit with video, but the one thing I learned from owning the Amiga computers was that command-line commands can be explicitly referred to. At the time, I subscribed to a disk-only magazine called JumpDisk. Each issue of JumpDisk featured programs, pictures, animation, music, etc. perhaps by readers and freelancers that the magazine paid. At one point, I happened to explore the scripts that came with the disks. Maybe to make sure the commands always work with the disk inserted, the scripts spelled out the full path of the commands and their arguments. For example, to load the picture Amiga500.iff in the folder called Pics using the Viewer program in the Tools folder, the command would be

JumpDisk13:/Tools/Viewer JumpDisk13:/Pics/Amiga500.iff

where the disk name is JumpDisk13. At the time, I was familiar with DOS commands and was aware of the PATH command, but it never occurred to me that there were other ways to issue commands. Using absolute paths, there was no need to CD (Change Directory) or to alter the PATH environment variable. But I digress.

The reason I acquired the A500 was that I had a few games on diskettes that I really like. I still have an Amiga 3000 but by default it boots from the hard drive. Most of the games were made for booting from the diskette drive. To do that with the A3000, I would have to hold down the mouse buttons at boot time then click a few buttons on the screen. After one game, if I forget to depress the two mouse buttons, I would have to reboot again after the A3000 completed booting up. And then there were other games that would not work at all with the A3000's newer architecture, compared to the A500, that is. To go around certain limitations, some games went directly to some hardware addresses. When the A3000 came out with changes in hardware design, those games stopped working.

So now I had the A500, games booted up from the diskettes easily - there are no hard drive anyway. It requires some patience to play the games, as it takes some time for the computer to read from the floppy drives. But the graphic and music are usually so great, even in these days and age, with faster computer and higher resolution graphics. The only problem is that now I have a bunch of floppy diskettes to juggle around. For starter, looking for the games that I like was a daunting tasks. It had been a while since I last needed to play Amiga games on diskettes. I somewhat knew where the disks were, but they had become very disorganized. A bunch here, a box there, all over. I managed to find most of the games I like. There were a few diskettes that I gave up on ever playing again and tossed them into a box for recycling - if I ever needed a diskette to be formatted. Luckily, the need never arose and I was able to rummage through the pile. I found Obliterator (platform game), Capone (shooting game), Pluto (vertical scrolling shoot-'em-up), etc. The only game I have not found is Menace, a side-scrolling shoot-'em-up game. It is one thing to own something, it is something else to be able to locate it, if it cannot be stored on a hard disk. This is where cyberspace needs meatspace. No physical diskette then no game.

Trouble In MeatSpace

My other sister once spoke derisively of those who are hooked on SimLife and similar games. She is not a computer geek like me and do not see what is the big deal with having a second, digital life. While I do not play Second Life or ever want to have a digital alter ego, there are times I wish that meatspace, that is, the non-digital, real version of life, can be more like cyberspace.

My friend Teary finds it hard to believe that I am not handy with tools like hammer, power drill, and soldering irons. I am good at drawing cartoons, am I not? I must have good hand-eye coordination, otherwise I would not be able to draw that well. On top of that, I have a bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering, too! Or so it seems. Perhaps because my parents did not let me do things on my own and then I got into the computer field, to this day I am very reluctant to take on physical projects. No putting up of shelves, no installing of flood light, or anything involving soldering. Plumbing problems like clogged drains I can handle, mostly with success. I can take pipes apart and send down the snake. With much sweating and sore arm muscles, so far I have always succeeded at clearing the pipes. One time I was too gungho and even took apart the pipe part that attached to the wall. I had to enlist my brother-in-law (on the Wife side) to help stop the leak afterward. For tasks that I cannot bring myself to do, I have to rely on contractors or my brother-in-law C (the real Mechanical Engineer), but he lives in St. Louis and can only visit every now and then.

In the perfect world that I sometimes wish I live in, everything would be re-bootable. Drilled a hole half an inch below where it should be? Reboot. Soldered a container shut then realized something is inside that you need? Reboot. Painted yourself into a corner? You guess it... reboot.

I recently had the displeasure of having to change the light bulbs for the master bedroom. The bulbs are those long, florescent tubes, not the kind that pops over cartoon characters' heads when ideas hit them. It was a drop ceiling and the light fixture was not attached to the real ceiling but instead hang from a socket via some strings. Aarrgh! It was simply impossible for one person to put the new tubes into the fixture. I had to have the Wife hold the dangling fixture. If I was in the digital world, I suppose I could have used some kind of select tool to surgically remove the dangling fixture and put in one that attaches firmly to the ceiling. I sure can use a digital Second Life.

Tunnel To Towers Run - Completed

Yesterday, I was supposed to take a long break from work to go pick up my Tunnel To Towers T-shirt. I had Google Calendar sent me reminders, but it is one thing to see reminder email message and it is another thing to actually read them and take action. It turned out on Saturday I totally forgot about the T-shirt pickup until like 8 p.m.! I went to bed feeling crummy about being old and forgetful. Supposedly there would be only a limited number of T-shirts at the finish line.

Like the NYC Marathon, one of the bad part of the TTT Run is the wait at the beginning. Unlike the Marathon, which was practically in the middle of nowhere in Staten Island, with the TTT Run, I killed time by walking along Henry Street from 2 Place to Atlantic Avenue. The area is very nice, with lots of beautiful brownstones with well-maintained front yard. I spotted the two public playgrounds on the same block with the Long Island Hospital, something to keep in mind if I ever will be in the neighborhood with my son. The race was supposed to start at 10 a.m. sharp but probably because of the Tunnel as the bottleneck, runners were allowed to start in groups. I actually started at 10:40.

Although I usually ran 3K and sometimes ran 4K not feeling extra tired, perhaps because I started out too fast I quickly felt tired. It helped that there were firemen with American flags lined up near the tunnel exit to cheer us on. I thought once I made it out the tunnel it would be over soon. It turned out that, perhaps to make the race an even 5K in distance, we had to make a big loop through Battery Park City. Again, the cheerleaders, the real kind and other kind, helped, but many times I thought of taking a break and walk the rest of the way. Fortunately, I didn't, and even sprinted once the balloon arc symbolizing the finish line came into view. I finally got my race T-shirt and there was plenty of food and drinks for all.

I wished I had time to stay longer after the race to listen to all the speeches and to show appreciation of the FDNY. But I had a pile of computer junks at home to cart to the electronic recycling event at Keyspan Park. I made it just in time, too. Afterward, I even had the energy to walk half of Atlantic Avenue for the Atlantic Antic street fair. What a great way to spend a beautiful autumn day...

Job One

Today I visited my old neighborhood of Jackson Heights, Queens. For years, I lived in Elmhurst, Queens just south of the Jackson Heights-Elmhurst border. For those who don't know, Queens is one of the five boroughs of New York City. Only in Queens people specify their towns in their mailing addresses. People in the other boroughs would simply list their borough name followed by NY, such as Bronx, NY or Brooklyn, NY but in Queens, you get things like Elmhurst, NY, Woodhaven, NY, or Utopia, NY. Of course, nowadays the zip code makes it pointless to specify anything at all, but the Queens people like their towns so much they want it that way, at least that's what I read in some pro-Queens free newspaper.

Even back in the early 80's when I lived in Elmhurst, Roosevelt Avenue was already the commercial strip of the area. We did our shopping, grocery or otherwise, along Roosevelt and even went into Jackson Heights to use its post office, movie theaters, and public library. South of us we had Broadway's commercial strip but it was much farther than Roosevelt Avenue.

Much of Jackson Heights has changed since I moved out of the area. Many mornings before school I would sit by the window looking for my schoolmate Mario walking toward my building. He would walk through an alleyway connecting Denman Street and Roosevelt Avenue to meet me and we would walk to school together. The alleyway has long since disappeared, blocked off by some new building. Seventy-fourth street has long ago become India Town, all the stores either sell fabrics or some other merchandise catered to the Indian population. There used to be a department store, children's department store, I would even venture to guess, at the northwest corner of 82nd Street and 37th Avenue. The place is now home to many little stores, on the 37th Avenue side. I think some church school occupies the rest of the old department store.

The site of my first job ever, at the corner of 86th Street and 37th Avenue, is still around. The lousy camera in my lousy cell phone failed miserably at capturing the street signs. The store is now called something and V Bagel Cafe but it was called Hot Bagel when I worked there. A friend of my father had part ownership in the store and somehow I got a job at the store one summer. On the first day, I made $14 for working seven hours. I thought it was too much and refused to take the money, but took it in the end. What a dumb kid I was.

At the bagel store, I made bagels from ready-made dough, sprinkled with the various toppings (sesame, poppy, salt, etc.), slid the uncooked bagels into the oven, and took them out later. I also did some cashier work, food delivery, and floor-sweeping. I learned how to make bagel pizza - basically flattening out the dough, spread tomato sauce and sprinkled shredded cheese on the dough, and put in the oven as usual. I discovered the joy of eating a nicely toasted bagel with Philadelphia cream cheese spread on.

I enjoyed the free food and drinks at the store. One time, I had a pint-sized carton of orange juice while the big boss was around. Next time I wanted to have a pint of OJ, the boss got me a half-gallon and wanted me to drink from a cup. He probably wanted me to use the half-gallon for the whole week, instead of a pint each day. I ended up drinking the whole half-gallon in a day. Oh, well, I'm sure Mr. Boss made lots of money off of my cheap labor already.

I think I gave all the money to my parents. Life was much simpler when one didn't have to keep up with the latest operating system or the latest electronic gadget. I didn't have to worry about clothes or girls - at least not yet. At some point, for reason I cannot remember, my parents didn't let me work at the store any more. Maybe it was because they figured I needed to pay more attention to school. They only wanted me to have a little exposure to the working life during the summer break, but not to work during the school year.

The bagel store looked different. It now had a few tables and chairs. I didn't go inside to see if they still make the bagels on premise. Management probably changed a few times in the intervening years. However, I still remember well how I reacted in my silly way when presented with the $14 cash that I earned for the day.

Tunnel To Towers Run

I've signed up for the 5K Tunnel To Towers Run, scheduled for Sunday, September 30. Every year before, I would know about the Run in the news, after it had happened. So last year I entered a reminder in my Google Calendar. I totally forgot about it but the Google brain didn't and sure enough a reminder was sent at the scheduled time. I even managed to sign up early enough to avoid the $10 late fee.

The Run commemorates Fire Department of New York (FDNY) Firefighter Stephen Siller's last heroic act. On the morning of September 11, 2001, Siller was already off-duty but tried to get back to work when news of the World Trade Center terrorist attack reached him. He tried to drive into Manhattan from Brooklyn but wasn't allowed to. He then ran through the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel to the WTC site, in full FDNY gears, and was last seen at West and Liberty Streets in Manhattan. He probably entered the WTC inferno and perished with all of his squad. The Run retraces his steps from the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel through the Tunnel to the WTC site.

Heroic tales inspire me. Some people say that raising kids and just doing one's part in life is heroic enough. I disagree. There are heroic and non-heroic acts and Siller's last action was heroic. The pro-Jew New York Post calls every U.S. soldier in Iraq a hero. While it's great that some people give up years of their civilian life to serve the country, there are still differences between the guy who runs through enemy fire to rescue comrades versus some guy who just drives an armor truck in a convoy. Along the same vein, in the argument of having a separate memorial for firefighters who lost their lives at the WTC, apart from the regular office workers, I'm all for the separation. It is definitely sad that many people lost their lives, but I think those who risked their lives to save others, and died in the process, deserve a higher recognition.

Perhaps from my teen years reading propaganda literature of the Vietnamese communist government, I fancy myself someday doing some heroic works. I certainly didn't go through with the wish one time in Brooklyn. At that time, we lived in northern Brooklyn, near the border of Queens. It was, and still is, a bad neighborhood. One night my father was coming home late so my mother and I waited for him at the subway station to walk home together, strength in number and all. During the wait, some drunk guy was in the station with us and some other guy showed up. They had some argument and a loud noise was heard. My mother and I were not far from the two. As the argument progressed, I inched toward the exit to the street. When the loud noise happened, I ran up the stairs very quickly, leaving my mother behind. By the time I came back the two guys have disappeared somewhere. My mother still mocks me every time and I cannot blame her. I guess I'm not made for heroic acts.

http://www.tunneltotowersrun.org/stephensiller/herostory.html

Notes Nicknames

Lotus Notes is the mail system in use in my office. When I first started with the company about seven years ago, our email name was just the first name followed by the last name. Then we had a big merger and all of a sudden there are more than one Joe Block and Jane Doe in the firm. To make the names unique, middle initials were introduced, first with the dot then without. Someone could start out as John Smith and if there's a new John Smith then the new guy would be named John X. Smith, unless he has his own real middle initial. A third John Smith might come along after the abandoning of the dot, so that he would be John Y Smith. All this is fine for all those people with common first names and last names, but what if the people I know have unique names, like Albus Dumbledore or Severus Snape? What can I do if I just want to address these two as Dumbledore or Snape, respectively?

The answer lies in the use of the Personal Address Book (PAB). Instead of trudging through THE central Address Book, you can create your very own address book, entering the names individually or copying them from the central Address Book as the need arises. Once you have an entry in your PAB, you can customize it to your heart's content. In Albus B. Dumbledore's case, I'll just call him Dumbledore. Who cares if he has a brother name Aberforth? The brother only came out in the last Harry Potter series so the name Dumblebore automatically refers to Albus. I can never remember whether Dumbledore's middle initial has a dot or not anyway, so just Dumbledore does the job. Likewise, I don't care that there are other blokes named Harry out there, I want to address Harry J Potter simply as Harry.

As shown in the screenshot, what I did was I made my Dumbledore entry to have no first name and no middle initial. Just the last name. For Harry Potter to be just Harry, I would make Harry his last name and again provide nothing else. Then whenever I want to address these magical characters, I just enter the short version and press F9, then the real address would show.

I like the discovery I made on my own but thought there should be another way around it, something more direct. Sure enough, as pointed out at http://www.alanlepofsky.net/alepofsky/alanblog.nsf/dx/nicknames , the proper way to make use of nickname is to enter them in the Short Name field in the Advanced tab. To use multiple nicknames for the same person, you would enter the variations in the Full Name field, keeping each variation on its own line. Still, I like my way better because I can make the change right there when I open up the entry. Also, in the list view, all my entries would appear sorted exactly the way I think of them. With the way Alan Lepofsky pointed out, in the list view Dumbledore would still appear as Albus B. Dumbledore and not as Dumbledore.

In my real address book in the office, I have entries for Teary, Purple, Lone Gunman, plus a bunch of other first names that are either unique, such as Inna or Magnus, or belong to people in my immediate group.

Oops, I did it. My fans don't want to read about boring computer stuff but I wrote on the topic anyway. Oh well.

Goodbye, Hallows

A few days ago, I deleted the entry "Borrow HP from lib." from my To Do list. I also canceled a hold I placed on the book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows with the New York Public Library. Like the previous Potter books, I didn't want to spend the money on the book - it's good but not good enough that I would read it over and over. Might as well just borrow it and return it when done, save a little room in the house, a little money in the wallet, and last but not least, earn a point for the anti-consumerism movement. Remembering how hard it was to finally borrow a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (the Potter book before Hallows), I didn't want to bother trying to borrow Hallows until a month after it came out. Just when the time came, my Wife informed me one of her nephews bought the book but won't read it. It was all mine for the asking...

I went through the book in less than a week. This time around the story takes place mostly outside of Hogwarts. As a matter of fact, for the a big part of the story, our heroic trio (Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley) really live like homeless, magical homeless, yes, but still homeless. The recurring theme, that all creatures are created equal, is there, with Wizards, Elves, Centaurs, etc. in the end fighting side-by-side against the Dark Lord and his idea of Pure Blood. The usual comic relief moments are there, too. Also as the trend with each new book, more and more characters die. You might have heard of the rumor that a major character dies in the last Potter book. It is true, but not to worry, it's a magical novel, lots of thing can happen by, well, magic.

I finished the book at almost two in the morning. The next morning, I had a nagging question: "In the Battle of Hogwarts, where did Neville Longbottom get the Gryffindor Sword from?" It was supposedly in the possession of the the goblin Griphook. Thanks to the web, I got my answer shortly. You just have to be a true Gryffindor, with bravery etc., to be able to pull the Sword out of the Sorting Hat. Yup, the Sword can be locked up somewhere somehow, and just because you are a true Gryffindor, it will be in your possession when you need it. Don't forget, lots of things happen by magic. How I wish I can pull a few million dollars out of my wallet whenever I need the dough...

The Last Weekend of Summer 2K7

Ah, the last weekend of summer 2007 is gone. It sounds poetic and dramatic but really for me, as I have long been out of school, summer doesn't really mean much. I don't have any extra days off, unless I take time off. I still have to go to work five days a week.

Originally, Wife wanted to go shopping in Crossing Mall way out in Pennsylvania, but luckily she changed her mind and wanted to go to Queens Center in Queens. This is not the Queens Center that I know from my years of living in its neighborhood, first in Elmhurst then in Woodhaven. The, to me, still new Queens Center doesn't occupy just one city block but instead stretch over a huge block, in addition to the original mall. Still, I always get a headache whenever I visited the mall. Perhaps it has to do with boredom or maybe the recycled air inside really does harm to one's head. It won't help if I keep my Son in the play area in the basement. I absolutely hate the play area anyway. It's too small relative to the mall's size and is way overcrowded. It is not well maintained and kids, big and small, would run all over. It's lawsuit haven, but the mall probably has a safety net clause somewhere.

It was a beautiful to be outside, so I only dropped Wife and her relatives at the mall then Son and I went to the park. In my years living in Woodhaven, I spent many morning commute in my father's taxi cab going from Woodhaven to the Williamsburg Bridge. Most of the time, Father drove along 80th Street, which has relatively less traffic than Woodhaven Boulevard. I passed by Juniper Park many times but since I didn't live in the area, never once visited it. Fast forward to the present, now I had an excuse to visit it, for my Son. First we visited Juniper South Playground and had ice cream from Mr. Softee. When Son was bored, I thought of driving to some other park along Woodhaven Boulevard, but instead happened upon the bigger Juniper North Playground. Son had some more fun running and climbing the newer playground structures, but we also watched a game bocce. At first I thought it was lawn bowling, but then learned that with bocce the bigger balls don't necessarily touch the small one (pallino). Son wanted to have a throw at it and I even casually asked one of the old man if Son could have a fling but the man turned me down. It's probably a tight-knit club that doesn't welcome outsiders.

Finally it was at around 3 that Son agreed to have lunch. Instead of the usual hustle of Queens Center's crowded food court, we enjoyed a nice meal at Andrew's Pizzeria on nearby Eliot Avenue. I had a Sicilian square while Son had spaghetti meatballs. All without having to fight for a table or having to deal with the overflowed trash containers at the mall.

With extra time on hand, I took Son to yet another playground, the Greenhouse Playground in Forest Park, Woodhaven. There wasn't much to do in Greenhouse Playground, other than watching some kids do stunts on skateboards and mountain bikes. I knew the Park has a working carousel but doubted that it would be open on the holiday. In fact, it was open and running, its music just not loud enough to reach far. Son rode on the thing three times, costing me a total of $4.50. He also had some snacks and drinks. The last activity of the day was to pretend to perform on Forest Park's Band Shell. I convinced Son to pretend playing a guitar with his newly bought inflatable hammer. There were a few other kids around so they played together. Then my cell phone ran and it was Wife et al, they were finally done with their shopping. Just in time, too, as a bunch of teenage kids started to swarm the Band Shell to practice jumping off the stage, without regards for all the little kids nearby.

It wasn't the typical way to end summer. I didn't have any BBQ or hang out with a bunch of people. But for me, avoiding an unpleasant stay in the mall and spending quality time my son was the kind of great time I like to have.

Tiger Would Do The Same

Naruto

"Three days, fifty hours, one hundred episodes," my Son muttered when I asked him "Naruto again?" Son was referring to the marathon that Cartoon Networks had going for Naruto fans. Up to recently, I had thought of the anime series as "that cartoon show with the kid who looks like a cat," because the main character, Naruto Uzumaki, has what appears to be whiskers on his cheeks. Of course, Son had been watching the show more intently and words like jitsu, chunin, hokage, and chakra flowed out of his mouth with ease. He sure knew what the words mean, or at least in what context to use them. I realized that I haven't watched much TV with him lately. I think I used to watch many Japanese animes with him, on VCDs and translated into Cantonese. Maybe I wasn't as busy with work back then. It's nice when I can quip jokes related to his favorite shows or act out with him scenes from the shows.

To catch up with Naruto, I recently spent a few hours watching the marathon with Son. It's actually quite an interesting story. Naruto appears to have whiskers perhaps because his father, the Fourth Hokage, sealed the spirit of a Nine-Tailed Fox demon in him, at least that's what I think. Most of the fighting in the show involve magic, not the typical ninja martial arts. I detected some resemblance to Harry Potter, as one of evil character was able to put himself into various bodily shell to make him harder to eradicate.

I supplemented the info gaps with Wikipedia and library books. I tried to get Son to read more and watch less by borrowing a Naruto graphic novel for him. He didn't read much but I ended up reading the whole book myself.

Perhaps subconsciously I tried to do for my son what my father did for me. To get me know more Chinese, for years my father got me my weekly supply of Oriental Heroes graphic novels. The book series was actually called 龍虎門, which is nothing close to Oriental Heroes, just something that's lost in translation. Reading 龍虎門 helped me learn a lot of Chinese. Although the story is mostly understood just by looking at the pictures, there are times knowing the key words help, so I actually looked them up in Chinese-English dictionaries.

In case you are curious, here are the meanings of the Japanese words I mentioned:

• jitsu - magical art
• chunin - some kind of exams ninjas take to advance to the next level
• hokage - village leader
• chakra - perhaps what the Chinese call qi (氣), some kind of internal energy that when properly channeled, can come outside as a ball of energy... hey it's a fantasy cartoon, don't forget.

Polls

Call me Going-Ga-Ga-Over-Google if you will, I just love Google, not least of which are the gadgets that can be easily added to a homepage or blog. I recently convinced my sister to update her Blogger template and now she can easily add things to her blog's sidebar. The old way of mucking with the innards of the HTML code is very difficult and introduces plenty of room for errors.

I just updated my sidebar to have a poll. Tell me what you want to write more about! I don't know what my adoring fans, all four of them, enjoy reading if I don't have their feedback.

Seriously, don't take it too seriously. Blog writing is something to be done with one's heart in it, at least for me. I usually sit down with a topic already planned out. Mind you, I don't have every sentences thought ahead. I try not to do too much web-surfing checking for details. Such action usually derails my train of thought. Writing "some guy did this and that" suffices, but looking up the guy's exact name may cost me precious minutes and makes me veer in another direction.

So, I write whatever on my mind at the time, or whatever I already planned to. It must be something I feel strongly about, or something I enjoy doing tremendously. Something to gush over, to rant and rave about. I am a quiet person in life but when it comes to writing I like to make a splash out of it.

Deluge

I have a colleague who is based in India. He recently wrote that the weather there had been bad, that transportation will be affected so he would be working from home. The scenario matched the general belief that India, for all its computer talents, is hampered by an inadequate infrastructure. Ironically, a few days later, New York City was hit by a rain storm and its mass transportation also came to a grinding halt. I wish some people would stop calling New York the greatest city in the world. Its subway system is horribly below par. The public announcement system is a horrible joke. I seriously hope no terrorist attacks will ever happen inside the subway tunnel. If it happens, hapless riders will be "guided" by announcement like "{grumble} {grumble} {blah} {bleah} to the exit {aarggh} ..." My cartoon at right is about some dumb terrorists breaking the P.A. system, something that I believe is already broken. It doesn't help that the speaker sometimes have some heavy Brooklyn or some other accent. I am all for computerized announcements. When I first started riding the PATH trains, I thought its P.A. was decent, but lately it has deteriorated as well. Maybe the same computer that wired the NYC P.A. is now in charge of the PATH also.

M.A. B.S. ?

Call me a skeptic if you would, but the more I read about Market America the more it stinks. Multi-level Marketing (MLM), pyramid scheme, Charles Ponzi story, Amway, the list goes on and on. I've got to read more and find out more about all these scams. So far, I've come across

http://www.boconline.com/bizopp-forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=18
http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=2828

I'm sure there are others. My wife's attitude seems to be, "Well, let's try it out and see what happens." I wonder how much money she already spent. If it's in the thousands of dollars, that is a steep price to find out if something works or not. It's like, "Let's eat dirt and find out if it really tastes awful." She knows making money is through recruiting more people, but she doesn't seem to see any problems with that. I wonder how one would tell the future suckers. "Uh, you joined under me for x dollars then work your ass off to get two suckers under you then you can live a comfortable life." Of course that's just me, cannot tell lies so easily. These scams usually tell you that you can do the work in your spare time, but for me spare time means the hour or two I have on the computer. The commute is long, there's a child to take care of, hours of sleep to have to be in good health.

As someone wrote in one of the links above, just because the business has been around for years doesn't mean it's a good business. Enron was all well and good until the sh!t hit the fan...

Speaking of scam, every now and then my AdSense would have links to some gaudy web site claiming one can make thousands of dollars from blogging. Sadly, Googling about the chap all ended at web sites that rants about how great the system is, or advertises other similar "product". The "product" in this case I think is the book. At $50 or so, it seems expensive. I think that's how the thousands of dollars are made. Anyone found out otherwise about these blogging scam?

Home From Greensboro

After another long bus ride, I'm home again. The entire trip spanned five days, but about one and a half days were spent on the bus. Win some, lose some. At least with the bus, I was able to nap off and on and didn't have to constantly keep an eye on the road. I did have an inner fear occasionally when the bus crossed some bridge...

For the first full vacation day, I took my son to Downtown Greensboro. After a visit to the Children's Museum, there wasn't much else to do. Most of Downtown even closed down at 3 p.m. or 4 p.m., so after an early dinner, we headed back to the hotel for some pool time.

I was worried of what to do for the second day. Luckily, I came across an advertisement for the Friendly Center in the Relocation Guide magazine. Normally, when on vacation I abhor the idea of spending any time in a shopping mall, but in this case it was necessary to visit the mall. Sprawled over a wide outdoor area, the Friendly Center had Chuck E. Cheese's, Barnes & Noble bookstore, a movie theater, and McDonald's, plus the usual myriad of stores carrying women's clothes, shoes, jewelries, etc. A good time was had by me and my son. We had Chuck E. Cheese's all to ourselves for about an hour then the crowd started pouring in. After spending $10's worth of tokens, we walked over to the movie theater but it was too early. We doubled back to visit B&N, but alas there were no Mac magazines worth buying. I am a sucker for the British magazines if the cover CD/DVD has worthy free software, usually older version of some commercial app. Instead, J got yet another Thomas the Tank Engine toy. Finally, at the theater we saw Underdog. Afterward, we re-visited Chuck E. Cheese's and spent yet another $20 on tokens. Finally, we had lunch at Mickey D where J had some exercise in the playground area. Again, we took the taxi back to the hotel for some rest time. We wanted to go swimming in the hotel's tiny pool again, but it rained so we waited it out. For dinner, we walked to the nearest main road's buffet restaurant.

On the third day, it was Celebration Station for mini-golf and more indoor arcade games. I much prefer Chuck E. Cheese's All-Game-1-Token policy. Games at Celebration Stations all require different number of tokens, thus introduced an unwelcome break in the flow of enjoyment. Lunch took a long time to come, but I suppose that's the price you pay for having lunch when there was another party going on. Another taxi ride to another movie theater near the hotel to see Ratatouille. What a concept - rats, stinking sewer rats, cooking in a fancy French restaurant. Yuck! After the movie, J obediently walked back to the hotel with me. I've noticed that in the Greensboro area the taxi meter started at $1.80, so we probably saved at least $2 for that walk. It was good exercise after sitting in the dark at the movie theater. Yet another trip to the tiny pool, followed by a visit to the nearby Best Buy, and finally we took the taxi to the Sheraton Hotel to meet up with Mommy. While waiting for Wife to have a final meeting with her Market America cohorts, I plunked down $10 to use the Internet. Before the 'Net time expired, Wife was done with the meeting so we had to leave.

The trip home was less eventful than the trip out. We left the hotel together and spent a little time at Market America's Headquarter, just the outside as the line to get inside was long. Last stop in the area was the Coliseum again, this time to see the trade show. Expecting something the size of PC Expo, I was disappointed by the small size of the show. No revolutionary products here, just some household detergents here, some diet formulas there, telephony, vitamin supplements...

For the first half of the bus ride home, it was like watching infomercials on TV. Different people ranted about how great M.A. had been for them, how they joined and enjoyed the work. The whole thing is just too one-sided. I need to know more about M.A. from a third party. I think it boils down to being just a second job, with no benefits, so it's still work. Before making any money, it seems we have to take many training sessions and attend many conventions. I cannot help but think of it as some kind of pyramid scheme, where you have to drag more people in to push you up. Let's see what happens in a few years with the Wife.

Hello from Greensboro, NC

I'm having a mini-vacation in Greensboro, North Carolina. My wife has been enlisted by Market America and just in time for the annual convention in Greensboro. While she goes about with her convention, I figured I would explore Downtown Greensboro with my son.

The vacation started out on a bad note as I had insomnia the night before and slept so soundly and didn't hear the alarm at 4:30 a.m. Or perhaps the alarm was too low. We were supposed to be in Flushing at 6 a.m. but instead we woke up at 6 a.m., thanks to Mother. Of course, Mother would repeatedly chided me until I finally made it out the door at 6:20. Good thing I packed everything the night before, else there would be no way I could pack properly in the heat of battle. The only thing I didn't bring was info about Greensboro. While I couldn't sleep, I got up and copied-and-pasted some info from the web into my Palm Desktop and thought I would sync the next morning. Alas, I barely had time to grab the luggage to storm out the door. Luckily, we still made it to the bus, which left at 7:30. I had to trust my car to a girlfriend of someone in the Market America group to park in her driveway, but that was the best arrangement for the circumstance.

It took about 11 hours to get the Sheraton where Wife and her cohorts got their M.A. tickets. Alas, we were not going to stay there, but rather at some tiny hotel five minute's bus ride away. Choices of dinner weren't abundant and we settled for Papa John's Pizza while others bought Chinese takeouts to take back to the hotel. Having insufficient sleep, my anemic condition set in for the second half of the day and I was glad to turn in for the night early, around 10:30.

In the morning, I tagged along with the Wife et al to get to the Coliseum. There was a sign that said Downtown was 2 miles away. If it was just me, I probably would have made the hike. With my son, I took a taxi that happened to drop off some convention-goers. We got off in Downtown's Children's Museum for $9, including tip. J had a great time in the Museum. It had interactive scenes like supermarket, house under construction, restaurant, etc. In the afternoon, we went to the Depot, the transportation hub of Greensoboro. I expected something like NYC's Grand Central Terminal, with shops and such all over, but the Depot is really just a transportation hub. I read about the Carolina Model Railroaders, supposedly a place where one can see model trains. Alas, after the walk in the heat, the Railroaders was closed. We went to the City Center Park to walk under the arch of shooting water to cool off, then went into the Culture Center. It was rather quiet, too. Too hot to walk around, we went to the Central Library, just across from the Children's Museum. I wouldn't mind paying for Internet access at some cafe, but none was to be found and the Library gives it out free. By the way, hanging out with my son having not much to do is still better than waiting for the ladies to eventually ending their shopping spree...

Son is already bored after an hour playing on the computer. Some local kid hang out with him and they seemed to have a good time playing Curious George on the PC. I had to sshhh them a few times.

Wandering the street of Greensboro with my son, I couldn't help think about the movie Pursuit of Happyness starring Will Smith. Of course, my "plight" is nothing compared to Smith's character in the movie, with no home to live and a tough job to cling on.

Dinner is supposed to be at the best buffet place in the city. I'll have to catch a taxi back to the convention center to meet the gang. The taxi driver had wisely given him his business card and told me to ask for his number, #20, so most likely I'll call him then.