On Parole

The fall term is finally over.

Two weeks of parole before next term - what should I do:
1. clean up the room (which looked like a scene from Armageddon or The Day After Tomorrow)
2. read the new books that I just bought
3. clean up old emails

All of the above daunting tasks will take days to complete... my goodness, I think I need another beer...

阿四

A couple of days ago, I received an internal job posting email from my friend 阿四 who knew I'm looking for a job. This is the song playing in my head when I open up the email:

"人生有真正朋友的確好極!"

It is nice to know your friends care about you :)

Campaign for Real Beauty

Check this out! Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty video:

http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com/

Invitation to the Penguin Club......sent by M$

I was not happy with the way M$ installed WGA (Windows Genuine Advantage) behind my back and have it "phone-home" to M$ every now and then. I was further upset by the way they claimed that the WGA is infallible and turned a blind eye to the contrary fact.

See this - Image Gallery: What really happens when WGA attacks
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?page_id=112&page=1

Not only that, M$ deemed their WGA so successful that they decide to push the envelop further in Vista. Here's what would happen if Vista WGA thinks your OS is pirate:

"By choosing "Access your computer with reduced functionality," the default Web browser will be started and the user will be presented with an option to purchase a new product key. There is no start menu, no desktop icons, and the desktop background is changed to black. The Web browser will fully function and Internet connectivity will not be blocked. After one hour, the system will log the user out without warning. It will not shut down the machine, and the user can log back in. Note: This is different from the Windows XP RFM experience, which limits screen resolution, colors, sounds and other features."

Source: For Vista, WGA gets tougher
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=148

Combining the fact that:
1. WGA detection is not perfect, some ZD bloggers even suggest as high as 20% false positive rate (among those detected as pirate)
2. WGA will phone home at least once a month for critical patch updates
3. It is unclear whether the WGA will get "improvements" (more intrusive) on XP
4. The grave consequence (essentially a kill swithch) of failing the WGA test

The Penguin just looks more and more attractive.

Hello M$, I have the right to use my own hardware that I paid hard-earned cash for. Just because I have to re-format my hard drive doesn't mean I have to buy another copy of your OS, or spend endless hours trying to communicate with an uncomprehensible tech support.

I think I'll get a CD from Ubuntu to test the Linux water. It can be ran from a CD so it doesn't need to be actually installed on the computer.

For more info, see http://www.ubuntu.com/

Human Vacuum Cleaner

Today I finally found a bit of time to check out the computer that went bluescreen on Monday.

As I sprayed the inside with a can of air, a mushroom cloud of dust escaped from the case. At least I won't be feasting on dust - or so I thought. After an hour or so, I felt like the dust had settled on my throat and started to wheeze as if having an asthma attack.

I thought it is silly to wear a dust mask for these itty-bitty tasks, now the idea seems not that silly after all.

Trip to Wineries

My family just had the annual trip to the Niagara-on-the-Lake wineries this Saturday and it sucked.

First of all the weather was bad, there was no sun, just thick black clouds. Second, we spent most of the time in Scotland looking for the Gingsen Farm we visited last year. I gave one wrong map direction and from this point on, Dad snatched the map from my hands for any slightest doubt in directions. This is suppose to be a relaxing trip for crying out loud, why everything in his life have to become a mission of some kind?

Then came the final straw. Dad was a road warrior and I can tolerate that for short trips in the local, but a 2-hour drive is too much to bear. Why the heck is he driving at 120 km/h at a 60km/h zone? Tailgating any car in front of him? What's the rush? By the time I reach home I had a pounding headache and a sick stomach.

I think this would be the last time I'm going to any out of town trip with my parents.

1st Day of Class

Last night is the beginning of the Auditing class. The instructor spent about 10 minutes to go through some standard term-opening items and then...

"That's it for tonight. You may go."

Everyone in the class were in shock. No one moved for one full minute and the instructor just smiled and said nothing. We then realized that this was not a joke and started to leave.

I could still catch my last train and had an easy night, but imagine those who fought the traffic, drove all the way to downtown, and paid $10 parking only to hear the instructor calling it a day in 10 minutes - I would not be happy.

Let's see how the next class will go.

Scream!

My boss was gone for a 2-week vacation in August. Guess what happened? 5 computers went blue-screen within the 2-weeks span!

The last time she had a 2-week vacation, the server room's UPS went dead and down with it, the servers. I swear there's a curse going on.

Wolf Totem

Finally I got my hands on the Chinese novel, Wolf Totem, the story of a young Beijing student on exile in Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution.

Because of my background in environment science, the first chapter had already lured me into the story: it described the local leaders who insisted on total eradication of wolves in the grassland without considering the effects on the food chain. My head is screaming "this story must be translated into English", "this is great environment course material" as I flipped through the pages. Not surprisingly, an English translation project is already underway. The British Penguin Group bought the English copyright and will publish the book in 2007. I'm really looking forward to it.

What has gotten into Zidane?!

It is so disappointing to see Zidane ending his legendary career with an ugly headbutt and a red card.

What Materazzi said to provoke the soccer great might forever be a mystery, hope the press won't be too hard on Zidane.

Farewell, my soccer hero!

Bye Bye, King of Divers! (拜拜插水王!)

葡萄牙影帝 Cristiano Ronaldo

Go home with your Portugal teammates and learn something called "sportsmanship"!

(Now I have one more reason to love Zidane!)

Cheating Portugal Highlights vs France World Cup
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QSHB-AQZ1E

買球票送 葡萄牙花式插水表演, 抵睇!

T2 Fans Must See!

I was browsing around YouTube and bumped into this parody of T2 from a Japanese TV Show called Tunnels no Minasan no Okage Desu.

If you are well versed with T2, you will get most of the jokes without knowing any Japanese.

TUNNELS - TERMINATOR ( 1/3 )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jX0tUoME0F4

TUNNELS - TERMINATOR ( 2/3 )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d66mWLKnvyM

TUNNELS - TERMINATOR ( 3/3 )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqpypZTPLrU

Enjoy!!

唉!

最怕乜都唔識又乜都要 Hi-Tech 0既人

聽o的三姑六婆介紹新o野就仆倒去買 , 哂一舊錢兼哂我一大輪時間 setup 後 , 竟然教極都唔識用 o

知道賴o野就去老細度篤背脊賴我唔識教 o

救命~~~~

Father's Day + Mama's B-Day

We didn't do anything special on Father's Day this year since both Dad and I were busy working on our own weekend projects.

Dad's project: Fixing up a metal rack for his orchids -> 80% done
My project: Repair the CD-ROM drive on the family desktop -> mission accomplished!

All three of us went to a Japanese restaurant to celebrate the Father Day/Mama B-Day. The food was delicious, the Zaru Soba (cold buckwheat noodle) was outstanding. I wish I had more room to try their spider roll, maybe will try it next time.

Dad bought a chocolate mango mousse for Mom. The cake looked pretty good, but I should have take a photo of it last night, so now I don't have a pic to show you :P

Evidences of Global Warming...

Evidence 1: Retreating Glacier

Evidence 2: Women Fashion

1950

Today

In Memory of Mr. Rabbit

I have never expected that my blog would start off with a sad note. Mr. Rabbit (aka "Ah Bad"), our family's 12-year old rabbit, passed away on Sunday.

Originally I planned to bring Mr. Rabbit to the vet this weekend, so I called the vet office on Sat morning only to find out that Dr. Alkesh, the rabbit expert, won't be back to the office til Tuesday...too bad Ah Bad didn't made it.

He had long been considered a family member but I didn't fully realize how much he had became part of my daily live until he's gone. For example, I am so used to peeking at his cage whenever I pass the laundry room that I'm even doing it after he's gone. Soon after catching myself doing this, I cleaned up his cage and stored it away in the basement. Hopefully this will help me and my parents to cope with the lost. For sure it hurts to stare at the empty cage...

A big thank you to Czar's mom, Olivia and Randy, who drove me to the vet on Sunday, for sure I was in no condition to drive that day.

A comforting thought is that he did have his favourite sneak a few hours before his "departure".

I also like Schola's idea that "Ah Bad is probably happily munching Shreddies in another world".