2 of these are a day late. Gomenasai!

Happy Birthday GwaGwaSan!!!

Happy Birthday Robert!!!

Happy Birthday Lsiymle!!!

Hopefully today I’ll be able to do a Random Crap for you guys.

I went shopping today. Yes, for clothing. There’s a morale event for us and we’re going snow tubing tomorrow and I didn’t have any snow clothing up here with me besides my jacket. Went out and got myself a pair of waterproof pants and a beanie. I was shocked at how many people that didn’t know what a beanie was. What else do people call it?

I first went to Ross and asked a guy if they carried beanies and he goes “What?”. I then mention it was like a hat and made a motion with my hands as if I were pulling a beanie over my head. He goes, “Oh… If we have them, they’ll be in that corner or in one those baskets.” They didn’t have any. I then went to Marshall’s and asked another lady if the had beanies. She gave me a weird look and I mention it was a hat and did the beanie motion again. She goes, “If we have any, it’ll be in one of those baskets.” Turns out they had quite a few, not a lot, but more than a just few selections. At the register, it was the same lady again and she goes, “What did you call these again?” I said beanie.

It was fun shopping experience. Took an hour break from work. I didn’t find everything I wanted though. I was also looking for waterproof shoes or something to protect my shoes from water, but it turns out those anti-water coatings don’t exactly work for tennis shoes that well and will leave a yellow tint. Also, I was told it would protect against rain, but if I was going to be using them on snow, I might as well invest in a pair of snow boots cause the spray was obviously not going to be that effective.

Oh well. I was also told I could wear a plastic bag over my socks. Hehe.

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Random Crap:

Lawmaker’s wife told to leave during Bush speech – “She was ordered to leave the gallery, because she was doing … what the president said we should all do,” Young said. “She had on this shirt. A very conservative shirt, long sleeves, high neck, but it says support our troops.” George W. Bush sure is sending mixed messages. Try googling failure or click on I’m Feeling Lucky after entering failure as your query (from LilxPsyduck). Guess what the first result is: Biography of President George W. Bush

Dutch government to back cheap medicinal weed – Patients seeking pain relief may soon be heading for the Dutch city of Groningen to buy affordable and potent medical marijuana in the country’s first pharmacy specialising in the pungent weed.

‘Widow’ Downs 26 Grilled Cheese Sandwiches – A 100-pound woman ate 26 grilled cheese sandwiches in 10 minutes Wednesday at a New York restaurant, winning the World Grilled Cheese Eating Championship. First the hotdog eating contest, now the grilled cheese sandwich eating contest… SKINNY PEOPLE ARE TAKING OVER THE WORLD!!!

Talkman makes debut as latest language assistant software (from /.) – A new software named Talkman is the latest addition to an assortment of translation devices marketed in Japan to help people traveling abroad or those who want to rely on machines to strike up a conversation with foreign visitors. The software put on sale by Sony Computer Entertainment Inc in November for Sony’s PlayStation Portable gaming system is designed to enable better communication between Japanese people and visitors who speak English, Chinese or Korean. Here are the related reviews: IGN and GameSpot. Someone on /. commented: It is rumored that the bluetooth ear piece resembles a small yellow fish.. The user by placing the earpiece into their ear canal can now understand all language, and though logic unbeknownst to us, disproves the existance of god. If you don’t get the reference, go read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or watch the movie.

Japanese men declare ‘Wives Day’ to show they care – group of Japanese men hoping to encourage the nation’s legions of workaholic husbands to head home early and show their wives some appreciation have proclaimed Tuesday “Beloved Wives Day”. The group, which calls itself the “Japan Doting Husbands Association”, urged men to get home by 8 p.m. and say thanks to their wives for all they do. What about “Beloved Husband Day” to honor the husband who has been working so hard to support the family? Or is everyday a “Beloved Husband Day” except Tuesday? ;p

Man in Pokey After Reporting Purloined Pot – An [sic] man who called police to report the theft of a quarter-pound of marijuana was arrested when police recovered the bag of pot and then invited him to come to the Public Safety Building to identify it. Sigh… Should we just let natural selection help us get rid of the idiots?

Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 Preview (from SD) – Check out what the next version of IE is going to look like. To me, it’s just a FireFox clone, but maybe, just maybe, they won’t have FireFox’s memory leak problems.

Road rage in Kensington (from Deadlock) –

…Although I am a courier, I was WALKING my bike up Augusta when the incident took place. He was driving and opened his door (while driving) and yelling profanities he threw his beef patty on a bun out of his door. I walked over to his car, and right or wrong, I opened the door and “gave” him back his food (which he MUST have dropped by accident!) He then lost it, and jumped out of his car and threw 2 large Timmies at meand then grabbed me by my helmet and tried to toss me around a bit.It was at that point that my bike lock key (that I wear on a bracelet around my wrist) scratched his car. I have read all the postings about people sympathetic to the car driver due to the expense of repairing the scratch but sorry folks, i doubt that it will cost him anything to repair as it was a 1.2cm mark in the clearcoat only(did not damage the paint) but regardless a scratch none the less. Then with some “encouraging” from some helpfull bystanders he got in his car and drove away…or so I thought! People were comming up to me and saying that I should have him charged but at that point I just figured I had made my anti-littering point and and eye for and eye with the coffee shower, I mean I did throw that patty right. But just as I was getting on my bike to ride home he came running back and thats when the photos start. He had driven half a block and decided that the scratch was worthy of a more thorough beating I guess.
And as for the police charging him…. He took off in his car as soon as he heard the sirens….they chased him down but it is not a crime to leave the scene. They were going to charge him with a variety of things including assult with a weapon x2, mischief x2, aggravated assault, etc, but the police informed me that if I went ahead and placed those charges then they would have to charge me with mischeif for the scratch.

Check out the enlarged images here.

A weekend with four Aussie men – priceless? – How much would you pay for a weekend with four Aussie men, a barbecue and a few beers? How about A$16 million (7 million pounds)? … “We won’t fly you here. Heck, we won’t even pay for your bus fare. What we WILL do is guarantee you some beers, some snags, some good conversation and a hell of a lot of laughs,” the men said in their sales pitch on eBay.

Car-clamp hero extends campaign (from MS newsgroup) – A self-styled superhero who battles against wheel clampers has brought his saw-wielding campaign to the West Midlands. The man, known only as Angle-grinder Man (AGM), patrols the streets offering motorists help removing clamps

SO MANY COMPUTER PARTS! ~DROOLS~ (from Artemyst through アニメダウンロード万歳！)

Fear of Girls (from /.) – True Love is but a +2 Broadsword away. Hilarious parody of what D&D players are like in real life. You need to check out this video. You can check out more stuff from them at their homepage: YngTurkFilm.

Honda Accord ADAS auto-pilot system takes the reins (from /.) – Well now Honda UK is taking it to another level with their Advanced Driver Assist System (ADAS) that not only regulates your speed, but manages the turning, allowing you a full auto-pilot system for your Accord when you’re out on the freeway. The Adaptive Cruise Control is your regular radar variety, but the Lane Keep Assist System keeps you headed in the right direction by using a camera on the rear-view mirror to watch the white lines and turn accordingly. Honda was quick to point out that their system isn’t exactly set up for you to take a nap, since the ADAS system will beep every 10 seconds to make sure you’re paying attention, requiring you to touch the steering wheel to inform the car you’re still in charge, but we’re sure someone is going manage an accident and an ensuing lawsuit or three out of this “convenience”.

There has been a lot of questions regarding who should be liable in the case of an accident and in a previous blog post of mine, I said it should be part of the insurance’s coverage. I believe if automatic driving did come into existance, insurance companies would need to change their model. With little accidents occuring, the driver’s premium should drop significantly. There are 2 solutions that may fix this problem.

1. Have car manufacturers buy insurance that would take care of the accidents that occur which in turn would add cost to the car.
2. Do not bother lowering the insurance rates for end-users, but the additional funding will be used for such cases and the car manufacturers will be off the hook.

Yet another example on how our judicial system can only try to catch up to technology.

Honda (UK) Civic (from MS newsgroup and esca)

Click on Watch and you can see this amazing commercial! The rehersal and audition is pretty cool too! They apparently auditioned people for choir, but when people showed up to make car noises, it turned into a blast. Honda UK commericals are always quite interesting. I wonder how much money was spent on this.

You can directly start playing the video in the correct size here.
Or you can download the SWF file and watch the file in full screen here.

If you haven’t seen the previous Honda Commercial when they were advertising the Accord, check it out (direct download). It should remind you of a Rube Goldberg machine.

Was going to post random crap tonight, but too tired. Sorry.

恭喜發財 (Gong Hey Fat Choy)

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!!!

and as my father says: 萬事如意, 龍馬精神, 一勞永逸, 步步高升, 狗年行大運, though I’m not too sure what the 3rd phrase really means.

Since my zodiac symbol is a dog, that means in this lunar year, I’ll turn 24. Most of the people from my year are pigs (the zodiac symbol that follows the dog), since I was burn in the end of the lunar calendar, which doesn’t exactly line up with the Gregorian calendar as you can see.

Actually was out most of the day today. Woke up at 1:45pm, alarm clock started ringing at 1:20pm because I was invited to a poker match with a bunch of colleagues. I lost $10 this round, but I wasn’t really paying much attention and I needed to leave soon because some UW friends of mine were having a hot pot. It’s also been a while since I played poker and my skills were a bit rusty.

I purchased some frozen balls (fish, cuttlefish, prawn, imitation lobster) along with a chunk of taro (is that the correct denominator?). I also bought sesame shabu-shabu sauce. Perry had wanted peanut shabu-shabu sauce and I couldn’t find any peanut sauce besides the satay. But it turns out the one he was looking for was indeed the sesame sauce which turned out to be quite tasty. I arrived at ChemChampion’s place a little past 6 since the dinner was originally planned to “happen” at 6pm. I sat there watching TV and helping him install DVDShrink, WinRAR, BitComet, FireFox and other junk onto his computer. We kept calling StanMan and Joe, but they were busy “cleaning”. They didn’t actually arrive till something past 8 and we didn’t really get started till almost 9. But the hot pot was fun. There was beef strips, tripes, regular mushrooms, fish cake, shrimp, mussels, clams, bok choi, gai lan, spinach, tofu, enoki mushrooms, taro, daikon, and other stuff I no longer remember.

Actually, this is my first time cooking taro, and it was rather interesting. So I was at the supermarket and a lady comes up to me, apparently also a first for her in purchasing taro. She asks me if I knew how to choose which taros were good. I said this was my 1st time too. She then says she believes that the smaller ones are supposedly better. StanMan also told me that as long as it’s not mushy and doesn’t have mildew, it should be good. My choice turned out to be pretty good. The 2nd step came in preparing it. I didn’t even know if we needed to skin it or not and it turned out we did. Peeling the skin off and slicing up the taro was fun. There was an argument on what color cooked taro was and although taro deserts generally have a purple shade, most if not all cooked taro I’ve ate before were usually white with a purplish shade. The reason why taro tapioca is purple is because it’s blended, so the purple color is more apparent. But that’s my opinion. My color recognition skills as many have known aren’t exactly that great.

After the hot pot was done, Saran and Joe went to get ice cream and root beer so we made ourselves some root beer float. Yummmm….

Then of course it was followed by an hour of Halo 2. I sucked completely on one round, but I did make a big comeback on the 2nd round and ended up winning. Most of the credit goes to Joe though, our #1 player in the group. The ranking of skills from best to worst is: Joe, ChemChampion, StanMan, Saran, then me. Haha.

Afterwards, StanMan busted out his Settlers of Catan along with the 5-6 Player Expansion pack. Liam was the one who introduced me to this game back in freshman year of college and it’s a great game. As several of my colleagues would say, the Germans are the only people who know how to make borad games and I don’t disagree. Other German board games I were told were exceptional are Cities & Knights of Catan and Puerto Rico. StanMan ended up winning the game, but ChemChampion was really close. In fact ChemChampion should’ve won besides the fact that everyone stopped trading with him because he was only 1 point away from winning. I came in 4th with only 6 points. Made some bad decisions, but the game was fun. It’s been awhile since I played it.