Posted on

Listen To Your Heart

Ever hear a song on the radio and you thought to yourself, I need to get this song? So I was cruising on my way to work when this song came on the radio. For some reason, piano songs have this effect on me. The only words I remembered with “wake of your smile” and “listen to your heart”. So when I got to work, I googled the phrases and got a song called Listen To Your Heart. Apparently it’s a 1988 song by Roxette, but was revived and mixed recently by a group called D.H.T. which I can only guess was the group that I heard. So when I got home today, I downloaded the song from iTunes (too lazy go search for it) and ended up getting 2 songs which can be found on either album: Listen To Your Heart and Listen to Your Heart [CD-SINGLE]:

listen to your heartlisten to your heart

The group actually has a site up at: {{ D-H-T Featuring Edmee: Listen to your heart }}. They posted the music video of both the radio edit and the unplugged version online, but the quality of both the sound and video are so bad, it doesn’t really do the song justice. You can listen to the sample on Amazon or iTunes.

Posted on

TokyoTosho is Back!

Tokyo Toshokan (東京図書館) is back!

Special Thanks to EALUCO for hosting us. | Bugs, Issues, Problems, Etc: join IRC channel or e-mail admin@tokyotosho.com
The Tokyo Toshokan Staff have decided to start anew with a fresh database with our new server, sorry for any inconvenience.

Posted on

Walk the Line

Went to dinner and movie with CDMCC and Elizabeth tonight. They actually treated me to a really nice fancy restaurant for taking care of Audrey (their dog) while they were away. We then went to watch Walk the Line, the movie about Johnny Cash. You can watch the trailer here. The movie was fun and had really funny parts here and there. It’s interesting because I’ve never heard of Johnny Cash till this movie came out and apparently he’s some hot stuff.

walk the line

Spoilers:

There’s really not much spoilers. It’s just the life of Johnny Cash. How he started off, how he became a big star, how he got addicted to drugs, how he got off the drugs and the happy ending. That basically sums up the entire movie, but it’s the process of going through those that made it fun.

One of the more interesting aspect of his life is his father and brother. MAJOR SPOILERS! His brother died at a really young age due to some chainsaw accident. However, the older brother (Jack I believe his name was) was the favorite of the 2 boys because he was smarter and was more obedient. When Jack died, the father was so pissed and asked God why did he not take Johnny instead and proclaimed Johnny as useless and nothing. Even later in life, when Johnny got really famous, but started taking drugs, his fater still didn’t really acknowledge him and still calls him nothing, which I find very painful for anyone to take in, especially if your own father called you that.

I was looking for a Winston Churchill quote when I happened to see some Johnny Cash quotes because he happened to mention Winston Churchill in one of his quotes: I grew up in the ’40s and I heard all these great speeches, like Winston Churchill. His most famous, or infamous commencement exercise speech was one that consisted of seven words. He stood before this graduating class and said: “Never, never, never, never give up.”. The quote I found interesting was: My father was a man of love. He always loved me to death. He worked hard in the fields, but my father never hit me. Never. I don’t ever remember a really cross, unkind word from my father. Though the movie never mentioned his father beating him, I found it odd that it contradicts with the kindness of his father. Words like useless and being nothing are very harsh words, very very far from kind. I wonder if this was the author or director’s interpretation or if Johnny really took that as kindness.

Posted on

BasuGasuBakuhatsu

I found a new referer: BasuGasuBakuhatsu. Not too sure who he is yet and his blog just started, but the title literally translate to Bus Gas Explosions. If you’re the writer of BasuGasuBakuhatsu, please do let me know who you are either by IM, email, or leaving a comment.

He also had an interesting thing on the bottom of his blog using Technorati to rate how much his blog is worth. I gave it a try and found out mine’s worth $564.54.

george washington
My blog is worth $564.54.
How much is your blog worth?

technorati

Posted on

Speed Limits

There’s been a lot of debate in our newsgroup regarding if speed limits really help make safer drivers and if it really saves lives. I got the following quote from /. and I found it quite interesting. Then again, those little white signs with the numbers on it are just recommendations, right?

Look, traffic engineers know, and have known for a very long time, that the safest speed to set speed limits at is the 85% percentile speed: the speed which 85% of the free-flowing traffic on that particular road travels at or below. This is because the large majority of drivers are reasonable and prudent, and while they wish to reach their destination in a short amount of time, they also wish to remain alive and unwrecked.

If traffic engineers want this speed on a stretch of hypothetical road to drop, they do this by changing the road surface. Narrows, curves, crests, inclines, will all reduce the 85th percentile speed.

Setting a speed limit lower than the 85th percentile speed doesn’t reduce the speed at which traffic flows. I’m going to repeat that again, because it sounds vaguely important:

Changing the speed limit doesn’t change how fast people drive [state.tx.us]. The safe speed for a road is determined by the road design and the road conditions, and *not* by some arbitrary number on a sign.

The notion that traveling at the posted limit +5 is more dangerous than traveling at the posted limit, or than traveling at the posted limit -5, is reasonable only if the posted limit reflects the 85% percentile speed.

Sometimes it does. Some states even have it written into their laws that that’s how speed limits are determined.

But more often it does not. More often, speed limits are set artificially low, in order to provide a source of revenue for the state. If you set a speed limit below the 85% percentile speed, people will generally ignore it, drive at the speed dictated by road conditions and their ability, and then you can ticket them for speeding.

Here are the actual conclusions of that study I linked to just above:

Effects of Raising and Lowering Speed Limits

Based on the free-flow speed data collected for a 24-h period at the experimental and comparison sites in 22 States, posted speed limits were set, on the average, at the 45th percentile speed or below the average speed of traffic

At sites where speed limits were raised, there was an increase of less than 1.5 mi/h (2.4 km/h) for drivers traveling at and below the 75th percentile speed. When the posted limits were raised by 10 and 15 mi/h (16 and 24 km/h), there was a small decrease in the 99th percentile speed.

Raising speed limits in the region of the 85th percentile speed has an extremely beneficial effect on drivers complying with the posted speed limits.

Lowering speed limits in the 33rd percentile speed (the average percentile that speed were posted in this study) provides a noncompliance rate of approximately 67 percent.

Accidents at the 58 experimental sites where speed limits were lowered increased by 5.4 percent. The level of confidence of this estimate is 44 percent. The 95 percent confidence limits for this estimate ranges from a reduction in accidents of 11 percent to an increase of 26 percent.

Accidents at the 41 experimental sites where speed limits were raised decreased by 6.7 percent. The level of confidence of this estimate in 59 percent. The 95 percent confidence limits for this estimate ranges from a reduction in accidents of 21 percent to an increase of 10 percent.

Lowering speed limits more than 5 mi/h (8 km/h) below the 85th percentile speed of traffic did not reduce accidents.

Posted on

Waiting in Line

What Grinds My Gears: Has anyone told you to wait in line for them, especially at a supermarket or retail store. I was at Costco today getting some stuff (think Pringles, M&Ms, and 3 Musketeers…), and was reminded all the times my dad or mom would ask me to wait in line while they go get more stuff. I’m fine when the line is long, but as you get closer and closer to the cashier, you start getting nervous and since you’re not the one paying, when will they get back? I’d rather be the guy who goes fetch for the item. At least then I won’t feel the pressure. When it comes to be your turn, you end up giving your spot to the guy behind you until he/she returns.

Random Crap:

Monterey Park School Vandalized (from lsiymle) – Hillcrest Elementary School administrators returned to campus Saturday to find its classrooms ransacked, chairs thrown askew and windows broken after vandals broke in. Hillcrest was the elementary school I attended from kindergarten to 3rd grade, at which I transferred to Bitely for G.A.T.E. Still brings back memories of teachers like Mrs. Stassi, Mr. Schreoder, Mrs. Murphy, and a couple others that I can’t remember. Sad to hear that it got vandalized.

Eleksen Introduces Electro Fabric (from /.) – Eleksen, a small UK-based firm is introducing electronic fabric, essentially carbon-embedded nylon sandwiched between layers of nylon mesh that, when a milliamps charge is passed through it, can recognize touch (and it’s location), pressure and even the direction and path of a stroke. This thin, flexible, durable and washable fabric connects to a small 8-bit processor, which then can be connected to a standard electronic device like an iPod. The iPod, or whatever device you’re using, delivers power to processor and fabric. This looks really neat! It’s even machine washable! Be sure to check out the gallery.

The Forbes Fictional 15 (from /.) – To qualify for the Fictional 15, we insisted that members be both fictional (in the sense that we excluded mythological and folkloric figures) and characters (meaning they are part of a narrative story or series of stories). Great wealth was required to be one of the primary attributes of the characters on this list–in other words, we looked for characters that were known, within their universes, for being rich. Quite an interesting 15 with Santa Claus being #1. Someone posted a Santa Claus Timeline. Not really sure where this originated from, and Google wasn’t much help, but it’s quite interesting to see this fabricated.

What’s your favorite weather site? I used to check out weather.com or wunderground.com. weather.com was too bloated in my opinion and wunderground didn’t always find the closest city. So I googled “weather” and I found: weather.gov. I didn’t even know such a site existed and it’s actually exactly what I’m looking for.

Glowing Flowers Touted As Floral ‘Bling’ – The flowers appear white in regular light but emit an eerie green glow for several hours in the dark, FloraHolland BV said in a statement. I don’t know if I’d find that romantic. It’s sort of creepy. Girls, what do you think?

Wife is losing the checkbook tonight… (from ungsunghero) – quite an interesting thread.

I knew we were hurting financially (supporting family of 4 on one salary is hard), but this I was unaware of:

Date Posted Description Amount
12/1/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/29/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/29/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/29/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/29/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/28/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/28/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/28/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/25/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/23/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/22/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/22/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/22/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/18/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/17/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/16/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/15/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/15/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/15/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/15/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/14/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/14/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/10/2005 *OVERDRAFT CHARGE -29
11/10/2005 *OVERDRAFT CHARGE -29
11/10/2005 *OVERDRAFT CHARGE -29
11/9/2005 *OVERDRAFT CHARGE -29
11/9/2005 *OVERDRAFT CHARGE -29
11/9/2005 *OVERDRAFT CHARGE -29
11/9/2005 *OVERDRAFT CHARGE -29
11/9/2005 *OVERDRAFT CHARGE -29
11/3/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/3/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/2/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/2/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/2/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/2/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
11/1/2005 *OVERDRAFT CHARGE -29
11/1/2005 *NON SUFFICIENT FUNDS CHARGE -29
TOTAL -1102

Apparently she’s been writing checks left and right for who knows what. Heck, if she was awake I’d be dealing with this now. As it is I’m confiscating her checkbook. Grrr…
———-
Update
She woke up around 2am. I was still up. I showed her my printout of the account, her response was to start blaming me.

They were all checks. Some of the places she bounced with were resubmitting the checks, so it’s not as many actual checks as it appears. However, her response was that I don’t give her enough money. Which is strange since I have direct deposit to the shared account.

Anyway, I took over paying bills and confiscated the checkbook. After a long fight we both mellowed and are going to relax and see what happens.

As for online account management, yes, I have that setup. I just wasn’t watching it closely since she has always done our finances. Last night was the first time I checked. And that was because I wanted to know why there wasn’t enough $$ in the bank to pay the rent.

I make $60k a year. That should be enough to pay our bills.

Unfortunately, because of the hole she’s dug by writing checks left and right on money that we didn’t have, it looks like this is gonna be a really crappy Christmas. I feel for the kids.

The interesting thing about this is that he actually makes $60k a year. That’s actually quite a bit of money, even with a family of four… I wonder where it all goes… He made it sound like they live paycheck to paycheck.

The Light Before Christmas (from deadlock) – remember that christmas light video I posted awhile ago. There were doubts of its authenticity, but snopes goes to dig and finds out the truth: This display was the work of Carson Williams of Mason, Ohio, who spent about three hours sequencing the 88 Light-O-Rama channels that control the 16,000 Christmas lights in his 2004 holiday lighting spectacular. The musical accompaniment is broadcast over a low-power radio station so that it is only audible to visitors tuned in to the correct frquency and doesn’t disturb the neighbors. That’s actually pretty sweet!

Parkour Chase Scene (from deadlock) – this chase scene is actually choreographed really well!

Food critic Coren wins British bad sex award – Coren won it for a raunchy passage from his debut novel “Winkler” which included a description of the main character’s penis “leaping around like a shower dropped in an empty bath.” “It was the overexcited shower … which clinched the deal for Giles Coren,” judges said. “That and the endlessly long sentence, which squirms and wriggles like the shower head.”

Sexsomnia.. – The Canadian province of Ontario plans to review a court decision that acquitted a man of sexual assault charges because he suffers from “sexsomnia” and was asleep at the time of the incident. At first I had a hard time believing such a term existed, but after googling the term, you can see the research and information regarding this at Sleepsex.org.

Christmas fire (from deadlock) – this fire’s amazing! But I have a hard time believing it was done in real time. The only true reference that’s available is when the lamp ring falls down, but one can easily slow down that section of the video and speed past the rest.

Find x
(from deadlock)

Leeroy Jenkins – I was first told of this video by stanman about some hilarious event that happened in the World of Warcraft. Leeroy Jenkins is actualy just one player’s alias on WoW and he made the dumbest move ever caught on video. While the rest of his team was strategizing, he went out to get chicken and missed the entire plan. And it sounded like this whole fight was for him too! Though I didn’t really find it “that funny”, it was amusing. But you know it’s funny when even Alex Trebeck uses him as a $1000 question: Who is Leroy [sic] Jenkins. He even has a website dedicated to him: Leeroy Jenkins.

Posted on

Dragon Squad 猛龍

Watched Dragon Squad (猛龍) today. You can watch the trailer here. The movie overall was quite fun, though I thought the side stories were a bit too much. In short, it’s about a team of 5 elite police officers from different countries forming a team, but… well, read the spoilers to find out more. After reading the credits, it turns out this movie was actually co-produced by Steven Seagal. *shivers*

dragon squaddragon squaddragon squaddragon squad

While watching the movie, I had several thoughts. I’ve seen kidnappers chop off fingers and ears of their kidnappee and send them to the people they are ransoming as a warning. One question that popped into my head was, people can still hear without their ears right? So I messaged several friends: If your ear was cut off, you can still hear right? Just not as loud since you dont have that satellite dish thingy to direct waves into your ear hole. Most of them believed that was the case. Human ears are shaped almost like a parabola to get the most sounds. If you’ve done any geometry, you’ll know that a parabola directs all incoming lines into a focal point which is our ear hole or ear drum in this case. Our ears aren’t exactly the shape of a parabola, so I wouldn’t say it’s the most efficient, but it does a pretty good job.

One scene I thought was hilarious was that the chief was running with a cigar in his mouth. At first I couldn’t figure out what the thing in his mouth was since he was jogging and the camera couldn’t really focus, but as he came closer and closer to the camera, I was like OH! I just couldn’t really imagine someone running with a cigarette or cigar in your mouth. It’s like eating while exercising where it’s complete opposites.

dragon squad

Spoilers:

Movie starts out introducing 5 elite officers from different countries bringing in evidence to pin a international crime lord. However, during delivery of the crime lord to court, the police were ambushed by a team of elite veterans, also from different countries. However, they weren’t rescuing the crime lord, but this crime lord had a brother (another crime lord dealing in drugs and arms) that had something that belonged to them. As a gift to the brother, they sent him his ear (hence what sparked the discussion above).

The remainder of the story is about these 5 elite officers trying to catch this team of 5 elite veterans. Somehow their chauffeur comes into play and turns out to be the chief back in the days and after his entire team dying (sorta like in New Police Story), he went into a slump and was lost for many years. He finally came back, but would only do the little stuff like being a chauffeur.

Though neither of the teams seem that elite when they were facing each other. With over hundreds of gunshuts, no one would get hit nor wounded. And it was pretty much only a few feet apart. The ending was a bit weak too on how the elite team got tricked so easily and splitted apart. I’d have to say the ending was a bit rushed.

The choreography was nicely done and it was pretty fun watching it. It had a mixture of Cantonese, Mandarin, and English which was nice. For some reason, it really felt like New Police Story, but not as pretty nor as good.

Posted on

Bad News Bears

Also watched Bad News Bears today. You can watch the trailer here. Movie wasn’t much, had it’s funny moments and somewhat touching moments. Sometimes you just hate Billy Bob Thorton, then other times you commend him for what he did.

bad news bears

Spoilers:

Trailer pretty much says it all. The coach is a drunk. The team sucks and hates each other. So how does a drunk turn this team around? Not much of a storyline. Ending was rather expected. But these movies are usually made to bring out a few chuckles here and there and that’s what it did. I still have no idea why the guy in the wheelchair joined the little league. Also there was a a guy on the team just so that he has something extra to put on his college application and told the coach that he could put him on the bench most of the time and that’s what he’d prefer. Their way to victory did feel a bit cheesy since as the other team said, it was really only Amanda (the coach’s daughter) and Kelley (some guy who has a grudge against another coach) that made the team good. The rest of the team was just so-so.

Posted on

The Island

Watched The Island today and it wasn’t as bad as what everyone was saying it was. You can watch the trailer here. You know what movie it reminded me of? It totally reminded me of I, Robot. It was basically a very high tech futuristic movie with tons of advertisement. The sweet Cadillac in this movie was equivalent to the Audi that Will Smith drove in I, Robot. They were also advertising MSN Search on the Information Directory booth which I found funny since I work at Microsoft. I just noticed it was advertising Cisco Systems on the screen too! There were other advertisements too, but I don’t recall them at the moment.

the islandthe islandthe islandthe island

Spoilers:

I was expecting much from this movie after hearing what people had to say about it and I didn’t get much. But it looked like a high budget film so I thought I’d give it at least a try. Turn out pretty fun. Lots of pretty neat gadgets and tech toys. Plot was sorta too easy to figure out since the trailer basically told you pretty much what “The Island” was and with that, you pretty knew how it would’ve ended. What shocked me was not how it ended, but how it got to the ending. I was totally surprise with the “mistake” if you know what I’m talking about. Also, the ending sorta just dropped off with everyone escaping, but what happens then is a question I’d like to be answered. These are clones and can easily be mistaken as the real thing, as Tom Lincoln proved. Also it wasn’t clear how much the defense department was backing this and how much they knew. It actually seemed like they knew that the lab was a real live human farm.

Posted on

Monster Episodes 63-65

My first post on this anime since Soldats is really slow about releasing them, but they got their act together and didn’t want to be that behind Anime-Kraze and released 3 episodes almost together. Yay! Gotta love Soldats! Monster is a really awesome manga, and the anime has followed it quite well. Sometimes I don’t even feel like watching Monster since it’s just the same thing as the manga, but anime shows have been sucking lately with the exception of a few.

Monster Episode 63 – Chapter 63 – An Unrelated Murder

monstermonstermonstermonstermonstermonstermonstermonstermonster

Monster Episode 64 – Chapter 64 – The Baby’s Depression

monstermonstermonstermonstermonstermonstermonstermonstermonster

Monster Episode 65 – Chapter 65 – Johan’s Footprints

monstermonstermonstermonstermonstermonstermonstermonstermonster

Spoilers:

In short, Monster is a thriller, a suspenseful story. It starts off with a genius brain surgeon, Dr. Tenma and how he’s trying to move up the ladder. However, it turns out the director and several other surgeons at this hospital are just people who are greedy for wealth and fame. One time, even though he was about to operate on a Turkish man, a new patient came in, I believe he was a renown pianist and Tenma was transferred to operate on him instead. The pianist survives thanks to Tenma’s skills, but the Turkish man didn’t because the doctor wasn’t capable enough. The Turkish man’s wife and grandchild comes pounding on Tenma asking why he didn’t operate the surgery. If he had done it, the Turkish man would’ve made it. So the dilemma starts then. Does every man have the equal right to live, or do some people have higher preference than others. I’m not going to bother introducing his fiancé Eva who says every man is not equal.

However, as a doctor, does he have such power to determine who should live and who should die. Then came several days later. He was about to operate on a boy with a gunshut to the head. Suddenly the mayor came in and needed an operation for a brain tumor. Tenma was of course called to operate on the mayor instead because the mayor had promised more funding for the hospital. Halfway to the mayor’s operating room, Tenma turns back and decides that the power of giving life and death should not be in his hands and goes back to operate on the boy. Miracuously, the boy survives, even with a gunshot into his head. However, the mayor didn’t and from that point on, Tenma was shunned by the director and other surgeons and basically having no more chance of going up that ladder.

However, the story takes a big turn when suddenly, the director and surgeons were killed by some poisonous candy. Tenma being the only good surgeon left was promoted to surgeon lead and he went onwards for a few years saving many lives. However, there was always suspicion that Tenma was the the that killed the director and other surgeons because he had the most to gain with their deaths.

I don’t want to ruin the story too much, but it turns out it was the little boy who had poisoned them, and it was his gift to Dr. Tenma for saving his life. However, no one remembers such a boy even when Tenma tries to explain. The story of why the boy was shot in the head comes out of the water too and it just blows your head. For now, you just need to know, Johan, the little boy had a twin sister who was also at the hospital during her brother’s operation, but she was too shock to speak. Johan is the monster and Dr. Tenma regrets saving his life. If you were a doctor, should you have a choice to not rescue the life of a evil person, so evil that he is a monster?

The last few episodes have progressed a bit far from what I’ve introduced, so expect MAJOR SPOILERS. Johan has been manipulating serial killers to do their killings. Usually, serial killers have only a special category of people to kill. In this case, one only killed virgins and sucked their blood because he thought he was a vampire. Another killed because aliens told him to kill. The final one only killed scum like people who would spit at him or have sex in the back of his taxi. However, in each on of these profiles, there was a killing that did not fit the profile. When asked why, they had met him, Johan, the monster. The vampire claimed he met the true vampire and the vampire wrote the name in the sand in a park and he then did his bidding. The alien guy knew that Johan was an alien and spoke in some weird language. However they communicated when he wrote another name in the sand. The third and final serial killer actually talks about meeting Johan when he was younger and how he and his twin sister were in pajamas as if they escaped from the hospital…

In the next 2 episodes, Baby, a right win extremist leader of the German party was murdered. Peter Capek, scared for his life, decides to run away. Johan, who Peter believe was in his control, apparently had a different agenda. Nina, Johan’s twin sister, enters the story once more this time trying to kill Johan and finish the job. Tenma also follows the monster’s disciple: Christopher Sievernich and meets Eva again when she tries to get her revenge for Martin.