My roommate up here at Microsoft ate dinner with me and two other interns last night. He, to whom I've done no wrong, proceeded to conjecture, "Don't you think Chung is completely asexual? I can't see him in any sort of sexual context. He's so businesslike."
Well, at least now, men also think I'm asexual.
Went up to Vancouver over the weekend. Such a beautiful city! It seems that most areas by the ocean are beautiful, but those with water running through it -- San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver -- are best.
The biggest find: there's this boba place in Vancouver Chinatown that's just great. For some reason, these tapioca drinks up here are all sold in tall, big cups (equivalent to a "large" from Lollicup), and cost the same as the smaller brethrens in US. We went in, each bought a cup, and were so impressed that we all finished it on the spot so we can get another cup. And then, we went back the next day for more.
On Saturday night, I also went into a club. Actually, we had to stand outside for about an hour before they let us in. The bouncer probably figured out that we were all guys, despite my girlish pleading. At last, he could no longer stand us standing there withstanding, and let us in at 2am. The party animal that I am, I sped in there and started dancing like mad. And by "dancing", I mean bouncing. And by "like mad", I mean not at all.
Well of course I didn't know what to do, so I quietly observed these people rubbing on each other. But despite the copious friction generation, I hear it's relatively not very dirty, says someone used to clubbing in Mexico. I was in the wrong country.
Here are some pictures I took:
[Preprocessor Error: Digital camera not found]
Good times.
Mmm, okay, so Google just grew bigger, and has acquired Picasa, which is apparently an image-viewing tool. This is probably a move on Google's part toward the desktop environment in order to compete with Microsoft and its impending (read: never released) Longhorn.
But then, Picasa also has something called Hello, which is apparently a sort of image-sharing client for easy and secure transfer of image files with your "buddies". And, among the possible buddies is what's called the BloggerBot, which, once sent an image file, "posts" the image to your blog.
It's kind of a weird, bizarre and unnecessarily convoluted way to support image hosting on Blogger. But it gets worse -- it's poorly documented and just not a great idea overall. For one thing, you have NO control over WHERE you want to save the file on the server; it just stuffs it at some random location. And if you want some text next to the picture, then bummer -- first you have to PUBLISH the picture, with just itself and a short caption, and then come and EDIT the post as I'm doing now. Not to mention, of course, the simple fact that to upload a picture, you have to launch this bizarre image-sharing chat client that is flashy but counter-intuitive to navigate. AND, the WORST, of course, is that, in the middle of creating a post, if you want to insert an image, you CANNOT do so from within Blogger! You have to launch Hello, publish the image into a SEPARATE post, get the URL from that post, delete that post, and paste the URL into the blog entry you're creating. Maybe I'm missing something, but this is completely ludicrous. And even if I AM missing something, if even I haven't figured it out yet in the past ten minutes of playing with this, then forget about the newbies -- whom this product clearly target.
Google google google. You should've done a lot more testing before unleashing this ugly beast. My guess is it's only a matter of time now before they allow more control over image management. But Blogger is not popular enough, and image-hosting not crucial enough, for Google to pull a Microsoft and try to pork-barrel bad programs (Hello) with needed features (image hosting).
Yes, I just accused Google of pulling a Microsoft. Be warned, Google. Eyes are watching your every move. I still love you, but you'll never be the same again. Especially after Jerome.
Him: summer is halfway over
Him: it's already the beginning of the end
Me: it's always the beginning of the end
Him: no
Him: it can be the start of a new beginning
Me: but it will be the beginning of the end still
Me: even if you're starting it
Him: if you imagine summer as a bell shaped curve
Him: where x-axis is time
Him: and where y is the "ride" of summer
Him: then only after the peak in the middle does the end begin
Him: moreover,
Him: the curve can also be skewed so that it does not actually peak until further down the x-axis
Him: therefore, you are incorrect
Him: Q.E.D.
Him: as a corollary to this treatise i posit you to find one individual who would say that it is indeed the beginning of the end at the first day of the summer
Wow. I will pay it this compliment: Spiderman 2 has some of the most thrilling, innovative and satisfying action sequences since The Matrix, and it's easily the best superhero movie since Batman Returns.
I was not a big fan of the first one. It wasn't just the groan-inducing cheesy dialogue, either. The first half of the first Spiderman was quirky and enjoyable, but the second half quickly turned into a typical action movie on autopilot. Spiderman 2, however, is thoughtful and surprising all the way through, and director Sam Raimi now finally is no longer shy about letting his quirky side out. The film is littered with bizarre moments of humor, and Raimi shows off his horror roots in a fantastic hospital scene.
Yes, the film contains too much pop-psychology and trashy science for its own good. But it still serves to build an emotional foundation, and one that is not as self-important and pompous as that of The Hulk. And, damn it, it works, and I do sympathize with Peter Parker, both of us being burdened with the task of saving the world and looking good while doing it.
It's true. I'm Batman.
Best of 2004:
1. Eternal Sunshine
2. Dogville
3. Spiderman 2
4. Kill Bill: Volume 2
5. Fahrenheit 9/11
6. Shrek 2