Friday, December 23, 2005

Happy Holidays!

I'll be leaving the cove and travelling a lot over the holiday weekend visiting some old Cornell friends that I haven't seen in a while. To all my friends, hope you all have a safe and happy holiday, and a Happy New Year! :)

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

It's the Chronic...WHAT?!?

This is probably one of the funniest skits I've seen on SNL in a while. I give you Lazy Sunday: The Chronic of Narnia!

Update: Go grab an MP3 of the song here, although it's just the audio portion of the video above.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Getting paid to surf the web?

I haven't looked closely whether this was legit or not, but Amazon has started a Mechanical Turk where by answering easy questions, you can earn pennies :P I don't think you would want to give up your day job though...

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Rawk on!!!

Every once in a while, there comes one of those games that's just so original, so simple, but once it reels you in, you'll play for hours and not notice the time pass by since you'll be having so much fun with it :) This year, that game is Guitar Hero. Words just cannot describe how awesome this game is :P You might think it sounds cheesy, but when you're rocking along to such hits as Killer Queen and Iron Man, you quickly forget the cheesiness and immediate immerse yourself into the game. Velius had been raving about the game to me for many days in the past, so I figured since it was my birthday, I'd get it and see for myself. Thanks Velius for the recommendation! d_(^.^)

David has headed back to Iceland, so I'm all alone now in the apartment T_T

Thursday, December 8, 2005

Boom goes the dynamite...

I was driving to my office this morning when I heard a BOOM! I thought great, there goes one of my tires, but my car didn't lose control, and then I suddenly realized that I forgot to take something out of the car (and no, it was not dynamite :P).

Click here to see

It made a big boom, but it was much less dangerous :P

Monday, December 5, 2005

More Christmas Light Madness!

The lights sing along to Jingle Bells

You got to know when to hold em....

Know when to fold em...

Those Telus bunnies just cheer me up when I see them :)

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. Research has been kicking my butt lately, and being sick doesn't help on top of that :(

Tuesday, November 29, 2005

Being red in the face can be hazardous to your health...

At least according to doctors in Houston as they proclaim that Asian redness may be a sign to tune down your alcohol intake.

Friday, November 25, 2005

Operation Black Friday Shopping

This is probably the only time of year when you'll see so many people voluntarily get up at 4:30 am in the morning to go spend their money. Of course, I happened to be one of those people since I'm always looking for the good deals :) Anyways, the main goal for the morning was to hit Staples since they had a nice looking 19 inch Samsung LCD for $199 after rebate, but Staples wasn't open till 6 am, so my brother and I wandered around Circuit City, which happened to be right next to Staples, for a bit. Even in the chilled 19 degree air, people were ready and waiting to jump into the stores as the line for Circuit City was a good 1/3 of a mile long. But to save our place in line at Staples, my brother and dad rotated shifts every so often so that one person would be able to warm up at Circuit City while the other person held the place in line. What was sort of sad was that I was planning to get a game for my roommate as a Christmas present at Circuit city, but the lines took so long to check out that I just put the game back in frustration T_T Fortunately, we were about 10th in line at Staples, so we were able to get the LCD and some other trinkets that were on the sale table. And thank goodness for online rebates forms, which actually make it easy for us to send in those pesky rebates!

Now it's back to bed to warm up and recharge for the rest of the day -.-

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

Happy Early Thanksgiving!

I'm heading back home to PA for the week, so Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends out there! ^_^

As a treat, here're some cool Christmas lights combined with a rendition by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Monday, November 21, 2005

Typing Frenzy




Go here to see how fast your fingers can type the alphabet.

Friday, November 18, 2005

Holiday Commercials

If you're a sucker like me for cute things (like bunnies for instance :P), you'll get pure enjoyment overloading your cute tolerance from these TELUS Mobility commercials :)

Phear the cuteness!

Monday, November 14, 2005

Black Friday Ads

With the holiday shopping season approaching, good deals are always to be found on Black Friday, so to help you get a head start on which stores to plunder on Black Friday, here's a link to several Black Friday ads.

Mortal Kombat vs Street Fighter 2

Check out this nifty flash movie!

Sunday, November 13, 2005

Ohio State Football

Since David had to be "on call" this Saturday for his advisor, I was able to go to the football game between OSU and Northwestern. Despite starting out slowly offensively early in the season, the team seems to be peaking right now as they routed Northwestern 48-7. Although you might have caught the game on TV, there're other things that go on during the game that may not be shown. One such thing is the OSU marching band, which to this point is probably the best marching band I have ever seen. Known as The Best Damn Band In the Land (or TBDBITL), the band never fails to rally the faithful football fans before and during the game. This game was the last home game of the season, so the senior football players got introduced individually for some home town recognition. Anyways, I managed to get some pictures and videos of the activities before the game, so enjoy! :)

View from the nosebleed seats! But in all honesty, all of the seats in the Horseshoe provide a good view of the field.
The south end of the Horseshoe slowly filing in with fans.
The video scoreboard.
Brutus fires up the cheerleaders!
TBDBITL makes its appearance! (8.6 megs)
TBDBITL continues to march! (3.1 megs)
TBDBITL performs the legendary Script Ohio! (11.5 megs) However, the video doesn't really do justice in how cool this looks in real life.
A better picture of the final Script Ohio.
The marching band forms the Northwestern logo.
Here comes the Buckeye football team!
The south side of the Horseshoe when full
Here comes the Northwestern football team
Picture of the huge flag raised up on the field
The Northwestern cheering section

Before and during the game, fan break out the "O-H-I-O" chants.
Before kickoff, the O-H-I-O changing starts
During a timeout, the O-H-I-O chant rotates around the horseshoe

The marching band played with a Ray Charles theme during halftime, so here're some of the nifty formations they set up.
Ray Charles' sunglasses?
Very cool script "Ray"

Tuesday, November 8, 2005

I guess therapy is good after all!

No, I'm not in a mental institution if you were thinking that was what the title implied. My roommate David had turned his ankle racing with my friend Ryan (who seems to be an attraction for leg injuries as he was playing basketball with his friend Matt when Matt tore his ACL) two weeks ago. Now, I'm pretty familiar with ankle turning as Kabitzin and Velius can attest to in our episode together in basketball class. I had stolen the ball and went for the "easy" layup, but I forgot to think about landing after laying the basketball up, turned my ankle, and missed the layup completely. Anyways, after waiting for a week, David had it checked out, and the doc put him on some 600 mg ibuprofen, gave him some crutches, and set him up for a session of physical therapy. David went to the therapist yesterday still using his crutches to move around, and came out of the session carrying his crutches, which came as a complete surprise to me thinking that one session could make such a difference!

David told that during the session, the therapist said it was actually detrimental to stay off his ankle for a long time since there were some nerves around the ankle that would "slow down" and not be able to compensate against ankle turns if the ankle didn't have proper therapy. I found this interesting to hear since I've found that I would accidentally and awkwardly tweak my ankle once in a while walking normally, so maybe I'm due for some therapy too T_T

Friday, November 4, 2005

Cool Video

Check out this guy from the World Yo-Yo Championships.

Click here to see!

Puzzle game of the day

For those of you who love puzzles (and I know you're out there :P), here's a flash puzzle for you to ponder over.

Click here to play!

Sunday, October 30, 2005

Halloween Link

Check out this freaky illusion here, and I hope you all had a happy Halloween! ^_^

Thursday, October 27, 2005

High Tech Acne treatment

Check out the Zeno Acne Treatment Device! Acne removal with a touch of razr flare :P

Thursday, October 20, 2005

Feeling frustrated?

Now David and I can take out our frustrations on Bob.

Bob just out of the box
Bob shows off his modeling capabilities
David tests Bob out (3.5 meg video). Bob falls at first, but David helps him back up :P

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Google 2084

Amusing...yet scary at the same time...

Great Baidu Commercial

If you understand a little mandarin, you'll get a kick out of this commercial :)

Right click and save!

Sunday, October 16, 2005

Sunday Pictures

Research has been picking up a bit, so there hasn't been anything interesting for me to write about lately (unless you want me to talk about computational EM :P) With the fall weather coming, I figured things would start to get a bit more cloudy here at Ohio, but this weekend proved to be picturesque, so I dusted off the old digital camera and took some snapshots.

View from the apartment porch.
Closer view of the lake
View back at the apartments

Here're some pics I took while David and I were out frisbee golfing.
Hole #1
Sigthorsson for par...
Interesting place I got myself into for the putt

Saturday, October 8, 2005

Fun Mental Exercises

On my flight back from Minneapolis to Columbus, I noticed that the girl sitting next to me was doing this interesting number puzzle game. Intrigued, I asked her what the puzzle was, and she went on to explain the basics of Sudoku. Without getting into too much of the details, it's basically searching for a particular arrangement of numbers from 1 to 9 without overlapping each other. She gave me one of her pages in her Sudoku book for me to fiddle around with, and I got pretty hooked solving 4 of them on the flight back. And today, I finally found a web version of it! So if you like number puzzles, definitely check it out! It might seem simple at first, but I'm sure the hard ones will make you cry :P

Wednesday, October 5, 2005

Coming soon....



Rumours around the web say that there either is going to be a release of a video iPod or and update to the iTunes store so that people will now be able to download video media. Let the speculation begin!

Tuesday, October 4, 2005

Weekend update with Kungfucius

Since I hadn't been home to PA for a while, I figured that it would probably be better to go back earlier now while the work load hasn't piled up yet. It always feels good going home because everything is just so familiar, and you know where everything is and where to find it. Plus, there's nothing like mom's home cooking :)

My mom has become quite master saleswoman of Lexus cars as she managed to help one of her friends buy one at the local dealership nearby. They managed to get a good deal on an RX-330 special edition since the dealership was doing its end of year clearance sales before the new models come in. Another nice perk is that my mom knows one of the salesman at the dealership rather well, so I got to test drive the Toyota Prius. This car is probably the ultimate geek car not only due to the fact it's a hybrid, but almost everything inside is digital, and there's this huge touch screen in the middle of the car that controls nearly everything from the stereo to the air conditioning to the GPS system. Another interesting fact I learned about the Prius was that it uses a continuous variable transmission, so the tone of the engines was basically the same no matter how you accelerate. However, the Prius probably won't win any drag races as I put the petal to the metal and watched the digital speedometer gain only about 5 MPH every second. On the flip side, it was cool to see the MPG gauge display 99.9 MPG as I was driving :P

I also got to have dinner and hang out with Addie for a bit as well for the weekend. We did some painting together and she cooked dinner for the two of us, so I feel we're on good terms with each other. But in case you're wondering, the chances of us getting back together as a couple are probably nil at this point. She probably wants someone who's closer to her, which is pretty much impossible for me to fulfill. Oh well, guess I'll have to be content being single.

Cute link of the day: All together now....Awwwwwwweeee! Too bad cats can't stay cute like this forever.

Video of the day: Yeah, I would hate to have this job too...

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

New Toy

My Muvo came in today, so here're some pics to share of it :)

Front of the Muvo
Side buttons on the Muvo
Splitting the Muvo apart
Comparing the Muvo's size versus the Razr

This is the first MP3 player I've bought for myself, and I'm hoping it makes those long 6 hour drives back home a lot more bearable. The blue "sleeve" part of the Muvo contains the casing for an AAA battery, and I'll probably pick up some recharable AAA batteries down the road. Some other nice features that came along with the Muvo were a belt clip and a arm band. I was debating between this and the Nano, but the Nano cost quite a bit more than I wanted to pay for (but then again, I only paid $65 plus change for the Muvo thanks to a gift certificate :P), and now people have started to complain about how the Nano's LCD screen cracks easily. I guess Apple has to iron out those version 1.0 bugs out. But anyways, two thumbs ups from Kungfucius for the Muvo d_(^_^)_b

Now THIS is how programming should be taught :P

I thought this was a rather creative way of teaching kids the simple fundamentals of programming. The only thing is that the game seems way to expensive for its own good ($21.95 + $7 shipping!!!), and it takes way too long to have it shipped to you (4 to 6 weeks??).

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Sneak Peek

Ok, it's not really a sneak peek, but my friend Ryan managed to get some free tickets from one of his friends for an advanced screening of Serenity, and he asked me to tag along with him since his roommate was busy. For whatever reason, I expected the theater to not be full since, hey, it's an advanced screening, but when we got there about 15 minutes before the show, the entire theater was pretty much packed, so I guess these tickets weren't so exclusive after all :P What was sort of interesting was that some rows were reserved for the reviewers of the local newspaper. But anyways, as for the movie, it's based off a Sci-fi show, and I personally don't follow sci-fi shows that much or care too much for them, so the movie on a scale from 1 to 10 was about a 5.5 to 6. The one thing in the movie which I just sort of shook my head was the fact the movie forced itself to be funny too much. There would be random jokes and comments inserted here and there, which the audience must have been sniffing some laughing gas because they ate it all up, but Ryan and I just looked at each other and shook our heads. But I guess if you follow the series the movie is based on and if you're a sci-fi junkie, you'll probably appreciate this movie more than I did.

Update: I had forgotten to mention that there were a lot of "bloggers" out in the audience. Apparently, as I understand, this was suppose to be a new method of promotion to have bloggers post their opinions and reactions to the movie. But as you can see by my reaction, the reactions probably aren't all positive :P You can find more opinions about Serenity at this link here.

Videos of the Day

Cosplaying: Some are just outright creepy o_O
ATX Jackhammer: When pimping your ride isn't enough, you need to put a 300+ pound woofer in the back of your car!
Lion vs Bear: Place your bet on who'll win!
Bell Ringing: Is this guy really ringing a bell? o_O :P

While we're still on videos, if you're an iTunes user, here's a link to learn how you can use iTunes to d/l music videos.

Sunday, September 25, 2005

New MP3 player coming...

It's not an iPod Nano, but it's pretty small, you can use it as a flash drive, it has an FM radio built in, and you can change out the AAA battery if you need to :) Plus with a $25 certificate, it was mine for $65 :)

Stickman Puzzle Game

Click here to play! I haven't figured out the solution yet, so if you manage to figure it out, I'm open to hearing it.

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Thursday, September 22, 2005

I guess that's cute...

Here's an animal quiz I took from Kabitzin. Actually this is the 2nd time I took the quiz, and I think a bear cub is cuter than a monkey :P

You Are A: Bear Cub!

bear cubBears are strong and independent creatures who roam in the forest in search of food. Bears are usually gentle, but anger one and be prepared for their full fury! You won't back down from a fight -- a classic attribute of bears. Intelligent and resourceful, though lazy at times, you are a fascinating creature of the wild.

You were almost a: Duckling or a Duck
You are least like a: Turtle or a ChipmunkWhat Cute Animal Are You?

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

We used how much gas????

For the past week, David and I have been trying to resort out a $94 gas bill that we received. Our apartment utilizes gas for water heating and for room heating in the winter, and given the fact that it had been rather hot in August and that both of us weren't even in the apart for the last week of August, we were sort of suspicious how we managed to use so much gas in August. Anyways, the gas company'll be sending someone in tomorrow to check out if there's any leaks, so hopefully this'll be resolved by tomorrow.

Update: Despite our best efforts, the gas company still believes that 2 college students can somehow use 120 cubic feet of gas per day over the summer from showering and washing dishes. They took $10 off the bill, but that's not much of a compromise as far as I see. Oh well, we'll be monitoring the gas a lot more closely now. Still, it's been a frustrating week trying to get this resolved and not go your way...

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

The end of the world...

Apparently a "chao cloud" is headed towards Earth. The good news is that some theoretical physics ideas will be confirmed, while "the bad news is that the total annihilation of our solar system is imminent." Great...just more bad news we all need...

Monday, September 19, 2005

Would you work for this company?

Check out the goofy photos of the people working at M&H incorporated. I guess they really enjoy their job there :P

And remember: September 19th is Talk like a Pirate Day!

Dang September is flying by...

You know September is flying by when you go to the supermarket and already see the Halloween merchandise being laid out, pumpkins are being sold, and Halloween candy is advertised everywhere. When I think back about it, the last time I remember dressing up for Halloween was probably in elementary school when the entire school had every class from kindergarten to 5th grade dress up, and the teacher played along as well. I just remember I was wearing a latex pumpkin face with orange flashing eyes, and the mask had an attached hood to it, which made it difficult for my 5th grade teacher to pick me out when he went around to guess who was who, but it also was the world's hottest mask to wear :( Anyways, David and I were shopping at Walmart this past Saturday, and I saw that they had a little section with these huge hairs in the costume aisle, and there was an afro on display! So immediately, I began thinking how funny it would look if I could dress up like Ken with the afro, black shirt, and jeans :P So what do you think? Can I pull it off? :P

Our football team bounced back from their tough loss to Texas with a win again San Diego State. However, I think they'll have to get better offensively as the Big Ten schedule starts next week. The team put up only 27 points against a San Diego team that let two lesser teams put up 30+ points the previous 2 games. And the QB controversy supposively was settled as Troy Smith was named the starter for the rest of the season, but he looked shaky at best passing from the pocket and missed a couple of easy throws to wide open receivers during the game. Hopefully, these bugs'll be worked out against Iowa next week.

David, my friend Ryan, and I went out for a bit of Frisbee golf on Sunday, and I'm glad to say I'm steadily getting better at it as I'm beginning to shoot under par over the entire course. Today I finished up at -3, but I borked up on either hole 13 or 14 with a triple bogey, so my score probably could have been a bit better. My approach to the game I believe is sort of how Tiger Woods approaches his game. We both hit (or throw in this case) the hell out of the ball off the tee and play it from wherever it lands. Although this strategy might seem haphazard, it's been working most of the time since I usually get my frisbee in position out of the reach of most tree hazards and get an easy second shot to play. However, my middle finger joint has taken a beating off one of the edge of the frisbee since I chuck it pretty hard, but it'll heal up :P

Friday, September 16, 2005

Controller revolution?

Here's an interesting review/preview about Nintendo's new controller that'll be used on their Revolution system coming soon.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Still alive here...

To my 6 fans out there, sorry about the lack of updates lately. I've been trying to catch up on research since coming back on vacation, and there isn't anything interesting like cold fusion or anything in my research involved that's interesting to talk about :P But I wanted to let everyone know I'm alive here...just not posting as much.

However, I will ask this. I have a $25 certificate to Amazon.com, and I can't decide what to spend it on. Any suggestions?

Sunday, September 11, 2005

Sigh....so close :(

Matching up the #2 and #4 teams in the nation under the lights with 105,565 screaming fans this early in the college season is rare, but we here at Columbus had a chance to show that our team deserved to be up in the talk for the national championship as we went up against the University of Texas. Unfortunately, we just came up short as a couple of plays here and there didn't go our way, and a costly turnover at the end of the game basically took time away for our team to come back. Our defense played their hearts out and forced Texas into numerous turnovers, and although our offense were able to put up points from these turnovers, the points weren't touchdowns, and with the game so close to the end, one touchdown was all Texas needed to squeeze it out at the end. The only positive I think that came out of this was it now gives all the players a bit more motivation for the rest of the season to go out and make every play count, since you never know when it could help you out at the end. One of our players juggled a potential touchdown catch that probably would have kept us ahead of the game, but he couldn't hold onto the ball as one of the Texas players came and knocked him over just as he had the ball in his hands. Guess we'll see how the rest of the college season goes, but we're pretty deflated here at the moment in Columbus :(

Tuesday, September 6, 2005

Back from the desert!

Yup Kungfucius has returned back from Las Vegas! I'm working on uploading the 200+ pictures that I took, so I'll have a visual report for everyone to see :)

Update: Thanks to Tochi for showing me some software to create some quick webpages to display the pics :) I'll post some more commentary later.

Vegas/California Photobook

Update 2: Since JAlbum doesn't preview the videos (at least I didn't find a setting for it), here's a small description of each of them.

Video 127-128: White tiger at the Mirage in its den (19 megs each)
Video 201: Bellagio Water Fountain show (58.7 megs)
Video 202: Mirage volcano (39.7 megs)
Video 203: My brother riding on a small pink scooter (9.5 megs)
Video 204: More scooter riding action (4.6 megs)
Video 205: My brother playing with a dog (11.9 megs)
Video 222: My gambling highlight :) (6.3 megs)

Overall, the trip was a blast despite the amount of driving we had to go through to go to California and back. As usual, the weather at Vegas was in the 100's during the day with 10% humidity, but luckily we were indoors most of the time in the casinos. I didn't play as well as I would have liked in poker, but most of it was my fault in not knowing how the house handles the poker games. When I signed up to play ($50 buy-in), I was under the impression that they would put you in a new table with everyone starting with the same amount of chips. Unfortunately that wasn't the case as I went into the game where people had been playing for a while, and I started with $48 in chips ($2 goes to the casino for playing), which basically meant that I was short stacked for most of the game. Ah well, I'll remember to bring in more $$$ the next time I buy into a game.

We saw the show "O" the night we arrived, and I can't really put into words how incredible this show was to watch. There was syncronized swimming, acrobatics, ballet, singing and dancing, and all sorts of amazing visuals that you probably need to see this show at least 3 times to see everything that goes on. The stage itself had at least a 10 foot pool built into it (since there were acrobats that were at least 100 feet in the air jumping into the pool), but it had a special meshed surface that can rise and lower into the water. So if you ever need a visually stunning show to see while you're at Vegas, definately check out "O".

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Off to Vegas...

I'll be gone for the week, but I'll be sure to bring back a lot of pictures :)

Monday, August 29, 2005

City Placement

From Kabitzin's blog...

#################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### #################################################### ####################################################
Your personality type is RCOAI
You are reserved, moderately calm, organized, accommodating, and moderately intellectual, and may prefer a city which matches those traits.

The largest representation of your personality type can be found in the these U.S. cities: Albuquerque/Santa Fe, Norfolk, Oklahoma City, Nashville, Tucson, Dallas/Ft. Worth, San Antonio, Indianapolis, Memphis, Milwaukee, Orange County, Los Angeles and these international countries/regions Indonesia, Ukraine, Denmark, Middle East, Czech Republic, India, Caribbean, Romania, Hungary, Greece, Guam, Israel, South Korea, Norway, Mexico

What Places In The World Match Your Personality?
Powered by CityCulture.org

Sunday, August 28, 2005

I need a vacation....

After cooking for half the Icelandic army yesterday and coding for a good majority of the day today, Wednesday can't come soon enough :( David and I had a BBQ so that my and his friends could meet with his parents and many relatives, and I was the designated Grillmaster/Dishmaster for the day. And since I'll be gone on Wednesday, I was working pretty much all day on some code for my research this Sunday. Hopefully my advisor won't nag me too much on it.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

They call me "The Boat"...

Despite not playing that much poker in between poker nights, luck has definitely been looking over my shoulder. Last week I came in 2nd place in the field of 11, and tonight I came in 1st in a field of 10 :) All this without my daily lucky fortune cookie :P In case you're wondering about "the boat" reference, a "boat" is a full house, and I luckily managed to make a boat on the 2nd to last hand I played to beat out a flush.

I will say though that everyone must download Google Talk and use it if you have a Gmail account (and add my gmail address to their list :P). The talk feature is truly excellent, and it even has a ringtone signaling you're calling someone when you initiate a voice call. The interface is clean and minimalistic, and hopefully Google will have it support all other chat protocols out there in the future. Once that happens, Trillian will be heading to the recycling bin.

Monday, August 22, 2005

Ice Climbers

Here's a nifty flash game where you maneuver your mountain climber to his multiple cabins at the top of the mountains.

Click here!

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Burn baby burn...

A bunch of my friend and I went to the Quarry pool yesterday since the sun was out in full force and the Quarry maintenance department had recently replaced the pool filter. Needless to say it was pretty refreshing to be in the pool and act like kids as we pelted these squishy hacky sack water balls at each other :P The sun got me pretty good though as my chest and back were pretty red for the rest of the day, but fortunately my skin complexion is dark enough that it doesn't burn too much, and I can at least start to get rid of the farmers tan that I have with my arms.

One note I want to pass to my friends playing GW: I probably won't be playing the game too much anymore. It just hasn't grabbed my attention as much, and the PS2 and HDTV has basically taken over whatever gaming I want to do now a days. So Velius, if you want to buy my CD key, feel free to send me some mail and we can work something out.

The end of the month is coming up, and on August 31, I'm heading to Vegas baby! I was searching around this morning for Blue Man Group tickets, but $70 seems to be the lowest they go for the nosebleed seats. If anyone knows of a cheaper way of acquiring BMG tickets, I'm open to hearing them. I'll be staying at the Mirage, which provides pretty easy access to the rest of the hotels since it's basically centered along the strip. I might try my hand at a few poker tables there, and one of my friend's dad said I should learn how to play craps since the odds are almost 50/50 versus the house. So far, I promised Tochi a new laptop if I hit it big, so if any of you out there have a reasonable request if I hit the jackpot, I'll be open to hearing it :P WSOP...here I come!

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Men in Coats

Check out their performace here. It's too awesome to describe!

Monday, August 15, 2005

Now showing...

When I went to see Wedding Crashers this past Saturday, I think I said clearly to the ticket attendant that I wanted to see Wedding Crashers, but the ticket I ended up getting was for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I asked the ticket attendant "this is for Wedding Crashers right?", and he nodded his head. Ah well, luckily they don't check tickets at the particular theater doors to the movies. I guess I wasn't in the right mood to see Wedding Crashers since I wasn't laughing as much as all my friends and everyone else around me, but if I were, it's definitely one of the funniest movies to come out in a while.

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Dancing Village Elves

Some of you probably have seen this before, but it's too funny to pass up :P guaranteed to make you say WoW!

Right Click and Save! (3.5 megs)

Training for the World's Strongest Man Competiton

The hot summer days here in Ohio must be brutal for the numerous cars around here as they probably have to do double the work to cool down the engine as the AC is running. Anyways, David's car battery decided to die on him yesterday just as he had gotten through the entrance to the Quarry, which is sort of good since he had moved his car out of the way of the busy intersection outside. Unfortunately, we live uphill, so David and I did our best Strongest Man impression as we both pushed the car up steadily to our apartment garage. The steady climb was ok, but having to push the car over speed bumps while going uphill was pretty brutal :( Add the 90 degree heat, and we got ourself a burning intense exercise for both of our leg calf muscles.

Today, while David and I were with our friend Kevin at Barnes and Noble, Kevin decided to buy me the first book of the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. I've already heard Kevin and David discuss the various aspects of the book, and Kevin thinks that the Wheel of Time series rules all and wants to spread the word, so now I'll have to start my trek in the Wheel of Time series.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

The ever increasing cost of living...

After holding out for a while, I finally took my mini-van to the gas station today...and rang up a $43 gas purchase @ $2.23/gallon :( The gas prices here in Columbus have so much variation, with the highest I've seen at $2.45 for regular, yet it seems like people are just willing to bite the bullet and just pay for it. It's just amazes me at all the stuff we pay for now a days. Cable, cell phone, various bills, gas...the list continues :(

In more cost effective news, David had a friend who gave us a dining room table for free, so our apartment now has all the basic furnishings!

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

It's all about the money...

Last Friday I watched on TV as Baidu.com went IPO, and it pulled a Google as it jumped from around $20 up into the stratosphere at $100 or so. But as you can see here, the hype doesn't last forever as Baidu's stock price has gone down steadily the past 2 days. Although I had recommended Google for my mom to buy despite it's expensive starting price since we all know Google is awesome, I don't know Baidu will undergo the same sort of jump that Google underwent despite the huge first day jump. Ah well, that's the crazy stock market for ya. In case you're wondering what stocks I own, I have some stock both in QQQQ and Intel. I'm in the red a bit with QQQQ since it was bought pretty early while the stock market began its downfall back in 2002 or so, but Intel has been pretty good to me so far.

Meanwhile, flash to the present, and David and I find ourselves with a $100 electric bill :( Looks like we're gonna have to turn down the A/C to conserve some power.

In some better news, Seagate send a refurbished hard drive to me today, so I finally was able to get my desktop back up and running. Although I'm happy to have it back up running, I'll miss the silence I enjoyed just from using my laptop.

Monday, August 8, 2005

iDog

Here's one of the niftier accessories I've seen for the iPod: the iDog. Cute like the Aibo at 1% of the cost and with the ability to confuse other dogs, how can you go wrong? :)

Wednesday, August 3, 2005

Gun Vs Sword

Fight! (10 meg video) There're some interesting slow motion clips of the bullets getting cut in half by the sword half-way through the video.

Tuesday, August 2, 2005

10th Planet discovered?

Check out the news here where some scientists debate whether UB313 will be considered a planet.

ZOMG...Apple introduces a 2 button mouse!

After living in the computer stone age with their single button mice, Apple finally introduces a mouse which not only has two buttons (albeit hidden to make it look like their one button mouse) but other interesting features and dohickies.

Introducing the Mighty Mouse!

Sunday, July 31, 2005

Weekend Update with Kungfucius

This past month proved to be an expensive one. My credit card bill was up to $1000, and I had to write David a $1000 check to even out all of the purchases we picked up for each other. But looking back, a good portion of the credit card came as rent from my dorm (valuing at $609), David covered a good portion of the security deposit when we first signed the lease, and we recently got a nice TV, so overall, if I just look at the other costs, it's not too bad. Plus, I'm going to get about $400+ back from the OSU housing department for the time I wasn't living in the dorms.

David and I had noticed that there was a frisbee golf course nearby, so while we were looking around at Dicks Sporting Goods, we decided to pick up some frisbees designed for frisbee golf. It came as you see in the picture in a set of 3. The orange one is the "fairway driver" of the periscopes designed for that first throw off the Frisbee tee. The white one is sort of a utility frisbee designed for intermediate distances and such, and the red one is the "putter" frisbee designed for you to throw into the basket at short distances. Shortly after getting the frisbees, David and I went out to the course that was nearby, but after playing two holes and starting the third, divides Icelandic strength got the best of him as he flung one of his periscopes high up into a nearby group of trees and shrubs, and we weren't able to find the Frisbee after an exhaustive search :( Despite that, I think we'll be back at the park next weekend to see if we can go through the whole course.

On Saturday night I went to see Fantastic Four, which has been trashed by the movie critics, but regular movie viewers seemed to be more tolerant of it. My take on it is that you just sit back and enjoy it as a popcorn movie and don't expect too much. Yeah, FF tries to be funny way too much at times, but it's not so bad that you'll walk out of the theater. However, I was sort of confused about the powers Jessica Alba had. In addition to being invisible, she's able to somehow contort and control some sort of force field, which I have no idea how it relates to her invisiblity powers. Anyone have any clue to this?

David had always been a proponent of getting a grill for our apartment, so this past weekend, we went to Walmart and got this guy. We tried it out on some hamburgers and hot dogs, and it does a smokin good job of cooking the meats. The only thing we found sort of defective was the fact that the drip catcher can near the bottom of the grill didn't really catch the grease that cooked off the meats; it would just drip past the can onto the ground. Anyways, here's a shopper's beware story for the day. When we were looking for hamburger meats to cook on the grill, we looked at the frozen food section at Walmart and found a 20 pack of quarter pounder patties for around $11 or so. Sitting right next to those was another 20 pack of quarter pounders, but they cost $5.70, which befuddled David and I at first, and we were just about to get those burgers (being the poor college graduate students we are :P) when we looked at the nutritional information, and we discovered that the cheap burgers were basically 40% fat! So needless to say, we didn't get those burgers and went with the $11 pack instead. The classic moral of the story: If it's too cheap to be true, there's probably a catch to it :P

Last note: I heard Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" way too many times on the radio this weekend while driving around (like around 5 or 6 times). I guess people have gone bananas over it...

Friday, July 29, 2005

A real dork's belt buckle

Have you ever wished you had one of those scrolling LED signs with you. Now you can! Check out the the scrolling buckle!

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Pics of new TV

The box
Out of the Box (Yeah, we need to get a better stand :P)
Hurray for HD! (although we don't have an HD box :P)

While David and I were playing around with it yesterday, we noticed that the TV is smart enough in some cases to examine what type of input is going into it, and it will adjust the screen size accordingly. For example, if we're watching a letterbox DVD movie, it'll adjust the screen so that it'll minimize the black space running above and below the movie picture. All in all, we're pretty happy with the purchase :)

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

"Good news is on the way."

At least that's what my fortune cookie said today as my friends and I ate at our daily Asian lunch place. Well, although it wasn't really news, David and I did pick up our shiny new TV today :) I was quite impressed by how prompt the Sears service people are. David and I showed up at the pickup place where there was a machine to scan your receipt for the time you pick up. David's name shows up on a monitor above the scanner, and there is actually a counter timing how long it takes for the Sears people to get our TV out. I looked at the other names that already had their items picked out, and the times averaged between 1 min 30 seconds to around 3 minutes. I didn't know the exact time the Sears guy came out since I had gone out to move my van closer to the pickup entrance, but once I had moved the van and gotten out of the car (which probably took 2 minutes at most), David and the Sears guy were already coming out the door with our new TV! One more thing to note...there was a dry-erase board next to the scanner which wrote that last month, 95% of all customers were serviced in 5 minutes or less, and 100% of all customers yesterday had been served in 5 minutes or less. So needless to say, I was quite surprised and impressed.

Of course, when there's good news, there's always some sort of bad news to follow :( The hard drive in my desktop computer decided to go belly up for the 2nd time, and an attempt to reinstall Windows proved to be useless as Windows was stuck at trying to find the drive so I can reformat it :( Well, luckily the warranty is still valid (up till December of 2006), so I'm gonna RMA it and hope for a shiny new hard drive later in the future. But in the meantime....no GW :(

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Dashboard for Windows

Thanks to Yahoo, Konfabulator is now available for free to download!

Monday, July 25, 2005

Where's that Argy hat when I need it??

My forehead and nose have started to peel today from being out in the sun too long on Friday (golfing) and Saturday (biking). Any homebrew remedies that anyone can suggest to help my skin recover faster? :(

Sunday, July 24, 2005

Now playing on widescreen....

After talking, researching, and shopping around, David and I have finally settled on a new TV for our apartment. With the help of a friend of ours who had worked in the Sears electronics department, we managed to snag a Toshiba 30 inch widescreen TV for around $650. We don't know whether we'll upgrade our cable to receive HDTV programming, but we can't wait till Wednesday when the TV will come in ^_^

Saturday, July 23, 2005

I am not Tiger Woods.

This morning, I went to play some golf at a nearby golf course with David's friend Kevin. Needless to say, since it had been probably 3 weeks or so since I hit a ball, I was pretty much hacking through the 18 holes, which was frustrating at times even though I really shouldn't expect myself to be a great golfer. I ended up shooting 69 and 68 respectively....for the first 9 and second 9 holes :-p However, Kevin was quite a bit better than me as he averaged about a double bogey per hole, and he had the shot of the day on the par 3 17th hole. As I watched about 50 or so yards away, , Kevin hit a high chip shot up from the rough to the left of the green, and I slowly watched it as it hit the green and trickled into the hole. It was his only birdie of the day, but I think he'll take it!

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Be careful next time you park...

or you might get caught with one of these!

Feeling better :)

Thanks to all my good friends for their kind words of support and wisdom for me. You guys are truly awesome :)

So that's how they really feel....

Check out these interesting drawings by Korean kids.

Benchmark for the uber 1337 AIM user

AIM Fight!

So far, my brother roxors all with his score of 27418!

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

It's always hard to let go....

I don't know if this is the best place to talk about it, but I'm going to anyways. Back in high school, I would talk with many of my friends through their breakups with their girlfriends, but I couldn't understand at the time why it would be so hard to let go. Flash to today, and I can fully understand what they went through when I was dating Addie. Right now my mind and my heart are still sort of battling it out to see who is right, with my mind reminding me of all the negative things that have happened, but with my heart telling me to recall all those good moments I had with Addie, it's been dragging me down emotionally the past 2 weeks or so. She didn't want to date me anymore since I wasn't "romantic" enough, but being 360+ miles apart didn't help the situation much either despite my best efforts. She's apparently dating some guy she found on online dating who is "awesome", so I really shouldn't have anything to put hope on, but I'm still emotionally conflicted.

Sigh...sometimes I wish I wasn't such a nice guy, always getting screwed over without any apprecation. Sorry for the rant...

Monday, July 18, 2005

I wonder if fries came with that...

Thanks to Tochi for showing me this amusing magic trick video involving hamburgers.

Sunday, July 17, 2005

A Harry Potter Weekend

This past weekend, David and I took a trip to Dayton, OH since some of his friends were anticipating the release of the 6th Harry Potter book, and they were going to Barnes and Noble to wait till midnight on Saturday to pick up the books, and then they were going to spend a good part of Saturday reading through the 6th book. Although I had only read the first Harry Potter book last summer, I figured that since I hadn't picked up a good book to read for leisure in a while, I would tag along and start on book 2 when most of them would start on book 6. Anyways, I took some pictures leading up to the sale at Barnes and Noble.

Reservation #46 all set!
The crowd's not too bad so far at around 11 pm
Plenty of Muggles and Wizards occupying the food court. A George Lucas sighting has also been confirmed.
A young wizards prepares to receive his frapaccino.
A purpled-haired witch begins to direct traffic...
As the crowds started to file in...
And the lines get longer...
And longer...
Some make it up to the purchasing counter.
I wonder what happens if you do open it...
Video: The manager had to call for all cashiers to keep the lines going (15 megs).

Too bad we probably needed to bring one of these to shrink people and push them out of the way, but the scene wasn't as chaotic as the pictures might have portrayed. The store manager called people whose reservation numbers ranged from 1 through 50 to get the books first, and since we had numbers 45-47, we were in the first group to receive the books. About 20 minutes or so after the books were released, my friends and I made it out of B&N without too much trouble.

On Saturday, I managed to get through 2/3's of book 2.

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Nifty keyboard

Each key has its own pixels, so you can change any of the keys to display whatever you want!

Click here to see the coolness!

Just think, you could have a screensaver on your keyboard as well :P Imagine Q-bert jumping up and down and across your keyboard :P

Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Life is over....

When this arrives on your desktop :P After some cohersion from Velius, I've decided to jump on the Guild Wars bandwagon. Hopefully it'll turn out to be fun like FF without the daily grind. I found it sort of amusing and funny how much extra detail was taken to make sure you cannot just buy the game, burn it, and return it back as shown by the following.

Exhibit 1: Wrap the Box in plastic.
Exhibit 2: Wrap the CD case in plastic.
Exhibit 3: Make the CD key a scratchable one.

Funny pic of the day: Looks like animals can tell the difference between good and bad images on the internet.

Monday, July 11, 2005

Nifty Flash Games

If you like untangling things, here's a game for you!

If you like blowing stuff up, this game is for you!

Saturday, July 9, 2005

Stomach pains suck :(

You know when you wake up feeling woozy, walk to the bathroom and the sight of the toilet makes you want to hurl, you know that something's wrong with your stomach. I was pretty much bed ridden for most of the day since my stomach wasn't feeling to happy for whatever reason. Thinking back and doing some investigation, I blame the milk since I checked the milk I brought over from my dorm to discover it had an expiration date of July 4th, and I realized that my stomach started to complain after I ate some cereal with milk yesterday morning.

Later this evening, I felt good enough to go and check out the gym available to use at the Q. Since I've been neglecting my biking routine, and the fact that I'm a bit far away from campus to access the normal biking route I usually take, I decided to hop onto one of the biking machines and crank out the miles from there. I only managed to get about 5.2 miles in 15 minutes, but I set the workout on "hill" mode, which basically made the pedaling progressively harder as time went on. I also did some weights with my arms and using the inclined situp thingie.

In sort of an interesting experiment this afternoon, I was able to give Kabitzin a virtual tour of my apartment using my laptop, my webcam, and my wireless router via AIM. So for those who want a virtual tour, feel free to send me a msg or email :P

Friday, July 8, 2005

New Cove pics

Sorry for the clutter in the pictures. I took it this morning before David and I really started cleaning up.

Entrance
Garage Door Entrance
Kitchen and part of Living Room
Living Room, with David partially blocking the picture
Exit to the porch
View outside the porch
Kitchen
Better view of Kitchen
Entrance to my room and my bathroom
My messy room
My messy bed
My messy walk-in closet
Bathroom
Shower

Movin movin movin....

Man, what a tiring day. I woke up at 5:44 am this morning, and after several hours of packing and moving back and forth between my dorm and my new apartment, David and I managed to get all of our stuff into the new apartment by 10 pm! Right now it's 2:05 am on Friday morning, so I'm probably going to konk out at any time. Thank goodness the new apartment room is on the first floor; otherwise, I think I probably would have died of heat exhaustion from all that moving. Pics to come soon of the new cove!

Thursday, July 7, 2005

All thoughts and prayers are with those in London

Of all the times I wake up at 5:44 am in the morning, the last thing I would have predicted to see on TV was a terrorist attack in London. I hope that the people and leaders of the UK decide to take action now about the terrorists after backing off on their efforts before. Also, I hope the G8 conference leaders come up with some sort of collective plan to deal with the terrorists as well.

Wednesday, July 6, 2005

Time to pack...

I just got back to Ohio again today with a minivan filled with the following.

1. Sofa
2. Bed
3. Dresser
4. Night Stand
5. 2 Bar Chairs

Yeah it took some ingenuity, but I somehow managed to get all of the above in there. I would take a pic of it, but my rechargeable batteries had died on me over the weekend.

In the meantime, it's time for lone me to figure out how to pack everything in my old cove into boxes since tomorrow is moving day into the Q. So far, the box count is up to 13 and rising :( Anyone want to come over to Columbus and help me out?

Phear teh cuteness!



This pic is stolen from Adscion, who stole it from Planetdan.

woodPod

Check out this nifty wooden mod applied onto the iPod.

Sunday, July 3, 2005

Happy 4th of July!

Although it's a bit early, I just want to wish all my friends a safe and happy 4th of July! ^_^

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

New Cove on July 7th!

My friend David and I finally signed the papers yesterday to move out of on-campus housing and into the Quarry Apartments. A couple of friends of ours hosted poker for us in their apartment at the Quarry, and I initially thought they were paying quite a lot to live there. But when I found out that they were paying LESS per month than I was with on-campus housing, I began pondering the possibilities. We took a tour of the place yesterday, first looking at the Sapphire configuration and then the Topaz configuration. We liked both of them, but the Sapphire configuration felt a bit bigger and only cost about $40 more, and we found out later that it came with a free garage if we decided to get the Sapphire on the first floor, so the deal was pretty much sealed right there once we heard that :P Also, the list of perks is absolutely huge too. I set up the gas and electric stuff today, but I'm still debating between getting either SBC DSL or Road Runner. I think SBC will be cheaper since they're offering it for $14.95/month if you sign a year contract, but we probably need to get local phone service with them too. Anyone have experience with both?

In poker news, when you get a fortune in your fortune cookie at lunch that looks like this, you know that the poker cards will be falling your way :P Well, the fortune proved to be true again as I managed to claw my way into the winner's circle last night in poker. Guess I should finally go get Guild Wars now since I've won enough to cover the costs :P

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Google Earth

At this rate, AAA will go bankrupt from the lack of map sales.

Click here to see the awesomeness!

Monday, June 27, 2005

2.5 Billion Pixel Picture

Check it out here! There is one glitch in this pic, so see if you can find it ;)

Saturday, June 25, 2005

Progress Report

So far so good with my biking plan. For the first week I managed to rack up 73.8 miles of trekking, which is way more than I expected, but hey, I like getting off to good starts :) I think I'll keep it at 50 for now since the weather had been pretty sunny for the past week, and I was able to get out whenever I wanted to get the miles in. In case you're wondering, I bought an odometer for my bike to measure the miles and have a sense of how fast I'm going. So far I've been averaging around 14 or so miles per hour on the trails. As for my weight, I weighted myself at a gym and currently I'm at 183 or so, down from my initial weight of 187, and I can sort of see a difference as the fat around my stomach is slowly disappearing as well. Unfortunately, I treated myself to 5 Arby's Melts in one sitting at lunch :( But then again, I didn't eat dinner today, so hopefully it'll all balance out :P

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

111!!!!EnohpAnanaB o_O

Just when you thought you couldn't get enough bananaphone, right click and save here for Bananaphone backwards! o_O

All in once again, but just came up short.

This past night was poker night once again, except this time some of my friends are working out at Dayton, so several of my friends and I drove out there to play. To make a long story short (because I need to get my Zzzz's in -.-), I came in 2nd place this time, but it was a crazy crazy game, so I feel pretty fortunate to make my money back :P

Riddle of the Day

If you tie a helium-filled balloon inside your car and then accelerate your car all of a sudden, which way will the balloon lean? Post your answers in the comments :) I'll post the answer tomorrow if enough people inquire :P

UPDATE

The balloon will lean foward in the direction you are driving when you accelerate. The reason for this has to do with the difference in density between helium and the surrounding air in the car. To imagine this a little better, imagine you have a sealed cube half filled with liquid and the other half is just air. If you sit that cube in the car and then accelerate the car, the liquid will slosh backwards while the air will go foward. For a more scientific explanation, go here.

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Deal of the Day

Go to your nearby Chipotle and if you buy a burrito, save the receipt for a free burrito up till this Sunday!

Monday, June 20, 2005

Early morning call...

For whatever reason, I managed to wake up first at 5:31 am this morning, and then I finally got out of bed at 5:48 am after laying back and trying to get back to sleep without success. I think I know the reason why, but I'm not gonna bore you guys with the details.

Back in day, Addie came up with her own jogging plan called the "Nifty Fifty" where the plan I think was to be able to jog/run/rollerblade up to 50 miles in a month. I've decided to borrow that name and see if I can do my "Nifty Fifty" every week on my mountain bike. Sitting down at the office all day doesn't do much for the body, so it's time to get fit one mile at a time! There's a nice bike trail right next to campus that's pretty well shaded and lenghty, so I'm going to take advantage of it as much as I can. According to the BMI calculator, at 5 foot 11 inches and 187 pounds, I'm considered overweight >.< Target Weight: 175 pounds. Hopefully the occasional visit to the driving range will help too :P

Sunday, June 19, 2005

Freakin Brothers...

All I have to say is o_O

Click here to see an interesting way of playing piano...

Duck Sightseeing

Since it was a nice day outside and I wanted to clear my head a bit, I went out for a walk with my digital camera and caught some pics of the ducks near Crystal Lake. I also caught what I think is a video of ducks mating, but it's pretty violent o_O.

Hey! Why're you sniffing my tail feathers?!?
Mama duck leading her ducklings on the dangers of jumping from high ground.
2 Ducks cooling off with some refreshing lake water
Penguin Mama Duck looks after her ducklings
Video: Male Ducks gone wild! (9.8 meg)
Video: Mama Duck and her Ducklings (5.2 megs)

Only in Japan....

would you ever find Gel.TV. But I got a good laugh out of it, and you probably will too :P

PSA of the day

It's Father's Day today, so don't forget to give your dad a call and tell them how important they are ^_^

Saturday, June 18, 2005

Batman Begins....and rocks the house!

I went to see Batman Begins on Friday night and Saturday afternoon, and I must say it's definately the best Batman movie to date. While the last two Batman films have been sort of cartoony and have laughable villians, Batman Begins brings the audience to a more gritty and darker time, and the way the movie unveils the steady transformation of Bruce Wayne into the Dark Knight is simply brilliant. There was very little use of CG in this movie, which brings out sort of a mysteriousness in watching Batman take down the villians. I only have 2 complains about the movie. The first complaint I have is that the fight sequences were filmed a bit too closely, as in the camera was so close to the action it's difficult to follow what's going on. The second complaint was Kate Holmes' character. She really don't bring that much overall to the movie except maybe to be Bruce Wayne's companion. But besides that, the movie is well acted and made, and Christian Bale pulls off the caped crusader very well. I saw it in a PACKED house on Friday night, and the entire crowd was into the movie the entire time. And if you need one more reason to see it, I have two words: the tumbler. :)

Pic of the Day: Awwwwwwwweeeeeee! :) (You may need to copy/paste the URL)

Friday, June 17, 2005

Triumph strikes once again!

When you combine Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and fans lining up outside the Michael Jackson trial, poop is guarenteed to hit the fan.

The final product looks like what!?!?!

Here's a pretty funny but true comic showing the development of a product.

Thursday, June 16, 2005

All in for teh win!

After some mediocre showings the past several weeks in poker, I finally break through once again to the winner's circle :) Actually, I didn't even know that there was going to be a poker night this Thursday, but I figured hey, might as well go in and have some fun. I played pretty conservatively in the beginning (actually, most of my hands sucked pretty hard), and there was one guy named Brian who began chopping people out of the game with his various "lucky" hands.

Eventually, the group of 9 phased down to 4, with me being the low stack with around $600 or so, and Brian was way ahead of the group with a huge chip lead. In the 1st or 2nd played with the group of 4, I get a pocket pair of 5s. Usually, a low pocket pair wouldn't do too much in a huge group, but with a low number of people, it can be a decent hand to play. The blinds were already up pretty high at $50/$100, so I pushed all my chips in hoping that no one else had a pocket pair or decent hand. Two drop out, and it was left to Brian to decide. After deciding for a while, he finally decides to call my hand. I turn over my pocket 5s, and I was sort of shocked to see that he called with a 3/6 offsuit, which probably worked in my favor since his chances of making a straight are greatly diminished since I had half the 5's in my hand :P The flop, turn, and river cards come out, and my pair of 5's hold up! Hurray for doubling up! A couple of hands later, Brian puts in a significant raise in one of the hands, and I look down to my cards and see pocket aces :) Well, all in I go again, and Brian once again calls. This time his hand is better (Ace/King off-suit), but I'm still ahead, and I ride the aces to teh win once again ^_^ From there I played pretty conservatively and won the few hands I played in, and eventually held off Brian at the end by winning on a flush on the river card :)

I've also discovered how my Razr is able to take some pseudo-decent pictures, so here're some for your enjoyment :P

Dog with a diaper
KFC decides to raise their prices since people think their chicken is irresistible

Now this has sort of an interesting story to it. It was one of those really hot days early last week, and my friends and I were at Penn Station getting some lunch when David points out this interesting person standing outside. Apparently this person was the president of some sort of "happy" society and was handing out smiles.

I just think these mini tents are cute ^_^

This isn't from my camera, but my friend David took this amusing picture :P

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Phear teh cuteness!

I think Kabitzin should submit some pics of Sydney here and see how Sydney stacks up with the rest of the pack as kittens battle for the title of cutest kitten!

In other news, I picked up some new golf clubs at Target that were on sale. So far, my new clubs and I have hit it off pretty well during my two trips to the nearby driving range. I had been using one of my friend's set, but the set I have now for some reason react much better to my swing as I've been able to get the ball up in the air on 4 of 5 shots using the irons. The set even came with covers on the woods, and the golf bag has these nifty stand-up feet that come out when you set the bag down at an angle. So look out Tiger Woods, Kungfucius will be on your trail in a few years! :P

Last note: Go see Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Addie and I caught a showing last night and we both agree it's a great popcorn flick with good humor and action!

Thursday, June 9, 2005

Lern yor txt lingo hEr!

Although I dun uz txt msgN dat much, Im suR som of U wiL git a kick out of trying various combinations & CN wot U git!

clik me!

Wednesday, June 8, 2005

Burger Inflation

After buying my brother's birthday present today, I headed to Wendy's to get some dinner. Normally, I order off their 99 cent value menu since I like their 99 cent burgers (and I don't like fries that much anymore), but today when I went to get my usual Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger and Jr. Cheeseburger Deluxe, I saw that Wendy's has now raised the price of the Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger to $1.29! But since I had $4 in Wendy's gift certificates to spend, I figured I might as well take the blow and eat happily rather then sulk about it.

For my brother's birthday, I got him a nice and hefty poker set shown here!

Phear the Alumium Case!
Those are 11.5 g Chips in there.

On a different note, this pizza man should be given a big tip for the trouble he has gone through to deliver pizzas.

Smack talk

My Icelandic friend David showed me a webpage from his friend Ryan, who according to David has put a lot of programming effort into it.

Click me!

Tuesday, June 7, 2005

You know it's hot

when a can of soda does this inside your car.

Intel Inside an Apple confirmed!

In what could be described as Hell freezing over in the PC world, Apple and Intel have decided to join forces, and next year on June 6, 2006 (666 :P), Apple will begin to ship out computers powered by Intel Pentium chips. Apparently every iteration of OS X had both a PowerPC and x86 version, and Apple was just waiting for the right moment to pull the trigger. About a year or so ago, Steve Jobs had promised that the Mac would hit 3 GHz, but apparently due to IBM's lackluster efforts, Macs have still yet to hit 3 GHz. Although I'm not completely up to date on the details, an Intel-powered Mac will apparently be able to run BOTH OS X and Windows, but those looking to run OS X on their current x86 PCs will be disappointed to hear that OS X will only run on an Intel Mac. This transition is projected to last 2 years.

As far as I can see, in the short run, Mac sales might take a big hit since there will be people (like me :P) who will probably wait and see how the first iteration of the Intel Mac will run. Although Apple said they will likely continue support of PowerPC applications, other software writers may drop writing for PowerPC altogether since it would likely save time and money, making a PowerPC Mac even less attractive. The next 2 years will definately be interesting for Apple, but if they manage to offer a Mac Mini with a dual-core Pentium M, 1 gig of ram, and a decent graphics card for $499, I'll be the first to line up and get one :)

Monday, June 6, 2005

Neat Illusions

Check out this website chalk full of visual illusions :)

Sunday, June 5, 2005

Duck Tales

My friend David (not you David, my Iceland friend David :P) and I did some bike riding on Saturday along some of the bike routes nearby on campus. We planned to ride out on the path and stop at a nearby shopping plaza to get lunch and see the cool stuff at Microcenter. Well, we got to the plaza and were biking past a K-mart when we heard some car beeping ahead. I looked ahead and saw two cars looking like they were both trying to make the same turn, but neither could agree on when to turn. So I didn't think too much of it, but for some reason I kept watching the cars, and lo and behold, it wasn't road rage causing the cars to beep, but a duck was waddling on the middle of the road! David and I continued to watch the duck as we biked closer and closer to it, and the duck peered at the entrance to K-Mart, and started walking towards it looking like it wanted to go shopping! A k-mart employee then came out and blocked the entrance. The duck stared down the employee, but then turned around. K-mart must have had some big discount on duck food or something.

Behind this van...
The duck appears!!!
The duck walks away a disgrunted shopper

Friday, June 3, 2005

Get your cheap gas searching here!

Check out this site and see if you can find some good prices on gas where you live :)

Intel Inside.....an Apple?!?!

This should be interesting for the PC/Mac industry if this news article turns out to be true. If they have an aluminium Powerbook running on a Pentium M with 6 hour battery life, sign me up!!!!

Now we just need to have your dog get a cell phone....

Have a 3 year old? Now you can equip them with their very own cell phone! However, I do admit that these cell phones look very cute ^_^

If you're looking for something more evil, check out this list of things you would do if you became an evil overlord!

Wednesday, June 1, 2005

Improved Customer Service?

I know Kabitzin is a fan of Ikea furniture, but I don't know if he would like to get some customer service from Anna, the online bot.

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

Old Video Game Tunes from the past...

In acapella form! Acapellas always amaze me in their creative ways, and this video shows that this acapella is no exception :)

Monday, May 16, 2005

Hurray for new stuff!

It's that time again where Kungfucius breaks out his wallet for those good deals too good to refuse! Staples is having their 19th anniversary sale, so today I picked up 3 items. The first item is a shiny new crimson Microsoft Wireless Intellimouse, which has a nifty tilting scroll wheel, and the guy at the counter said that he had one of these and was still running on the same set of batteries for the past 2 months. Since this mouse retails for around $50, you can't go wrong picking it up for $13 :) The next thing was a 802.11b Linksys router. Since my 700m only has an 802.11b card, there wasn't any real good reason to get a G version, plus for $5 afte rebate, you should pick one up for your dog and cat :P The last item was a 16x Dual Layer DVD burner. Since I've been hanging on to my DVD/CD-RW combo that burns CDs at 4x, I figured it was time for an upgrade, and for a fast burner for $40 that does dual layer, it's definately one to get. However, I've tried backing up some things and found it's only burning at 8x so far, but since it only takes around 7 to 8 minutes to burn a DVD (as opposed to 15 minutes with my previous burner on a CD), I won't complain too much. Oh, for those who are looking for DVD+(or -) media, Staples is selling a pack of 50 for $7.94, so if you're in the need for some blanks, definately go and pick some up :) And if you do decide to go and buy stuff at Staples this week, print yourself this coupon and save 12% :)

Another nifty thing about Staples is how they handle rebates. If you have an internet connection, you can apply for the rebates online, type in some numbers, and boom, your rebate is all set! And you save on stamps in the meantime!

Saturday, May 14, 2005

Next Generation Video Game Consoles

The next generation gaming systems are lining up to look pretty interesting. The X-box 360 showed itself on an MTV special, complete with wireless controllers, 3 cpu cores, and "free" X-box live on the weekends. For those who missed it, you can take a look at a video here and check out the specs. Meanwhile, there's some speculation about the Nintendo revolution, but if it turns out to be anything like this, I'll be pretty darn impressed!

Saturday, May 7, 2005

Someone's mail server has a malfuction...

Looks like the residential hall mail server seems to be going bonkers these days as you can see in my email inbox...

Thursday, May 5, 2005

Man....

I just realized my laundry detergent is no where to be found, so I probably left it in the laundry room, which means that other people probably used it up already >.<

Semi-Sharingan

Apparently, Nike has developed a special contact lense for sports players to help them see better in their respective sports. But you gotta love the red and purple outlines it puts on your eyes @_@

Wednesday, May 4, 2005

Still alive here...

Sorry for the recent lack of updates. I've been sorta busy studying for my one miderm and prepping for a presentation this week, so it's been sort of a hassle trying to get things all together. On top of that, I've been falling behind on my anime reviews >.< But I will definately try to catch back up over the weekend!

My PC's hard drive decided to play a mean trick on me this morning and pretend that it had kicked the bucket. I booted up my PC after waking up only to hear the uneasy "click....click....click..." after the BIOS screen went through and when my PC tried to load Windows. After I came home from my midterm, I took a closer look at it to see if there were any connections that had loosened and such. It was a Seagate hard drive, and I haven't really done anything overly intensive on it, although I must admit I probably should get a better power supply since my PC seems to whine a lot while I'm running Folding@home in the background (Folding@home keeps your CPU usage basically at 100% all the time, so my CPU is probably trying to gobble up as much power as it can). After quickly running to the computer labs to make some boot disks for one of Seagate's diagnostic programs and booting it up on my PC, I was glad to find that the physical drive itself was pretty much intact since the surface scan came up clean. However, the filing system itself had laid an egg on me, which meant it was time to reinstall Windows once again (I had already done a new installation 2 weeks ago). But, I was glad knowing that I didn't have to shell out $$ to get myself a new drive, and thankfully I had my 300 gigger to store all my anime, so no anime episodes were lost :)

Wednesday, April 27, 2005

What Kind of Asian are you?

As inspired from here.

Young Asians in America come in many forms. Below are the major categories. Most Asians fit into multiple groups. For example, Rice-boys can also be Fobs and many Tabs are Fobulous. The only groups that are never part of another group are the Twinkies and the Asian-Americans. Claim your Fobbiness! When you see your Asian friend, greet them with "Wassup Fob!" And if your Asian friend says something ridiculous, say "Fob please!" Of course, when a non-Asian calls you a Fob, that is grounds for a fight. Ahahaha... The categories below are to be taken lightheartedly. Read, recognize and laugh.

Twinkie
- Besides your nationality, there is little to distinguish you from white people
- Your significant other is not Asian and never has been
- You have few Asian friends, if any
- You are embarrassed at family events because you cannot speak your language and everyone has to switch to English to communicate with you
- You have no idea that the other types of Asians on this list even exist
- You think Hello Kitty is dumb and do not know what Sanrio is
- You are the only Asian on this list that does not know what Bubble Tea is
- You drive a Ford or some other domestic car and if you drive a Honda, it is stock

Asian-American
- You claim yourself as Asian, but real Asians think you're whitewashed and non-Asians see you as a foreigner. You fit in nowhere
- You have heard of Bubble Tea but have never actually had any
- You are confused about your cultural identity and express this frustration through spoken word performances at your college
- You read A. magazine and think it's great
- You do not know who Leon, Aaron, Sammi, Hikki, or Kangta are
- You are only vaguely aware of the other Asians below

Yap (Young Asian Professional)
- You are in one of these professions:
a) Medicine / Pharmaceutical
b) Engineering
c) Finance
d) Investment Banking
e) Accounting
- Most of your wardrobe was purchased at Banana Republic
- You go to "mixers" on Thursday nights to meet other Yaps and talk about the Dow Jones.
- You did exactly what your parents wanted you to do and as a result, your life is hella boring
- Your apartment/home is decorated almost exclusively with stuff from Pier 1
- Your parents always talk to their friends about how much money you make. If they don't, then you're a dissapointment

Fob (Fresh Off tha Boat)
- You were not born in America
- You know who Leon, Aaron, Sammi, Hikki, and Kangta are. In fact, you have seen them at Atlantic City or Las Vegas recently
- You speak your native language fluently and so do all your friends
- You do not have any non-Asian friends
- Your parents do not speak any English
- When you speak English, you like to make everything plural
- You get extremely good grades in school
- You cannot dance
- Your fashion sense comes from whatever country you're from and you incorporate nothing from American fashion into your wardrobe

SuperFob
- Your command of the English language is minimal and you don't care
- You like dim sum chicken feet
- You do not own a single CD, VCD, Video game, or DVD that isn't bootlegged
- Your only hangout is Chinatown
- All the lights in your house are fluorescent
- You dry your cloths outside your window
- You need a haircut
- You either smell like cigarettes or food

Fobabee
- You are an Asian-American or Twinkie who has recently "awoken"
- You have a newly found fetish of Asian girls/boys
- You have taken the Asian Studies course at college
- You are trying to learn as much as possible about your culture to make up for your lifetime of trying to be white (Twinkie ; Banana) or Black (Chigger ; Tea egg)
- If you are lucky, you will grow to become Fobulous

Gangsta Fob (Fobsta)
- You have shot another Asian
- Your favorite hangout is a pool hall
- When you talk, you sound like a cross between a Fob and an urban black kid
- Your hair looks silly, but no one will tell you because you'll shoot them
- You have a serious gambling problem
- You are a Rice-boy, but your mods are cheap and are never painted to match the rest of your car
- No one tells you your rice ride looks cheap because you'll shoot them
- You want to have a Tab girlfriend, but can only get Hoochie Tabs

Tab (Trendy Asian B*tch)
- You shop at A/X, Bebe and Club Monaco
- You only wear black and will occasionally wear white to "mix it up"
- You do not weigh more than 105 lbs
- You have never paid for dinner at a restaurant in your life
- Platform heels are your favorite
- You are a makeup expert, in fact, you appear completely flawless
- You do not smile in public
- You are the object of desire of all Asian men and you know it
- You smoke
- Your cell phone is completely customized
- On the inside flip of your cell phone is a sticker pic of you and your man
- Somewhere in your purse is a Sanrio item
- You only date Asian and will only date a boy with a nice car
- You are often seen with Rice-boys
- You never travel alone. You are either in the company of other Tabs or your Rice-boy boyfriend

Hoochie Tab
- You are an import car model
- Your boobs are not real
- There are naked pictures of you floating around on the internet somewhere
- Stiletto heels are your favorite
- Your role models are Francine Dee and Kaila Yu
- Your boyfriend is a Gangsta Fob
- You cheat on your boyfriend
- Unlike most Asians, you do not do well in school

Rice-Boy
- You drive an Asian import. Usually a Honda or Acura
- Your souped up car (known as a Rice-ride or Rice-rocket) is unrecognizable from it's original stock form
- Your exhaust pipe is big enough for your head to fit in
- The spoiler on your car looks like it was made by Boeing
- The interior of your car also looks like it was designed by Boeing
- You always drive like you are racing someone
- You are not afraid of dying in a crash, but you are afraid of speed bumps and parking lot on-ramps
- The only other person besides yourself who can sit in your car is your 105 lbs Tab girlfriend. If anyone else sits in your car, the entire bottom of it will be touching the ground
- Even though your car is a Honda, it goes faster and is worth more than a Lotus Esprit
- If you drive a Civic, your dream car is a Supra. If you drive a Supra, your dream car is a Skyline (which you can never have). Poor Rice-boy.

Fobulous
- You speak perfect English and you are fluent in your native language
- You have Asian friends as well as non-Asian friends
- You listen to Asian pop as well as American music
- You are equally aware of both popular American culture and Asian pop culture
- You are a good dancer
- You date Asian by choice even though you could rock the opposite sex of any other race
- You are a good designer and have superior Html skills
- You have an Apt107 page AND an AA page and the guest books in both are packed
- For you, FOB stands for Fabulous Oriental Being
- You have lots of Asian pride