American Airlines Flight 10

I’m on the red eye flight from LAX to JFK and we’re about 90 minutes from New York. There is wifi on this flight and it appears to be a 11g wireless router. I’m not actually going to post this from the flight since I was too cheap to pay the $5.95 fee. It’s supposed to go up to $12.95 after a promo period. Without paying the fee, you can access AA.com and some stories from WSJ. Since you can’t use your cell phone on flights, it would be cool to be able to use Skype or MSN Messenger. If they offer this on Cathay Pacific, I’d definitely pay to use it now that I have a computer that can run 8+ hours on batteries.

I’m in one of the exit row seats on a Boeing 767. I think it’s the first time I’ve been on this type of plane; usually I’m on a 737, 747, or Airbus A320. On the way back to LA, I’m on two consecutive MD-80 flights. I don’t think I’ve been on one of those either. I got a free pass for AA’s Admirals Club right before I left so I’ll probably use that during my 3 hour layover in Chicago. Interestingly, this is the first time I’ve sat in an exit row seat domestically. I usually select seats on my own and exit row/bulkhead seats are always unavailable. This time I called the AA Platinum phone number since I had to reuse a previously cancelled free flight, and the reservation person just gave me exit row seats on all 4 flights. I also had to pay $0.40 on my credit card since the international flight taxes went up a bit (I had to pay $40 when I initially reserved the flight).

Dang it. The flight map shows that we’re flying over Detroit. If I was on the direct LAX to YYZ flight, I would be there in another 30 minutes. Instead, I have another hour to New York, and won’t get to Toronto for another 5+ hours. At least it’s more bearable than the 15 hour flight from LA to Hong Kong. I think my sister is going to pick me up from Pearson Airport. I called her right after I cleared security in LA and she happened to just get off her flight in Toronto at ~11pm Eastern Time. I’m making her go back to the airport after ~11 hours but I’m returning the favor by dropping her off next Wednesday really really really early for a 7am flight back home. They need to make these airport things more convienent.

2NE1

Another day, another K-pop group. This one (2NE1) is from YG Entertainment, which typically has more hip-hoppy artists.


2NE1's debut on Inkigayo... pretty elaborate.

One interesting thing about 2NE1 is one of their members, Park Bom Lee, actually went to Berklee College of Music here in the US (Boston). That's pretty impressive. Not sure why they didn't make her the group leader since she's the oldest. Probably because she hasn't been with YG that long and the actual "leader" trained with YG for 7 years. Still... Berklee! At least they made her the lead singer.

2009-10 California State Budget

I read in the news that proposition 1A through 1E were defeated in the California special election yesterday. I'm not sure what Arnold and the rest of the legislator were thinking. Did they actually think people were going to vote for more taxes at this time? What a waste of money.

Since I basically do budgeting for a living, I wanted to take a look at the budget proposal. Supposedly there is a $42 billion shortfall on a budget of $135 billion. What kind of idiots submit a budget where the deficit is ~45% of the expected revenue? To quote our CFO, they're "spending money like a bunch of drunken sailors!"

The budget summary PDF file is 175 pages so it will take some time to read but there's an interesting chart on page 69 in the Revenue Estimates section. I'll need to figure out how to cut out the chart but here's the accompanying text:

Modeled closely on the federal income tax law, California’s personal income tax is imposed on net taxable income: that is, gross income less exclusions and deductions. The tax is steeply progressive, with rates ranging from 1 percent to 9.3 percent. Figure REV‑03, which shows the percent of total returns and tax paid by adjusted gross income class, illustrates the progressivity. In 2006, the top 15 percent of state taxpayers, those with adjusted gross incomes (AGI) over $100,000, paid 84 percent of the personal income tax. The top 1 percent of state taxpayers, those with AGI over $480,940, paid 48 percent of the personal income tax. Changes in the income of a relatively small group of taxpayers can have a significant impact on state revenues.

So I fall into the >$100k category, along with most of the people I work with. We're already paying a huge portion of the personal income taxes, which makes up ~50% of all tax revenues. From the chart, people making <$50k (~65% of the population) pay zero state income tax. How is that fair? Don't they consume state government resources? I paid ~$25k in state taxes last year, not counting sales tax on stuff I bought. I'm 100% positive that I didn't cost the state of California anywhere near that much.

Chinese Singing Show To Go On, With a New Name and Conditions

Sigh... I really don't get it. What is the CCP afraid of? Is it the public voting? Is the competition is not "patriotic" enough because they're singing pop songs? Or is it just a knee-jerk reaction to control anything that's popular?

Wall Street Journal

After a two-year absence, the enormously popular Super Girls, China’s single-sex answer to American Idol, is back, albeit under a new name. This time, it’s called “Happy Girls” (快乐女声 in Chinese), according to Xinhua News Agency.

...

A spokesman for Hunan Satellite Television told the media late last month that a revival of the televised singing competition had been approved by the Sarft, though not without several conditions attached.

These conditions include the following: the competition may last no more than two months (about half the length of an American Idol season); episodes may only air after 10:30 pm; judges must be appropriately dressed and use proper language; competitors are not allowed to hug each other or shed tears on stage; and there must not be any fan groups cheering for contestants in the studio audience. Meanwhile, all forms of public voting for contestants, including mobile text messaging and online polls, will be prohibited, as reported by the Chinese-language media.

Maybe SARFT just don't want people to be entertained, or happy.

==========



I saw Jane Zhang in concert a few years ago in Pasadena with Leon and Fred. She finished in 3rd place in the 2005 Super Girl competition.

No More Free Credit

I'm too disgusted to comment on this kind or crap anymore.

New York Times

Credit Card Industry Aims to Profit From Sterling Payers

Credit cards have long been a very good deal for people who pay their bills on time and in full. Even as card companies imposed punitive fees and penalties on those late with their payments, the best customers racked up cash-back rewards, frequent-flier miles and other perks in recent years.

Now Congress is moving to limit the penalties on riskier borrowers, who have become a prime source of billions of dollars in fee revenue for the industry. And to make up for lost income, the card companies are going after those people with sterling credit.

Banks are expected to look at reviving annual fees, curtailing cash-back and other rewards programs and charging interest immediately on a purchase instead of allowing a grace period of weeks, according to bank officials and trade groups.

Earthquake!

5.0 4.7 earthquake at around 8:40pm near Lennox, CA (close to LAX). I was in Torrance which is pretty close to the epicenter so the shaking (more like a jolt) was quite intense.

Empress Pavilion

We had lunch yesterday with Tim and Chris(tine) at Empress Pavilion. It's probably the best dim sum place in LA Chinatown. Tim used to be the assistant/associate pastor at CCCSB a long time ago. Currently they are missionaries in Kenya working with Africa Inland Mission. I think this is their second furlough and they'll be back in Kenya in August.


The food was pretty good. I used to come here every Saturday with Haley for takeout. We were volunteer tutors at an elementary school down the street.


The restaurant is huge but it still fills up quickly on weekends. I waited ~1.5 hours once for a table. I once saw Lisa Ling eating dim sum here; her sister is one of the reporters currently kidnapped by the North Korean government.

PS3 Pinball Game

I just bought a pinball (Zen Pinball) game for my PS3 online from the Playstation Store using the PS3. It's way too convenient... and dangerous on the wallet. The game is 319MB and it's downloading right now. My wireless network has been a bit flaky lately so I hope this works. 35 minutes for a 300MB download seems like a long time.

I'm sitting in the living room blogging this from my netbook, which is also on the same wireless network, while watching the game download. How did we live before all this technology?!

==========

Eehh, the pinball game is so so. I guess I should expect too much for $9.99. The main problem with pinball games is that the pinball table is long and narrow portrait but the HD TV image is long and narrow landscape. The game has lots of views but the fixed perspective views only show the bottom of the table clearly while the moving views move way too fast for me to figure out what's going on. There are 4 tables but they all seem similar with lots of tracks that carry the ball all over the place, or so it seems. The graphics are pretty nice but I still like Space Cadet Pinball that came with Windows (but not Vista) and Pinball Construction Set by EA on the Apple II. :)

Bleach

There was only one season of xxxHolic on Hulu so I started watching another series called Bleach. I think I saw the first few episodes awhile ago then downloaded a couple of full-length movies. Hulu only has episodes 1-75 and 80-83 but I found the rest on Veoh with subtitles from Bleach Portal. From the Wikipedia article, season 10 is about to start. I just finished watching episode 91 which is the end of season 4 so there is a lot to watch.


It looks like there's third Bleach movie out. :)

Koda Kumi (倖田來未) DVD's

After posting the 2009 KTMF videos last week, a lot of people subscribed to my YouTube channel so I feel pressured to upload some content. :)

I bought both her "Best" CD/DVD in Taiwan a few years ago. However, since the DVD's were encoded to Region 3, I've been only able to watch them on my DVD/Karaoke player; it plays almost every disc format known. I have been reluctant to change the DVD player on my personal computers away from Region 1 so I changed it on my work computer and ripped both DVD's. There were a total of 30 music videos. I downloaded a lot of her stuff before so now I have ~60 Koda Kumi MV's. She must be very busy.

I'm going to upload videos that I can't find on YouTube or if there are only low quality versions. I ripped everything at 720x480 @6000kbps so the actual files are ~250MB each and take forever to upload and process.

Here's the first one:

Bad Chinese Fast Food

I think I'm buying dinner at Chipotle too often. Three of the regular workers there recognize me and know what I usually order. To try something different, I went to a Chinese fast food place (2 item combo, etc.) across the street. It was called "New Panda" and I should have known it was going to be bad just from the name. I ate only about 1/4 of what they gave me.

I wish Sam Woo was a lot closer to home. :(

Slumdog star's home is demolished

This is pretty lame. The movie pulled in $200M at the box office plus who knows how much DVD sales in the future and they can't help one family move out of the slums? What does it cost for a small apartment in Mumbai? $5k? $10k? $20k? Out of all the profits from the movie, they can't even find that bit of money? How much did they pay the kids for their part anyway?

BBC News

The Mumbai slum home of one of the child stars of the Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire has been demolished by city authorities.

Reports say that police smacked the boy, Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, with a bamboo stick before ordering him out.

The authorities claim he and other families were squatting on land that was owned by the government.

He played a younger version of one of the main characters in the film, which scooped eight Oscars.

"We are homeless, we have nowhere to go," Azharuddin said after the demolition.

The family lived in a temporary makeshift shelter made up of plastic sheets over bamboo sticks, in a slum near Bandra East in Mumbai.

YouTube Videos

So I am still mad at myself for accidentally deleting a video I recorded of Baek Ji Young this past Saturday. Oh well, I'll just have to find another one of her concerts to attend... maybe in Korea!

After uploading the "fancam" videos to YouTube, some of them have been getting a few hits. The most popular one so far is Lena Park and Jessica (SNSD) singing You Raise Me Up with almost 8,000 views. A lot of people (even from South Korea) subscribed to my "channel" on YouTube. I think they will be disappointed since I hardly ever upload anything; this will probably be my first and last K-pop concert, unless Baek Ji Young comes to LA again. :)


Somebody else's recording of 입술을 주고 by Baek Ji Young

Some people comments that the quality of the videos were very good. I actually thought they were pretty crappy since I had to shoot at max zoom (280mm) on my camera. Since it's not a camcorder, I couldn't change the zoom while recording and the sound quality was pretty bad. However, compared to the typical 30 second, wildly shaking clips, I guess my videos were decent by comparison. It's probably more of a function of the image-stabilization system of the camera than technique.

I also got tricked by the camera into taking low quality videos at first. At the highest quality setting (30fps VGA), it said I could record only 22:34 of video. That only works out to 4-5 songs, plus I wanted to take photos, so I set the recording to 320x240 (30fps QVGA) during the first half of the concert; I switch back to 640x480 when SNSD came out. After downloading the videos to my computer, I noticed that the low quality videos were about 140MB for 5 minutes and the high quality videos were about 300MB for 4 minutes. That means I could have shot 50+ minutes on my 4GB SDHC card. The VGA videos look much better since they're 4x the size. That's good to know if I go to this concert next year.

California Bankruptcy

Los Angeles Times

California could be broke by July, state official warns

Despite the budget fix enacted in February, the state is on track to come up $23 billion short of what it needs to get through the year, the Legislature's chief budget analyst says.

Where is all the money being spent? Why aren't they cutting more spending instead of raising taxes? I saw an increase in my state taxes on my past paycheck and it's not because I got a raise. When our company needed to improve the bottom line, we cut millions out of the budget. Maybe this financial crisis is a good opportunity for California to file bankruptcy, restructure its debt, reset every department's budget to zero, and have them justify all future spending in light of the current tax revenue projections. Just because there was an entitlement during fat years should not result in perpetual spending. This will never happen of course since the Democrats are in charge. They need to keep paying off their "constituents" so they can stay in office.

K-pop Concert Photos and Videos

Yesterday was a long day. I brought a friend along to the concert so I had to pick her up in Torrance before heading to Hollywood Bowl; it was a lot of driving. I left my apartment before 4pm and didn't get home until 1:30am this morning. The concert itself was long, from 6:30pm until almost 11pm since there were many peformers and each had to sing 3-4 songs. As expected, I didn't understand anything that was said since 99% of the time everyone spoke Korean. Overall the performances were pretty good and there were a lot of crazy fans. I thought I was going to be the oldest guy at the concert but there were a lot of older people, probably there to listed to the opera singer.

However, the sound engineering, especially near the end (when all the big-name acts were on-stage) was terrible. They had the volume cranked way too loud and you could barely hear the vocals over the distortion. I'm not sure whether it's because the instrumental tracks were mixed incorrectly for the Hollywood Bowl sound system or if the sound techs were incompetent, but I couldn't make out much of the lyrics (that I don't understand anyway).

Here are some photos. Our seats were in Terrace Box 1322 which is much much closer than I've ever sat at Hollywood Bowl. The face value on the tickets were $125; I paid $75 each for them.


Lots and lots of people in line to get in. The security check was almost non-existent. I should have brought my Sony DSLR and more food. Anyway, all the photos and videos are from my Panasonic DMC-TZ3.


The place was packed with people... mostly Korean I assume.


Some guy singing the Korean national anthem. They also sang the US national anthem right afterwards.


A choir from Korean Airlines. Not sure if they're actual flight attendants or professional singers dressed like flight attendants. They sang 3 or 4 songs.


TaeYeon of SNSD singing a duet with Lee Juk. She got a lot more cheers than the guy and it was his part of the concert.


Baek Ji Young. I missed her other concert in March because I was in China so I'm glad I got to see her this time. I recorded two videos and managed to delete one by accident... it was a song I really liked too. :(


It was still pretty hard to see clearly. I would have paid double to sit up closer. I also had to decide whether to take photos, record a video, look through binoculars, or just sit back and watch/listen. :)


Hollywood Bowl at night. It got pretty cold when the sun went down.


Lena Park. She was born in Los Angeles and attended UCLA. She sang Josh Groban's "You Lift Me Up" with Jessica from SNSD, another ABK from San Francisco.


The fans didn't know it was Jessica at first. You hear the loud cheering at 0:20 into the video when they figured it out.


Kim Tae Woo and Son Ho Young (MC) from g.o.d. I didn't listen to them much before but they put on a good show. It was a mini-reunion of sorts since the group disbanded awhile ago.


SHINee


SNSD or Girls' Generation. Only 8 out of 9 girls showed up. Yoona is probably back in Korea shooting her K-drama.


Yuri and Sooyoung


Gee! I've watched so many performances of this song (on Korean music shows: Inkigayo, Music Bank, Music Core) that it was weird seeing it live. Same for TaeYeon when she came out to sing the duet. It felt like I was watching TV (or my computer monitor) when looking at the large screens next to the stage.


I guess SS501 was the headline act since they sang last and did the most songs. I haven't listened to them that much either before the concert.


U R Man. They put on a pretty good show. Lots of teenage girls (and some ajummas) were going crazy around us.


Fireworks


Some more fireworks. They didn't shoot off any really large fireworks this time.

I'm still pissed (at myself) that I deleted Baek Ji Young's performance of her "lips" song. I uploaded a total of 7 videos to YouTube. All together, there was ~1.6GB of photos and videos on my camera from the concert. I was worried about running out of memory (4GB SDHC card) but ended up running out of battery first.


The song I recorded and deleted by mistake... :(

I enjoyed the concert. Depending on who comes next year, I may go again if I can get even better seats and bring along my DSLR and zoom lens.

Korean Concert Tickets

Woohoo! I got two tickets from someone with extras. The seats are in the Terrace Box section (TB03). I've been to the Hollywood Bowl many times and this is the closest I've ever sat, though most of the concerts have been orchestral. From fan videos during past concerts, this one will be loud, with lots of screaming teenagers.

Now that I'm going, I should find out more about the singers/groups (the bold names are the ones I've heard of):

MC: Son Ho Young

Artists:
Girls’ Generation (SNSD)
Lee Juk
Lena Park
Kim Changwan Band
Son Ho Young
SHINee
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter
Kim Heung Gook
Tae Jina
Tenor Um Jung Haeng
Kim Tae Woo
Baek Ji Young
SS501
Min Hae Kyung

I scanned through the thread on soompi.com forums (352 pages) and there are lots of people whining about AP tests. Now I feel really really old. :(

Sichuan Earthquake Anniversary

Leon and I went to Chengdu a week after the huge earthquake last year. We didn't see much damage but the aftermath of the quake was visible everywhere, from makeshift tents along the roads to convoys of rescue workers and relief supplies. I even experiences a pretty large aftershock the day before I came home.

Almost a hundred thousand people died in the earthquake and many were children, crushed by collapsing school buildings. As the one year anniversary approaches, the government is still not giving answers to grieving parents or even letting them visit the school sites. I think this is due to corruption at the local official level (stealing funds that would have made the school buildings safer) and CCP's paranoia with any dissent, even constructive criticism.

This attitude is evident as the police harass journalist and private citizens trying to report on the issue.

Foreign Correspondents Club of China

3) On May 6, the FT journalists arrived at the Mianyang government office to pick up its local reporting passes where they saw a local woman petitioning outside. When Anderlini attempted to film an interview with the woman, an unidentified man arrived and ripped the video camera from its tripod, tearing off the bottom of the camera. Anderlini asked the local propaganda office for compensation, but was told police would have to handle it. The team left the area.

The propaganda office told the FT police could stop any interview for any reason, and that “the reason the police were so violent with us was they were trying to protect us from the petitioner.”

The last line is both funny and sad. I guess "propaganda" is another word for government lies. The more repressive and authoritarian the government, the more it needs to lie to its own people. I wonder if workers in the propaganda office lie so often that it becomes a natural reflex. Do they lie to their family and friends after work?

K-pop Concert this Saturday

The 7th Korea Times Music Festival is this Saturday at Hollywood Bowl. I think tickets were sold out awhile ago but there are still people selling their tickets at khype.com forums. The tickets are pretty expensive, ranging from $80 to $200 for good seats... I guess that's not too bad since I paid $100 to sit behind the sound board at a Jane Zhang concert in Pasadena.

Anyway, if I had a date (who likes K-pop), I would consider picking up two terrace tickets and go this Saturday. Artists/groups performing include Baek Ji Young (I missed her concert in March), SNSD, SHINee, Lena Park, SS501, and a bunch of people I haven't heard of. Actually, I would probably pay $100 just to see BJY and SNSD. One of the members of SNSD is from Diamond Bar so this is a homecoming concert of sorts. I wonder how many non-Korean will be there.


Baek Ji Young


SNSD (소녀시대) or Girls' Generation

I read online that for their Thailand concert, SNSD flew from Seoul to Bangkok arriving at 2am, went to their hotel to sleep, rehearsed during the day, performed at night, then returned to Korea right after the concert. Crazy.

Funny Reviews for Obama USB Drive

I saw this product being sold on Amazon.



Currently, there are 9 reviews (all 1 star) and they're really funny. This one is my favorite.

I, too, was fooled. Granted, I took my chances selecting a product with no performance history. It's just that the marketing was so great! I had to have it! Alas, things are not what they seemed. As soon as I began to use the Obama drive, I noticed several changes. My word processor began actively applying political correctness to my documents. "Uhhh" and "ummm" keep showing up in every paragraph. My security software keeps warning me of impending doom unless I spend tons of money on new programs that are supposed to fix things. Worst of all, I found a trojan horse that removes data from my hard drive, and redistributes it to total strangers.

I asked for a replacement, but was told that only if my Obama drive totally died, it could be replaced, but the choices were a Biden drive or a Pelosi drive. Maybe I'll just outsource my computing needs until 2012.

That's with a "T"

Metropark Hotel

Due to the swine flu epidemic, there are 274 people quarantined for a week inside the Metropark Hotel in Hong Kong. Evidently, a Mexican guest in the hotel was infected with the H1N1 virus.

I stayed one night at that hotel on my first trip to Chengdu back in 2007. The hotel was relatively inexpensive and near the Wan Chai MTR station. The rooms were rather small though; I can't imagine being stuck in there for a week.

BBC News

Strange Auto Insurance Rates

I just called and added my dad to my auto insurance policy. I am currently the only driver on my policy and I have two cars insured. By adding him, my insurance premium went down by $9 for the year. That doesn't make any sense to me. My dad paid $900 for his auto insurance (that included collision on another car) so I expected my premium to go up. Strange...

Omega Service Network

I have an old Omega Constellation watch. I think it originally belonged to my uncle Jackson (gift from ex-girlfriend) who then gave it to my grandfather who gave it to my dad. I've had it for awhile and still wear it once in awhile. The problem with an automatic watch is that they stop if you don't wear it for a few days. Even when I wear it daily, it slows by a few minutes each day so I have to adjust it. Since it's pretty old, the adjustment knob is a bit stiff and the internal movement probably needs maintenance.

Anyway, from the Omega website, I searched for an official customer service center. There are only two places listed for California: one in Beverly Hills and the other in West LA. I also looked up Chengdu and there are three service centers. Maybe Omega's database is incomplete but it appears that I can get better service for my watch in China than at home.

==========

Dang it. After reading more about Omega Constellations online, I'm not sure if my watch is real or a replica. There is a test called the "MOY test" which checks the alignment of the three letters under the Omega logo. The letters don't line up exactly right per the test on my watch. I probably should take it to a Omega retailer and have them verify the authenticity of the watch.



Yeah, 2:20 AM. I need to go to sleep. :(

xxxHolic

Japanese anime is so weird. I found this series on Hulu and just finished watching the first episode (23 to go). Unfortunately, the episodes are all dubbed; I prefer watching non-English stuff in the original language with subtitles instead of dubbed versions.



I'm not sure why they put "xxx" in the title. So far, it's mainly about spirits and possession.

New York!

I'm finally going to New York... for 3 hours. Even though I've been to Asia and Europe, I've not traveled much on the east coast. The only places I've been to is Boston (3x) and Newark Airport. I think I want to visit the museums in Washington, D.C.

Since my parents are moving back to SoCal, I figured I'd better use my free LAX-YYZ ticket soon. I originally used AA miles for a ticket last Thanksgiving but cancelled it since I had to travel for work to Toronto that week. I managed to reuse that ticket for a trip during the upcoming Memorial Day week so I can help my parents organize their move. Unfortunately, AA wouldn't let me change the routing (cost $150) so I still have to fly out of LAX and connect both ways. Anyway, the only "free" ticket during that weekend is a redeye from LAX to JFK with a 3 hour layover, then a short flight to YYZ on American Eagle. Sigh... I hate the tiny Embraer jets. I don't know if I can get out of the airport on a Sunday morning and go somewhere interesting within 3 hours.

==========

Hmm, JFK is on Long Island, far from anything interesting. I thought I could run out and take some photos of NYC but I guess there's nothing nearby.

2/3 = 0.66

I think Chinese people are wise to require testing for civil servants. Obviously I don't expect everyone to be a math whiz, but when your "town accountant" can't figure out two-thirds, something is seriously wrong. The newspaper reporter is pretty lame too: 137 yes votes out of 206 is still not 2/3 majority.

CapeCodTimes.com

Truro zoning decision hinges on single vote

By Mary Ann Bragg
mbragg@capecodonline.com
April 30, 2009

TRURO — Voters narrowly approved one of four zoning amendments late Tuesday night at the annual town meeting. But town officials were still looking at the exact vote count on that article yesterday.

In a vote of 136 to 70, voters passed a new time limit on how quickly a cottage colony, cabin colony, motel or hotel can be converted to condominiums. The new limit requires that those properties be in operation for three years before being converted to condominiums.

...

The exact count of the vote — 136 to 70 —had town officials hitting their calculators yesterday. The zoning measure needed a two-thirds vote to pass. A calculation by town accountant Trudy Brazil indicated that 136 votes are two-thirds of 206 total votes, said Town Clerk Cynthia Slade.

Brazil said she used the calculation of .66 multiplied by 206 to obtain the number.

But using .6666 — a more accurate version of two-thirds — the affirmative vote needed to be 137 instead of 136, according to an anonymous caller to town hall and to the Times.

Also, there are "versions" of two-thirds? It's not like they had to do this in their head... they used a calculator and still keyed in 0.66!

Back to the USA

My parents called me today and told me that they've sold their house in Canada. It was only on the market for a week; they have to move out by the end of June.

So after leaving Taiwan, it's 8 years in Canada, 19 years in the US, and 5 years back in Canada. Now they need to find a house/condo in SoCal.

Phishing for Retards

I got this email from "Citibank" today.

This is a Security Alert you requested to help you protect your account.

Your account has been blocked.
You have exceeded the number of three (3) failed login attempts.

To unlock your account, please login to your account

Thank you for your cooperation.

The link goes back to bestphonecards.org then redirects to bacar-auto.ru. Russia... I was actually expecting it to redirect to China.

How stupid do you have to be to fall for this? How can I login if my account has been blocked? Arg, there's also a period missing after your account... amateurs.

阿桑

Occasionally, I go to either 搜狗 or 百度 to check out the latest Chinese pop music. I don't visit too often because both sites are in simplified Chinese and it's really hard for me to understand. Anyway, i was checking out the Top 500 Songs on Baidu and noticed that a singer named 阿桑 was in 2nd, 4th, 12th, and 13th position and I've never heard of her before. I downloaded a few MP3's and saw that she only released two albums back in 2003 and 2005... kinda odd to be still ranked so high.



The few songs I downloaded were really good so I wanted to find out more about about this singer. Since I put in her Chinese name in the search box, all the results were in Chinese. I finally found some information on Chinese Wikipedia (traditional Chinese). Scanning the article, I saw the sad news that she passed away in Taiwan less than two weeks ago due to breast cancer... she was only 34 years old. :(

Susan Boyle

I know I'm about 32 million hits too late but I just watched this and her voice puts all those K-pop singers to shame. I wonder what she looked like 25 years ago and why she never sang professionally.


The embedding feature is disabled but you can click twice on the video window to go directly to YouTube.


She sang on a charity CD in 1999. Amazing.

Just Dinner

I just went to Chipotle to get some dinner. I've been going there quite often and I think I've settled on my usual: chicken burrito, no beans, mild salsa, and some lettuce. I know it's not really authentic Mexican food, but it's pretty good and cheap ($6.20 w/tax). I'm Chinese and I also eat at Pei Wei, so I'm not that choosy.

In line in front of me tonight was a female CSI officer from the local police department. I think the restaurant gave her a discount since her total was <$5 and she got the same thing as me plus a drink. She was telling the cashier that it was really busy tonight; that's not good news coming from a CSI officer. In the parking lot, I saw that she drove a Chevy Astro minivan (offical vehicle). I guess CSI only get to drive Hummers in Miami.

Dinner and Whine

Having to eat dinner every night is a drag. I found myself driving around aimlessly tonight looking for dinner. I would think of some place to get food then quickly reject it. After about 30 minutes, I ended up at the In-N-Out in Santa Ana. I find myself spending all my time either at work or at home sitting in front of a computer, or out driving around looking for something to eat. :(

I had lunch with my previous manager today; he's the CFO at a different company now. Talking to him over lunch, I realized how indifferent I am with my current job. I also realized that out of the several MBA level analysts that started around the same time as me, I'm the only one that has not been promoted to director level and I have no idea if it will ever happen. I actually don't care anymore but I'd like to know the criteria on which these decisions are made. I spend a lot of time mentoring my staff and helping other people in the finance organization. Perhaps that's not as valuable as "talking constantly in meetings to gain visibility with senior management" anymore...

Facebook: Mafia Wars

Sometimes I wonder if the somewhat anonymous nature of the Internet brings out the worst in people. I see this in online forums all the time where people make the rudest comments.

On Facebook, there is a game called Mafia Wars. It has a bunch of stuff you can do but one of them is to fight other people and take their money. Since much of it is based on how many people you've added to your mob, I lose a lot of fights since I only have 7 people (some have hundreds). Because of that, I never initiate any fights and I "bank" all my money in the game so it won't get stolen. It's not that much fun. Anyway, the game keeps a log of events and sometimes I would log in and see my health way down or that I've been killed. The interesting thing is that I see people attack me 6-7 times in a row even though the payoff is $0 (can't lose money in the bank). What's the point other than to inflict further health damage? I wonder if these people are anti-social psychopaths in real life. If they see an injured person lying on the ground, would they run up and kick them in the head? Probably.

Case in point. My log of lost fights is pretty long. Today, I saw some guy attack me 6 times, then return an hour later to attack me again 5-6 time with a total payoff of $0 each time. Weird. Since you can see their "real" Facebook name and his was kind of unique, I Googled it and got some interesting hits. Evidently he is a student at one of the SUNY schools (class of 2011) and he has several arrests for possession of marijuana and alcohol plus one for petty larceny. What a loser; I guess he gets his kicks by beating up weaker characters on a Facebook game.

Tiananmen 20 years later: A survivor's story

Associated Press

BEIJING – Twenty years after China's military crushed dissent around Tiananmen Square, the details are still fresh in Qi Zhiyong's mind. The acrid smell of tear gas. The people run down by tanks. The dizzying pain when a bullet tore through his left leg.

The student-led protests in the heart of the Chinese capital had gone on for weeks, an extraordinary call for political freedom and an end to government corruption. Sparked by the April 15 death of a beloved Communist Party chief deposed by hard-liners, they were mostly peaceful, even after martial law was declared on May 20.

But late on June 3, 1989, the government lost its patience.

"I saw people being run over. Blood sprayed everywhere," says Qi, then a 33-year-old construction worker. "The tanks kept moving, as if the people weren't there. My hair stood on end. I was chilled to the bone."

Witnessing the crackdown and losing his leg transformed Qi from a loyal Communist Party supporter into an activist with a simple goal: speaking out about the events which the leadership has all but erased from history.

His efforts cost him his job, his wife and his freedom. But a newfound Christian faith and pure doggedness have kept him going.

Things Never To Trust in China

Written by a laowai. But since I'm a Twinkie in China (yellow on the outside, laowai on the inside), I found most of this pretty funny.

My favorites:

12. Any declaration or announcement from any Chinese authority that begins with the words “For your safety”.

14. Shops that only consist of a man in a bomber jacket smoking a cigarette next to a fridge. [the fridge is NEVER plugged in so all the drinks are lukewarm]

20. Websites that are not banned in China.

22. Un-labeled meat. [especially on the back of a bicycle]

23. ISO9001.

31. The information plaques in museums. [Serf Emancipation Day]

32. School textbooks. [my friend's English textbook had the n-word in its vocabulary list; useful if you ever visit Compton]

33. “And now on CCTV, news from our Tibet Correspondent.” [Serf Emancipation Day]

35. “Mei wenti”. [Leon's favorite words]

40. Claims of sovereignty. [Taiwan!]

45. Anyone who refers to you as “friend”, and especially anyone who refers to you as “old friend”.

47. The quality of a DVD purchase. [only ¥5 from street vendors]

48. Traffic signs, traffic lights, or traffic regulations of any kind.

Yet Another Old Computer

I have lots of old computers in my closet. Since I was trying to run DOSBox (MS-DOS emulator) on my newer computers without much success, I thought I would dig up a mid-aged laptop computer. It's a Compaq Presario 1220 with a 200MHz Cyrix processor... not sure what Intel chip it corresponds to. It has 16MB of RAM and a 1.0GB hard drive. I put both Windows 98 and Red Hat Linux 5.2 on the computer. It has a CD-ROM drive and a RJ-11 connector but no Ethernet.

I booted it up and Windows 98 runs fine. I remember wanting to use it for a CD player at work so I only have Winamp installed. The Linux OS boots up fine as well but it's been so long that I forgot the login ID and password. I tried every ID/password combo I could think of but nothing works. I think there was a GUI (X Windows?) and a CD player application installed. The Linux login screen also says Kernal 2.0.36 on an i586. I think i586 refers to a Pentium class processor so this machine should be faster than a DOSBox emulated 486. If I really wanted to play old DOS games, I should probably reformat the hard drive and just install DOS and nothing else.

What happened on June 4th?

BBC News

The trial of a man accused of harassing the Chinese Prime Minister has been rescheduled to avoid a clash with the anniversary of a student massacre.

Cambridge University researcher Martin Jahnke, 27, admits throwing a shoe at Wen Jiabao during his tour of Britain.

However, he has denied causing intentional harm or distress.

Magistrates in Cambridge have moved his trial forward to 1 June to avoid it ending on 4 June - the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square uprising.

So the British courts are going to move up the trial date on this inconsequential matter because it coincides with the June 4th massacre in Tiananmen Square. This is weird because if you ask people in China what happened on June 4th, they either don't know or are afraid to talk about it. Why is the British worried about this when the CCP doesn't even acknowledge that the massacre happened at all?! Mind boggling. I'm hope there were some secret phone calls from Beijing to London; otherwise, the distasteful explanation is that Britain is helping to maintain China's version of what happened on June 4th.

BTW, I think the guy who threw the shoe is an idiot. There is nothing to be gained except more exposure for a communist dictator.

Apartment Woes

It's 1:00am and my asshole neighbors are blasting their stereo in the bedroom again downstairs. They also share a bedroom wall with another apartment unit on the first floor; I don't know how they can stand them. It's not even good music... it's just some crappy hip-hop stuff so all I hear is the kick drum. Sometimes, in addition to the loud music, they throw in some drunken yelling as well.

My lease is up at the end of May. I got a lease renewal offer that's $75 less than my current rent. I don't think I'm ready to move to a house yet so I may have to sign another six-month lease. As for my neighbors downstairs, I'm going to get my bass cab back from NewSong. I should connect it to my bass amp, loop some EWF (Earth, Wind, and Fire), and go to work. If they're blasting their stereo all night, they have to sleep in the day, no?

Child Abductions and Government Indifference

What a sorry excuse for a government. I read somewhere that if a country has the words "Democratic" or "People's Republic" in its name, you can be sure that the government is neither democratic nor cares about its own people.

New York Times

These and thousands of other children stolen from the teeming industrial hubs of China’s Pearl River Delta have never been recovered by their parents or by the police. But anecdotal evidence suggests the children do not travel far. Although some are sold to buyers in Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam, most of the boys are purchased domestically by families desperate for a male heir, parents of abducted children and some law enforcement officials who have investigated the matter say.

The demand is especially strong in rural areas of south China, where a tradition of favoring boys over girls and the country’s strict family planning policies have turned the sale of stolen children into a thriving business.

Here in Shenzhen and the constellation of manufacturing towns packed with migrant workers, desperate families say they get almost no help from the local police. In case after case, they said, the police insisted on waiting 24 hours before taking action, and then claimed that too much time had passed to mount an effective investigation.

Several parents, through their own guile and persistence, have tracked down surveillance video images that clearly show the kidnappings in progress. Yet even that can fail to move the police, they say. “They told me a face isn’t enough, that they need a name,” said Cai Xinqian, who obtained tape from a store camera that showed a woman leading his 4-year-old away. “If I had a name, I could find him myself.”

The reluctance of the police to investigate such cases has a variety of explanations. Kidnappers often single out the children of migrant workers because they are transients who may fear the local police and whose grievances are not treated as high priorities.

Moreover, the police in China’s authoritarian bureaucracy are rarely rewarded for responding to crimes affecting people who do not have much political clout. Mr. Peng said the police preferred not to even open a missing person’s inquiry because unsolved cases made them appear inefficient, reducing their annual bonuses.

For the parents of missing children, the heartbreak and the frustration have turned into anger. Last September, about 40 families traveled to the capital to call attention to the plight of abducted children. They staged a brief protest at the headquarters of the national television broadcaster, but within minutes, dozens of police officers arrived to haul them away.

“They dragged us by our hair and said, ‘How dare you question the government,’ ” said Peng Dongying, who lost her 4-year-old son. “I hate myself for my child’s disappearance, but I hate society more for not caring. All of us have this pain in common, and we will do anything to get back our children.”

More Memory for Little Computer

The 2GB memory module arrived today and I installed it in the Eee. It came with 1GB of RAM but the 2GB upgrade was only $19. Sigh... I remember paying >$100 for a 1MB module for my Mac Plus. Since I don't have many applications on this computer, I think 2GB should be plenty for Windows XP so I turned off the virtual memory. Normally Windows creates a VM file on the hard drive in case it requires more memory than physically available. It would swap unused applications to the pagefile and load what was needed into physical RAM. Since RAM is faster than HDD, the computer slows down a bit when it's swapping data. Turning the virtual memory off should improve the speed somewhat since the computer does not need to access the HDD unless I'm loading new applications or files. In addition, spinning up the HDD requires more power than accessing physical memory so this may help battery life too. I think I'm getting >8 hours on a full charge already so this may push it to the magical 9.5 hours as advertised.

It's only been three days but I'm pretty happy with the little computer so far.

Asus Eee Netbook

I got my new toy delivered today. It's a bit bulkier than I thought but so far it works pretty good. I had to uninstall some bloatware such as StarOffice 8 and install some virus protection since it's running WinXP. RIght now I'm trying to install Office 2003 on the netbook. Since it does not have an optical drive, I'm sharing the DVD player on my Sony Vaio; the netbook is connected via WLAN to my wireless router. It took awhile for me to get everything connected and it's a bit slow over wireless but it's working.

I checked the battery meter before the install. The battery was at 98% and the estimated time left was 7:17. It's not quite 9.5 hours on a full charge but I think I can improve by tweaking the power settings. The Atom N280 running at 1.66GHz is only a bit slower than my previous work PC, a Dell Latitude D-410. It had a 1.6GHz Pentium M but only 1GB of RAM. The processor is benchmarked at about 15% faster than the N280 but the netbook will have 2GB of RAM so it should be plenty fast for email and surfing the web. I worked for 3 years on the old D-410 so I can probably run Office without any problems on the netbook.

Next I'm going to share my 1TB external HDD with movies and TV shows to see if it can play videos. Asus thoughtfully partitioned the 160GB HDD into two so there is a 60GB D: drive that I can store my files without messing up the primary C: drive.

The Internet with Chineses Characteristics

Whatever. If you ever need a reminder that PRC is a communist dictatorship, here it is. SARFT (The State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television) just released rules for Internet video content. Since the original webpage is in Chinese, I'm relying on this translation from Global Voices Advocacy. Without a doubt this is a knee-jerk reaction to the video posted on YouTube showing Chinese security forces beating a Tibetan monk. Of course, the CCP claims the video is a lie but offers no proof, then goes ahead and blocks all access to YouTube. This is typical communist modus operandi: lie about stuff then block all dissent. Obviously, the US government lies too, but at least we get to dispute or protest.

Some of the items on the list are so vague that it allows the CCP to arbitrarily censor any content they want. This is probably already true today but I guess they want to give the impression that they're following rules, kind of like elections in North Korea.

Here are some things that will be banned from the Internet:

（二）危害国家统一、主权和领土完整的；
2. damaging to national unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity;

（六）扰乱社会秩序，破坏社会稳定的；
6. disrupting social order and social stability;

（九）危害社会公德，损害民族优秀文化传统的；
9. harmful to social morale and national culture and tradition;

Item #2 pretty much eliminates discussion about Tibet and Taiwan and #6 means any protests on video is banned, kind of like in real life. Since the Chinese people are so easily "offended" according to the CCP, #9 can be used to censor anything that's remotely critical of the government.

The rules also place the burden on video hosting sites to edit or delete video content that falls within a list of 21 items. I think the list already applies to TV broadcasts so these rules will make the Internet as boring as CCTV broadcasts. Some of my favorites [with comments]:

2. deliberately ridiculing revolution leaders, heroic figures, significant historical figures, prominent figures inside and outside China;
[So I can't call Mao crazy? What about CCP's non-stop Dalai Lama name calling?]

3. maliciously ridiculing people's army, armed police, police, and judicial bodies; contents that show physical abuse and torturing of prisoners and criminals;
["We don't torture people, but if you have a video of us doing it, you can't show it."]

5. advocating religious extremism, creating conflicts among different religions, sects, believers and non-believers that hurt people's feeling;
[No hurt feelings allowed in harmonious Chinese society! I thought China was officially atheist so why would they care?]

6. promoting fortune telling, fung-shui, exorcism treatment and other superstitious acts;
[So why did they choose to start the Olympics on 8/8/08 at 8:08pm? Was that not superstitious?]

10. deliberately exhibiting private parts of human bodies that covered up by body parts or small objects;
[No Western TV shows then...]

11. inducing sexual fantasy;
[This one is crazy. How do I know what will induce sexual fantasy for some wacko on the Internet?]

15. excessive horrible image, subtitle, background music and sound effects;
[Horrible background music and sound effects? Isn't that more about taste? I think Chinese opera sounds horrible, should that be banned?]

17. violating individual privacy;
[No more human flesh search engines... how convenient for corrupt government officials.]

I wonder if the CCP wil have to block all non-China based video sites since people can simply continue to post to YouTube. Also, the last item on the list says, "violating the principle of relevant laws and regulations." Does that include copyright laws? If so, then all unauthorized uploads of Western TV shows, Korean dramas, or music videos will have to be deleted.