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2007-11-28

 

BoA... Rocks?

No, not this chick. It's the Godzilla Bank of America. I used their two different ATMs recently. When using the first one, I selected Chinese menu just for fun. Surprisingly, it remembered the setting and when I used a different ATM, it automatically showed Chinese menu. The impressive part is, my ATM card is not even from them (I use State Farm Bank as they rebate ATM fees, even international ones), so it looks like they have stored the setting of all foreign ATM cards on the network...

2007-11-25

 

National Enterprise Systems

NES is the most annoying business ever. [Editor's note: 25 lines of cursing have been removed to keep this blog PG-13.] They have been calling my cell daily for the last 3 weeks without saying who they are looking for and always behind an unknown number. It is always a pre-recorded message asking me to call 800-236-3796 to discuss a "business matter," although the same voice identifies himself with three different names. And it is not like you could easily stop them by calling them. I tried once a while ago, and couldn't get anyone after waiting for like 10 mins.

Googling their number and you will see that tons of people have been annoyed by them. It is hard to get through their number, and even after you get through, you have to endure their horribly bad attitude. So I called again, finally reached someone and supposedly got my number removed. It was a complete waste of my 15 mins, now that I don't have a office and cannot wait on speakerphone...

Collection agencies can never help collecting debts for good people, like me. They can only annoy innocent people, like me. How do these people sleep at nights?

2007-11-23

 

Weird Dream

I had one of the weirdest dream I ever had last night. It must be because of the three movies I saw at home yesterday (well, nothing to do in Turkey Day), especially i, Robot, as the dream was sort of futuristic.

There is this force that all of a sudden took over the control. Everyone has to obey its order, and it essentially dictates what everyone does. Surprisingly, everyone seems to take it so well, like a flock of sheep dying for directions. I was the only one trying to escape from their control, yet everything I tried was to no avail.

Actually, it probably has more to do with reading the news. The pro-Beijing are winning the election in Hong Kong. How could I ever go back, when I'm seeing Hong Kong turning into Singapore or, even worse, just another part of China?

2007-11-20

 

Which University is Best in CS and EE?

You won't believe it. Me neither. But apparently, according to some weird, twisted rankings, it is Rice.

The rankings are supposed to be based on "faculty productivity." Rice beats Stanford and Berkeley in CS and tops Cornell and UIUC in EE.

I am speechless.

2007-11-18

 

Scale Not Working?

That's the only logical explanation. I've been hitting the gym hard lately, I've noticed that I've been building some muscles (not much, but a bit is a bit), and I've punched a new hole in my belt and yet my pants are still loose. How could I be gaining weight? It's not like I could be building muscle faster than burning fat; my body fat percentage has not been decreased...

Joking aside, now how can I motivate myself to continue knowing that I have negative results?

2007-11-17

 

Exciting Match

Wow, what an exciting match! I am referring to the European Championship Qualifying match Israel vs. Russia. "What?" you might think, but it was a very important match to decide whether England still has a chance to qualify. Now I hardly see a soccer game that makes me so nervous. The result could have gone either way, but Israel was lucky to get the goal shortly after Russia hit the post. England's fate is now at their own hands when they host Croatia coming Wednesday.

Speaking of which, how could the super dumb Fox Soccer Channel not show this game? Instead, they decided to go for the meaningless game Israel vs. Macedonia... Now what am I supposed to do in the Thanksgiving break!? Seeing Rockets overwhelmed by Dallas and turned into a 50% team (6-6)?

2007-11-13

 

What's Wrong with Sony?

Sony is on my way to work. For the second consecutive day, I've seen protesting outside their building in Culver City. Of course, you don't really need additional reasons to protest against Sony. But I usually passed their building at around 7:15am, and it is starting to get cold, so it's definitely not fun protesting around.

I suppose it is by the Writers Guild? Anyway, I don't really care, as they don't really block my way. And I have already seen the only movie I want to see lately, Bee Movie.

Speaking of which, what's wrong with me too? How come the only movies I pay to see in the theater are all animations? Do I hate real people? That much!?

2007-11-12

 

Crispy Melt

Is it just me or is Domino's new Crispy Melt pizza just quesadillas disguising as pizzas? At least it tasted that way for me.

What's more interesting, though, is the pizza delivery guy got lost in my apartment and decided to just sit in the lobby and wait for me to come out and bring back the pizzas. I might have overtipped him with my 3 bucks...

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2007-11-11

 

Paper Submitted

So it's finally done. After delaying for so long, I finally submitted my very last paper for my dissertation, which is likely be my final paper ever. It's also time when I can finally start putting everything in my dissertation and call it done.

Writing papers has always been interesting experience. It is always like this: running experiment for like forever, then suddenly decide to submit it somewhere. To do that, what I have to do is to put all the experiment results in, and then write random words, knowing that the words will be replaced later anyway. Anyway, it is always interesting to read how the paper looks totally different (and better) when others are done. This time, it was even with harder words like "perturbation" (I have a small vocabulary). Remind me of the old days studying for GRE...

2007-11-10

 

Road Closed

Normally, this simply means detour. But it is not as cool when it is the street I live on that is doing maintenance work, 6am to 6pm. How could I go to work? I could park on the street, but it is hard to find a spot in a normal day, not to mention when one whole street is closed. I could also take a bus, and normally it would be fine too, but spending on the road each way for 50 mins instead of 15 mins doesn't sound a great idea on the day a paper is due...

So what was my plan? Well, I ignored it and hoped that it would go away. Surprisingly, it worked. One day before the scheduled maintenance, the city canceled.

2007-11-05

 

Scale

I am a donor to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Well, it was kinda indirectly and accidentally. I bought this scale from Amazon a few weeks ago (at a bargain price of $27.77. I know.). I only found out about the donation after I received it.

Anyway, I bought it because I have been going to the tiny gym in my apartment for four, five times a week for the last few weeks, hoping to getting myself a little bit healthier. I was hoping that I could keep it a little longer if I can see some results from it. I even started a spreadsheet in Google Docs to keep track of daily weight and fat percentage. But the result has been extremely disappointing, as I am seeing two straight flat lines on the figure now...

2007-11-03

 

New Season with JVG

The new season of NBA has started. This year is interesting, not only because the Rockets are getting better, but also because my favorite coach JVG is going to be an analyst for TNT for the whole season. I love this man's pessimistic looks with his sarcasm and dark humor. Last night in the game of Celtics aka Big Three, he was saying Fever Pitch was a great, not good, but great movie... Interesting take, particularly when I just had it on my DVR...

Speaking of the Rockets, it makes me wonder, if I had 1/10 of the work ethics of Yao, I would probably have done my PhD a year ago...

2007-11-01

 

Grand Bistro

Grand Bistro is a fantastic, relatively-new restaurant in Culver City. It was on the way to my office, and since I got a coupon from them in mail, I decided to pay them a visit. It became one of the best things I have done to myself for a little while.

The restaurant called itself "European fusion," which pretty much means the chef can prepare whatever weird dishes he dreams up. And what can I say, he has pretty good imaginations. Most of the dishes give you a "wow," if you're not speechless.

Since it was my first visit, I've decided to play safe and ordered something familiar. Rack of lamb. And it was unbelievably good. For half of the price, it was even better that what I had in Bellevue when I interviewed with the convicted monopoly.

I'm probably going to be a weekly visitor of them. The only problem is, there weren't a lot of people there last time. Granted, it was only an early weekday evening, but it gets me worried if it could last long. It doesn't have to be really long. Just stay open for as long as I'm in LA...

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