Obsession with twngan

Run, Fatboy, Run

2009-02-28T22:24:00.000-08:00

Yes, I just saw the movie. But guess who's the fatboy in this blog...

I've been kind of a gymhopper for a while. Yes, I go to the one at work like four times a week. And I occassionally use the little gym, if two treadmills and three other machines count as a gym, in the apartment I live. But I also have tried 24 hour fitness for a month and YMCA for a week. And that's not the end---I still have others lining up, like this or this.

I don't enjoy going to gym as much as many people, but it's been effective. Proof? Apart from more than 40 lbs lighter than my peak, I also needed to buy a pair of lifting gloves to avoid hurting my tender hand skin...

SUBMITTED!

2009-02-21T12:12:00.001-08:00

Yay!!!

My thesis is finally submitted!!!

It's a relief to finally put this behind.

Too happy to say any more...

Comcastic!

2009-02-02T18:33:00.000-08:00

(If you have no idea what the title means, I refer you to this page. Just pick your favorite definition from the top 3.)

My Internet service, provided by Comcast, suddenly stopped yesterday. It wasn't a temporary loss of connection, as I could connect to Comcast's servers. When I tried to sign in, I was told that my account was "recently deleted."

Then I called. After some waiting on some horrible background music, as usual, I managed to tell someone about my situation. His reply was, "There is no Internet service on your account!"

Quite frankly, I wasn't in shock. In fact, six months into using their Internet service, I was only billed for the Cable TV service and never for Internet. I bought the cable modem and installed it myself. I did call Comcast to activate my service, but found no urge to notify these evil Cable companies for their billing mistakes afterwards.

Anyway, I got my connection back, except this time I'll probably be billed. No biggie. I'm planning to move soon despite the recently reduced rent, and will sign up for discount as a "new user" at the new place...

New Year Is Down

2009-01-26T19:32:00.000-08:00

Ok, it's been too long since I updated the blog. My (Chinese) New Year resolution is to revive it. And what's better than to start with one about the New Year?

My tagline for today is 牛年大吉, which Yahoo! Babel Fish correctly translated to "Year of the Ox extraordinarily good luck." But how about my beloved Google Translate? It dares to translate it to "Year of the Ox down" (!)

I guess the only reasonable explanation is that its server goes down in the middle of the translation :P

Samsung TV

2008-11-23T09:14:00.000-08:00

I bought a Samsung LCD TV last year because of its awesome picture quality, after comparing it to offerings from Sony, Sharp, etc. Its only weakness is its sound system, which can easily be fixed by a home threater system I might buy later anyway. So overall I am very happy with this purchase.

Maybe a bit too happy.

Too happy that I decided to buy another Samsung LCD TV to be my monitor.

Don't get me wrong, it's a great monitor, and I am perfectly happy with it. But I put my computer very close to the TV. And as a TV my new monitor also has a remote... meaning when I try to turn on my TV, I'll turn off my monitor.

Why I couldn't think of it before I bought the monitor?

Launched!

2008-11-20T19:05:00.000-08:00

After months of silence, he's back.

Yes, I mean me. I'm back.

It's impossible to find time writing this blog being this close to launching such a major product with such a huge impact. If you are obsessed with Google stuff as much as you are obsessed with me, you would already know about SearchWiki.

What's the best part developing SearchWiki? Definitely on reading people's comments. So go ahead, write some comments for me to read!

Whoa!!!

2008-08-28T08:51:00.000-07:00

It's been a month and a half since my last blog entry! This is really some kind of record for me. Not that I'm proud of it...

The reason for that is always the same. Too busy. Well, between packing, moving, unpacking, and starting a new job, I also presented the paper in CEAS and, (*drums*) defended my dissertation! The thesis is going to need some more work, as one of the committee member is not quite happy with one of the chapters, but at least I won't need to worry about flying back to Houston and scheduling with five professors.

Speaking about the defense, I did it in a way I never thought I would. I used... Skype!

I'm Joining Google

2008-07-11T10:11:00.000-07:00

For those of you who don't have insider knowledge (shame on you!), I have accepted an offer from Google and will be joining them shortly in their Mountain View headquarter. So yes, I will be relocating to Bay Area. And this allows me to escape from the horrible traffic in L.A. (If you want to argue the traffic is also bad in Bay Area, you have no idea what bad traffic is.)

It wasn't an easy decision. I lost my title of "Principal." (Even my other offer at least gave me a "Senior" title, although it is not a good time to join a company that has been messed around by that convicted monopoly.) I took a pay cut, made worse by knowing that I was about to get another raise. I will move from a small, noisy cubicle to sharing a cubicle with others. But the temptation of moving up north is too great to pass.

I need to thank Symantec, for an opportunity to an above average interesting job. Also for offering me to move to their Mountain View office once they knew my intention to go north. And the best of all, still paying for my CEAS registration. Free banquet!

Card of Flying Chicken

2008-07-01T19:05:00.000-07:00

I have a turbo checking account in Charter Bank, a very small bank in New Mexico. These reward checking accounts have ridiculously high interest, 6.01% APY in my case. They do have a long list of requirements, like this interest rate on at most $25k, online banking, e-statement, direct deposit, and most troublesome, at least 10 debit card purchases per month.

But I love using their card, which has a card design of a running bird (roadrunner?). Or, as I would like to call it, the card of flying chicken.

Even though it is not a Mastercard, when you hand it to a cashier, the look on their face, priceless.

Selling Stuff, Again?

2008-06-30T20:06:00.001-07:00

I got an email today requesting to buy my cordless phone. The only problem is, I don't recall trying to sell one.

Turns out this lady from Dallas found the moving sale page I created almost two years ago, before I moved from Houston to LA. It is hard to imagine how she found that page, given that it is not linked from anywhere. And more strangely, she seemed to want me to ship the phone to her. The shipping would probably cost as much as the phone.

Not that I still have the phone.

Brilliant Public Transit in LA

2008-06-28T21:02:00.000-07:00

LA has a complicated public transit system. There's the giant Metro that runs over 200 bus lines and 5. Then there are countless other carriers serving different parts of the greater LA. I have been using this public transit system more lately. I would cite the higher gas prices as a reason, although there's another one that I'm not going to disclose here...

With so many carriers, sometimes it becomes necessary to transfer from one to another. My experience is limited to Santa Monica's Big Blue Bus and Culver Citybus. But there are already enough amusement.

The non-transfer fare is the same, 75 cents. Simple, huh?
Transfers within Culver Citybus are free.
Transfers within Big Blue Bus cost 50 cents extra, so it's $1.25.
Transfers from Big Blue Bus to Culver Citybus is also $1.25.
Transfers from Culver Citybus to Big Blue Bus is 25 cents extra, so it becomes $1.

This also means the same transfer trip in different directions could have different cost...

UCLA

2008-06-24T08:08:00.000-07:00

UCLA is a top public school with a prestigious CS department. There's a large influx of interns that turned to full time employees in my company. But more importantly, it has the third best medical center in US, which is exactly why I'm a patient there. You'd have thought that with this combination they would have the best technology at their disposal. Well, I'm in no position to judge their medical equipments, but certainly that's not the case for their billing system.

It used to be that the only option for paying is to snailmail them --- either with a check or a credit card number. It got me excited when they decided to create a new billing system to allow you to skip mailing. No, they still don't have a web payment system, but now you can use the next best thing: the telephone network.

I figured it would still beat mailing a credit card number. So I called and expected to input my credit card number with touch-tone. Apparently that's still too advanced. They actually wanted me to read aloud my account number, name, credit card number, etc to create a voice message for someone to manually process later. After thinking for a second, I decided to save stamp and take the more convenience route of reading my credit card number to a machine.

But the WTF didn't stop there. I got a call a few days later, and was told there was something wrong and they couldn't get the payment processed. But I didn't have the card with me, and had to tell the lady to call back later. Yada, yada, yada...

They finally exceeded themselves. They made their billing system even worse than the worst possible.

Indy J

2008-06-08T15:52:00.001-07:00

As this movie franchise is being resurrected with its 4th film, I thought it was about time to see the first one to check what I have missed. Quite frankly, not much.

The story was pretty lame at today's standard. But what I couldn't take was its music. They have that victorious music whenever Indy has some success --- any level of success, regardless of how minor.

I guess that at least saved me from putting three more movies in my moving queue.

Publication Again

2008-06-07T21:32:00.000-07:00

It's been a very long time since I got any paper accepted (as I spent most of my time coding at work), so I was quite excited to learn that my paper from work has been accepted by CEAS which is an email conference. Of course, I have no idea why I was submitting to an email conference, or even why I had been doing things that would turn out to be submitting to an email conference. Regardless, this is a fun experience, as it is my very first single-authored paper.

First over $40 gas refill

2008-06-06T07:02:00.001-07:00

I just had my very first gas refill of over $40. Not long ago, my average was only about $20-24. Of course, my gas tank was almost empty this time before I refilled, while I used to refill when it is a quarter full.

I don't really have any complaint for it. The gas prices in US are considerably lower than most places around the world. I would complain about the lack of feasible options aka public transportation, but there's no point doing it here.

High gas prices actually might be a good thing. There will be less cars "needlessly" driving around the town, making driving a little bit more bearable here in L.A. I can only hope that the traffic would be tolerable other than early mornings...

GBay

2008-05-25T17:38:00.000-07:00

Finally I went to see a non-animated movie: GBay, a sequel to a movie that I love. I chose to wait until it's been out for weeks to avoid the crowd, and see it for free with my movie cards. My plan didn't work out exactly as I hoped.

Considering it is an R-rated movie and it is a morning show during the Memorial weekend break, I expected no one else would be there. It was close, as the only other people there was a family (and I wonder what's wrong with the parents to bring their young daughter to see this movie). And the AMC I went to had their credit card system broken, so I had to pay in cash instead.

Anyway, the film itself is pretty good, though I wouldn't say it is as brilliant as the first one. Maybe it is me, but I actually found the "exotic" materials a bit excessive. Then again, maybe the little girl found it alright...

North vs. South

2008-05-19T12:10:00.000-07:00

Having stayed in Southern California for some time, I've notice a huge difference between them, which is the race segregation.

LA is divided into many regions. Just take Asians, there is Chinatown. Old Chinatown. Japantown (Little Tokyo). Other Japanese areas (Torrence, Gardena, Sawtelle Blvd). Koreatown. Filipinotown. Thaitown. And probably many others that didn't cross my mind. But often they exist sort of as separate entities. You don't see races mix well in the city.

Take my Korean restaurant experience. You don't feel like you're welcomed. It felt as if you were invading their boundary or something. Which is probably why a film like Crash uses LA as its background city.

That's quite different from Northern California, at least from my experience. My latest visit to a Korean restaurant in NorCal was much better. This can only make me more longing to move to Bay Area...

Blame HP Instead?

2008-05-15T12:29:00.000-07:00

Ok, I may be wrong to blame M$ for the XP SP3 mess. As the story unfolds, it is pretty obvious that the fault is on HP, as they ship my AMD machine with an Intel driver (gosh, just accidentally revealed that my machine is an AMD).

So HP sucks. Together with the fact that they have the worst customer support, I should be avoiding them next time (although I never call customer support...). Now what should my next machine be? It is going to be a difficult decision, for as long as I'm not rich enough to get Apple...

BSOD -> BSOD -> ... -> BSOD

2008-05-10T15:47:00.000-07:00

I know. It is my fault. I should have learned to not trying anything new from M$. I just tried Office 2007 and, surprisingly, liked it. I thought they have better software now. Big mistake.

I upgraded my machines to XP SP3 the day it released. While it worked on my laptop, my desktop fell into an infinite loop of blue screens, with the only hint as "STOP: 0x0000007E".

The solution, apparently, is to boot in safe mode and set the registry key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\Intelppm" to 4.

Of course. What was I thinking? How could I not thought of that?

Who said Linux is hard to set up and configure?

9-5

2008-05-07T20:03:00.000-07:00

9-5
9-5
9-5

And I'm not talking about office hour.

Today was the longest meeting in my life. A nonstop meeting from 9am to 5pm. The meeting continued even during lunch. And, of course, it was also the most unproductive day in my life...

Exciting Day is (Hopefully) Coming

2008-05-04T07:49:00.000-07:00

I have finally received my bonus for being evil. The amount was 40% less than what I have expected, since I thought the amount was after tax but it turned out to be before tax. Anyway, now this thing is finally out of the way, I can start doing what I have been planning for a while. I'll keep you guys posted here as soon as I can.

Going Cheap

2008-04-27T19:48:00.001-07:00

Going cheap doesn't necessarily save you money. It just shows people you are cheap.

My company has one (new) microwave in the kitchen. Due to popular demand, they've added another new one. But after they are used for two months, one of them is already broken.

How could that be? Well, they probably just buy the cheapest microwaves available in the market, which turns out to be Haier. But at this rate, they are going to pay much more than spending more on a better microwave.

Impressive!

2008-04-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

That's what I was told by my doctor when I was there for my physical. There is a over 20-pound difference since I last seen him, so it's no wonder. Of course, I'm still like 10 pounds away from my target, and I hope it will be achieved by the next time I see him.

Secret Trip II

2008-04-22T09:42:00.000-07:00

Long time no update, which can only mean I was bothered by another secret trip, right?

It was a fun little trip. Even though I had only two direct flights, I visited four different airports. That's right, from airport A to airport B, then from airport C back to airport D. And airport D, otherwise known as Long Beach Airport, is an extremely small airport: With only one terminal and a handful of airlines, you can get off your plane and leave the airport in 1 minute...

The Long Beach flight was by JetBlue, my first time flying them. I didn't have much expectation, but their having DirecTV is amazing. I just enjoyed the NBA playoffs and wished the flight was longer...

I also got a deal from Hertz and rented a Pontiac G6 two days for only $47 (it's a steal considering a $15 airport transportation fee). But what caught me off guard was gas. At $4 per gallon and driven for over 200 miles, I paid almost the same amount for gas.

Pineapple Slicer

2008-04-02T06:48:00.000-07:00

Like most Americans, I love to buy ridiculous specialized tools. One of my latest collection is this pineapple slicer. It has great reviews, and that's certainly by no accident. I just tried it last night, and it produced near perfect slices, all with very little effort. There is no need to buy their stainless-steel version, as the plastic one is good enough. I am going to eat plenty of fresh pineapples now, which are exponentially better than processed ones.

The only regret I have is I didn't buy their set version. My pineapple was too big for the slicer, and some was wasted at the shell. So don't follow my mistake if you're getting one--go for the set!

FedEx Account

2008-03-31T18:46:00.000-07:00

I'm finally back from my "secret trip." What's there to welcome me? An unexpected charge from "FDX."

I guess that's partly my fault. I opened a FedEx account for fun, although I have only used it once. When I used it, though, I wondered the security of their system. To apply charges to your account, all you need to do is to write down your account number on the envelope. What if I wrote down a random account number instead?

Turns out there doesn't even need to be any malice. When I called FedEx to straighten things out, I was told that it was because "the computer has mis-read the account number." What a convenient reason...

Job Market

2008-03-21T23:10:00.000-07:00

Even though I haven't been actively looking for new opportunities, I have been contacted directly by recruiters of two large companies to see if I'm interested in joining their advanced techonolgy groups. And I thought this is the start of a recession, where the job market is supposed to be shrinking.

In case you're interested, of the two companies I'm talking about, one has made an unsolicited bid for the other...

Staying Alive

2008-03-17T03:46:00.000-07:00

That's right. Haven't been updating the blog for a while, but nothing bad happened to me. I am just on a "secret" trip.

But still, I have something to complain, so I can't keep myself silent during the trip. I took United Airlines for the trip. The plane was old, but that's no excuse for their horrible landing. No only it sounded like the plane crashed to the ground, it was so bad that the projector (right, the plane was so old that the only movie screen is from the projector) fell off from the ceiling. If not for the power cord that kept it hanging from the ceiling, someone would have their head broken. And on my way to leave the plane, I saw several other projectors hanging from the ceiling too...

Another bad service was their meal, though part of it was my fault. I ordered a low-purine meal, which turned out to be a vegetarian meal. I guess they just serve the same meal whether you ordered any of those meals: low-purine, low-fat, low-salt, diabetes, jewish...

iSwitched

2008-02-29T04:17:00.000-08:00

I have been a happy user of NetVibes for two years, using it for reading news, storing bookmarks, accessing web storage, tracking stock prices, maintaining notes and a TODO list, and whatnot. But, like before, I've decided to switch to Google, this time their Reader.

It was a pretty easy decision. While I still like the functionality of NetVibes, using it has been a pita in the new office, where there are always connection problems. The way NetVibes is implemented, each "widget" has to grab its content independently. Since I have like 40 widgets, poor connections mean I always have a few widgets malfunction. I noticed I have been spending more time reloading than actually reading news...

As a side benefit of Google Reader, I also get to accumulate unread news over time, which are lost in NetVibes. So next time I'm on a trip for a few days, I won't miss the news of, say, Microsoft's acquisition of Yahoo.

Missed Patent Opportunities?

2008-02-24T19:02:00.000-08:00

What is the best thing to do on a lazy boring Sunday? Google yourself!

What if there's nothing new? Google Patent yourself!

I just did. Turns out a very old paper of mine has been cited on two patent applications. Maybe I could have helped myself to earn some dough...

Free In-n-out

2008-02-22T06:33:00.000-08:00

This week we have a free In-n-Out lunch on our company site, this time for the celebration of Black History Month. For those of you living outside the southwest, In-n-Out is a very popular and inexpensive fast food restaurant here, and their burgers are really great for their price.

This is actually the second time in a while. Different from last time, however, is that this time we need to first get a ticket to claim the meal on the trailer. Why all the trouble? That's because last time they ran out of food at around 12:30, while they claimed to last until 1:30, and someone I know got at least 7 burgers. Talking about selfishness!

Hardest Part

2008-02-18T20:19:00.000-08:00

It's difficult to realize which part of my job is the hardest until near the end of a full project cycle of my own.

It would seem hard to know what to do in the beginning. People tend not to know what they want. And it is a researcher's responsibility to understand their product, their business, and what is technically feasible for them to excel in their market.

Then it is equally hard to make them agree with your decision. Convince them that even though you don't really know what they do, you know what is the best for them, and you know what it takes for them to be successful.

What follows is the easy part, which is the actual research work. Abstracting problems. Reading papers. Designing algorithms. Implementing prototypes. Running experiments. Writing patents. Things people actually expect researchers to do.

The next step would be the boring part. And this includes periodically presenting results and getting feedback. With the only goal of making them take over what you have done. Usually it would mean horrible work like cleaning up code and, god forbid, documentations.

And just before you thought you have arrived to the fun part, namely, writing papers, the worst has yet to come. It is not about writing a high-quality paper. After all, these are industrial research projects with real-world impact that some academic conferences are dying for.

Before disclosing company's trade secret and product's internal details, you need to know if you can actually do that, and if so, how much. In the last few days, in order to decide the position of the paper, I have talked to their engineers, scientist, technical leader, product manager, PR, marketing people, and attorney.

I still have no idea on how to write the paper. It almost made it not worth doing.

Filming

2008-02-15T05:40:00.000-08:00

The big thing in office this week is filming. There is a big sign outside the office building telling us that we should remain silent because of filming. Also, we could be in camera in the building and when it happens we should not look right at the camera. I guess it makes sense to do this here more than in the headquarter in Bay Area, since we have more filming talents (and probably out of work until recently) in LA.

Why filming in the office? They are probably doing some web videos to promote our products. And they seem to think what it takes is some nerdy actors walking around our office building talking with other less nerdy supposedly engineers. And what's the best to mock an office environment than, er..., a real office environment?

Which means that for the last few days, I have been trying to avoid any filming area, to avoid becoming a moving filming background. This has been difficult, since they constantly roam around lobby area. Like yesterday when I left, I had to avoid taking the stairs. They are taking away my only exercise at work!

Frustration

2008-02-10T21:19:00.000-08:00

What is more frustrated? Getting papers rejected many times because of "wrong conference" reviews since there isn't really conferences right for your research, or waiting months for your adviser to even start reading your completed thesis?

Evil Applications

2008-02-08T06:29:00.000-08:00

I've finally got a chance to read my first evil, er... patent application, only five months after submitting my idea. What can I say? It is an interesting experience.

The first thing I noticed was that it is now turned from a small paragraph into a 20-page monster. Then there are several figures of "computer systems" that don't seem to mean much. But most importantly, the text is now rewritten in a language I barely recognize–more than anything, it just seems like a random selection of words to me, consisting of very long sentences with repeating nouns and adjectives.

I was supposed to proofread it. That includes technical correctness and also whether it is as broad as humanly possible. I'm proud to admit that three pages into reading it, I fell into asleep in my cubicle.

There are still two more to come. Anyway, this is a small price to pay, given the few grands I'm getting from each application.

Another Rental Experience

2008-02-05T12:38:00.000-08:00

Enterprise is my car rental company of choice, due to its below average price with frequently above average discounts. The service is always satisfactory, albeit sometimes a bit slow.

I used them again the past weekend. The best strategy to get a free upgrade is always to arrive late on a Friday evening, when they run out of small cars. I didn't really mean to get an upgrade, but because of the schedule I arrived late on Friday anyway. Of course, they ran out of cars, especially small cars, to the extend they needed to move walk-in customers to other neighborhood locations.

Anyway, I was asked if I wanted to get a truck instead of my reserved economy. Worried about gas prices, I declined. Guess what I was given instead. An SUV. Not just any SUV, but a Ford Escape Hybrid. These babies go for $50 per day even on the cheapest Fox Rent-a-car, but I was able to rent one at the economy rate of $16.42 per day.

The driving experience is excellent. It was a very comfortable car, as it was the largest car I have ever driven. As a hybrid, it can go long distance without turning on the engine, and that is where the fun begins, trying to drive in a reasonable speed with the traffic without activating the engine. And I only used a little bit of gas, despite driving for long distances.

Of course, there are some downsides too. I needed to parallel park this baby a few times, on both sides of the road. And man, it wasn't easy. Anyway, I guess I have improved my parallel parking skill.

Another fun fact is that even though I have driven only a very small percentage of the car's mileage when it was returned, I have improved its mile per gallon by almost 10%, from 26.4 mpg to 28.8 mpg. I guess this makes me a damn good hybrid driver. Now if only I could afford one myself...

Weight Target

2008-01-30T08:50:00.000-08:00

It looks like I'm getting closer. I did a body composition test yesterday at my dietitian's, and I am only 15 lbs over my ideal weight. Assuming I could build some more muscles in the process, I would only need to get down 10 lbs. I have come through a long way, since I believe I am already at least 25 fewer lbs than at my peak.

It also made me realized that I've been too impatient. I always try to finish my exercise at around 30-35 mins, and I usually run on treadmill until I can't breath anymore, but I should start doing longer and less intensive exercise.

Wrong. Pay!

2008-01-26T16:37:00.000-08:00

The pharmacy "Wrong. Pay!" aka Rite Aid, otherwise known as Brooks or Eckerd, is damn evil. I've got two of their free gift cards through transferring prescriptions to them. I went to the store yesterday and got myself $9.35 worth of freebies. After swiping a gift card, I was told I still owed money, so I swiped my other gift card to pay the rest. While I felt like I should throw away the first card, my instinct told me it shouldn't be the case.

How right I was. For some reason, my first gift card still has $19.74 left, after begin charged for 7 cents. So how could it possibly charge for 7 cents but not the rest of the remaining balance? There could only be one conclusion: Rite Aid is trying to fool people into throwing away gift cards with remaining balance by only charging partially.

I shouldn't be too pissed with them, however. At least, thanks to their $30 coupon on their web site, I am still getting paid by transferring prescriptions. Just not transferring to them.

YAO

2008-01-24T08:26:00.000-08:00

It doesn't necessarily stand for a person's family name. It could also mean... YAODBAT, or Yet Another One-Day Bay Area Trip. And I hate these, especially when there are weather issues at both Bay Area and LA airports, making me arriving at LA airport four hours after arriving SFO.

This was for visiting a newly acquired office. It was almost a non-stop meeting from 11 to 5. We have developed a lot of their technologies before the acquisition, and we were there to share with them. And the worst part is, the people there are probably mostly millionaires, unlike me, due to the acquisition...

Subway Hero

2008-01-18T06:31:00.000-08:00

I went to Subway for lunch again yesterday, when I saw a lady studying the menu and hesitating on what to order. So I was served first while she was still thinking.

In a matter of seconds, these obfuscated phrases appeared out of nowhere. Green pepper. Red onion. Sweet onion dressing. Then black pepper. It looked like I didn't even have to think.

Oh, the lady surely was impressed. She couldn't help but admired me and told me, "You really know how to order."

That's right. I am a superhero. A Subway Hero, to be exact, who know how to order in Subway.

Or maybe I just spent too much time watching Heroes on Netflix.

Apple Juice

2008-01-15T21:30:00.000-08:00

I was walking passed a Robeks Juice the other day, when I've decided to order a medium apple juice. It gets me thinking if they could get much profit, as I saw them using 5 apples for a drink that costs just over $3--I couldn't get that many apples from the grocery store at this price.

But any goodwill is gone immediately, as I observed how they prepared the juice. Both of the two employees there prepared the drink together (the junior one seems to be confused as to how to make fresh juice and tried to get something from the drinking fountain; I take that as too few people ordering fresh juice there). While both of them wear gloves on their left hands to give a false sense of cleanness, they used their left hands to operate the juicer, and used their bare right hands to grab apples...

Caved In

2008-01-06T21:13:00.000-08:00

Having seen all the remotely interesting movies currently offered in Redbox, I finally have to cave in to satisfy my movie desire.

The choice was either Netflix or Blockbuster. I was originally more inclined to Blockbuster, for its "exchange in-store" policy, which would have made it much easier to see latest DVDs and overall renting more movies for virtually the same plan. But some online research reveals that in-store exchange is annoying: they would keep selling you other for-fee sales or services. And you can hardly blame the stores for that, as those franchise stores don't really benefit much by allowing you to do the exchange. Since I hate to needing to say "no" three times, I decided to go for Netflix instead for its slightly larger inventory.

Turns out I like my decision. I found out I like the online watching feature of Netflix much more than I have expected. Now if they could have more videos available for online watching once I finished Heroes season 1, I would be a subscriber for a long long time.

"Foreign" Transaction Fee

2008-01-06T09:01:00.000-08:00

There is a Subway restaurant in the mall next to my office. I've decided to go there once or twice a week, as there's not much else to eat either in the mall or the cafeteria in my office building. Tempted by the free AE "movie card" offer, I've decided to order a gift card for myself.

I just checked my statement. It was actually considered a "foreign" transaction in Canadian dollars, as the gift card processing center is in Canada. Needless to say, I was charged for a foreign transaction fee. Had I known before, I would have consulted this page before deciding which card to use...

Hat Trick

2007-12-27T21:11:00.000-08:00

Today is a new milestone. I have punched the third hole on my belt over the last month and change. Of course, this is inevitable, given how much less I'm eating right now. Yet this may not be a good news. My dietitian says that I'm losing weight too quickly...

Forced Holidays

2007-12-25T07:25:00.000-08:00

This is the week of forced holidays. Two days of company vacation, plus three more days of forced day offs. By forcing us to take our "flexible" vacation days off, the company can improve its book without spending a dime. Of course, it makes you wonder why this is necessary, when the company is making unnecessary, pricey acquisitions. And the stock price has been nothing but crappy, falling 25% during the last two months.

I am not used to this kind of long break, particularly as I am waiting for feedback from my advisor for my thesis draft. Which is why I decided to exploit RedBox, again, for free, using the codes I got from here. In the last couple of days, I have already seen the following movies.

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
Superbad
Heartbreak kid
Bourne Ultimatum
Mr. Bean's Holiday
Spider-Man 3
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Transformers
Ratatouille
300
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
The Pursuit of Happyness

So you understand why I haven't been updating this blog...

CM-Symptom

2007-12-13T20:44:00.000-08:00

Championship Manager series, aka CM, is the greatest game series ever. Ok, I lied. Nothing beats Final Fantasy, but CM is one of the best. But I digress.

After finishing my thesis draft, I got nothing better to do. And after seeing Liverpool's unbelievable comeback from 1 points after three games to advancing to the knockout stage in UEFA Champions League, the manager inside me wanted to have a little fun, too, so I started playing CM97/98. But it was a DOS application, and to make it run on my XP box, I had to run it in a tiny window, and that's how I got this CM-symptom.

To read the game text more clearly, I leaned to my monitor and bent my back a bit. The manager inside me left me after just one game, but my back started to hurt the next morning.

Today is the fourth day, and I am finally mostly recovered, partly thanks to my ball. However, if you want to play CM, remember I warned you here: be careful for the CM-symptom!

Thesis Writing

2007-12-10T05:52:00.000-08:00

My first draft is done. After many years of "research," things are finally put together for a thesis in just a couple of weeks. Of course, it consists mostly of crap. And as an example, I am including the final two sentences here for your enjoyment.

The model and designs in this thesis provide peer-to-peer system designers, developers, and administrators suggestions and directions to handle freeloaders in their networks, as well as an arsenal of mechanisms for them to implement. With freeloaders taken care of, this removes the largest stumbling block for peer-to-peer applications to live up to their full potential.

Exactly. These are just the nonsense bold claims that I don't even believe anyone would buy. But it doesn't matter, as long as this is done and I can go on with my life.

After weeks of painful writing, though, it is probably time for me to comment a bit on writing. In general, my systems papers are much harder to write than my theory papers. This is because it is hard to justify designing and simulating systems when they don't seem to be real or practical. You still have to justify when writing theory papers; however, you usually just need to link them to some applications, and it suffices as long as the solution itself is interesting enough...

Sign of Overweight

2007-12-01T09:45:00.000-08:00

This is a definite sign. The chairmat I got from Staples a year ago is already breaking. In a hindsight, given my weight, maybe I should have gotten a thicker one to last a bit longer...

Maybe I should start doing something about it... I mean the overweight thing...

BoA... Rocks?

2007-11-28T21:38:00.000-08:00

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...

National Enterprise Systems

2007-11-25T07:22:00.000-08:00

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?

Weird Dream

2007-11-23T17:10:00.000-08:00

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?

Which University is Best in CS and EE?

2007-11-20T18:30:00.000-08:00

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.

Scale Not Working?

2007-11-18T20:33:00.000-08:00

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?

Exciting Match

2007-11-17T14:44:00.000-08:00

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)?

What's Wrong with Sony?

2007-11-13T07:49:00.001-08:00

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!?

Crispy Melt

2007-11-12T11:17:00.000-08:00

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...

Paper Submitted

2007-11-11T14:34:00.000-08:00

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...

Road Closed

2007-11-10T07:48:00.000-08:00

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.

Scale

2007-11-05T21:22:00.000-08:00

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...

New Season with JVG

2007-11-03T15:45:00.000-07:00

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...

Grand Bistro

2007-11-01T08:29:00.000-07:00

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...

I'm Very Well Connected...

2007-10-27T15:27:00.000-07:00

I have a T-shirt from Sprint with this phrase printed on the front. Although I don't really care what is printed on it and use it in rotation, it has given me undue attention the last few times I wore it. People would read it aloud and ask me whom I'm very well connected to.

It is probably a very nice T-shirt for starting conversations with strangers. Too bad I hate that...

Much Improved Commute

2007-10-18T21:12:00.000-07:00

With my office moved from Santa Monica to Culver City, I finally realize, commute does not have to be nasty.

On paper, the distance is shortened only by 30%. But by avoiding crossing two horrible freeways, the commute time is now less than half: from 20-40 mins down to 10-15 mins. More importantly, since the route is not as congested, driving is much more relaxing. No need to worry people's reckless cutting and turning from out of nowhere.

The sad thing is, this is about the only good thing on the move...

The Trip

2007-10-16T21:52:00.000-07:00

With a few days of rest, it is time to summarize the trip.

The show, Mamma Mia, was surprisingly good. Surprising because I didn't have much expectation as I thought it would be kinda boring. It was actually much lighter and funnier than I imagined. The singing was great, particular the one playing the "mother" Donna. Much more enjoyable than Sammi's concert.

I also tried the $20 trick for hotel upgrade. Too bad the front desk clerk said the manager did not allow update, probably due to the coincidence IBM conference (or whatever meeting they do... in Vegas...). I did get a free spa day pass to try their fitness center.

But the most memorial was the Noodle Shop. I heard about this place when it was still in another hotel. Now that I'm staying at a hotel with this restaurant, of course I decided to try it. I went there really early at 5-ish (wanted to eat something before the show). The place was already pretty full (there is no really sense of time in Vegas as the casino has the same lighting 24/7). I was seated and brought a drink, but was then told to wait for the waitress. After waiting for like 10 mins, I started to get impatient, tried to signal, but no one seemed to care, even though at least 3 waitresses saw me. Then eventually at least one of them walked by and mumbled that a waitresses would be serving me soon.

After a few more minutes, a waitress finally showed up to take orders. But she only went to the table next to mine, and completely ignore my table. What would you do in this case? Certainly! I walked out of the restaurant. This is the first time I do something like this, but I don't think I had a choice when no one cared enough to serve me...

Cheapo Cheapo

2007-10-11T09:01:00.000-07:00

When I said cheapo, I meant it. The very cheap JetBlue tickets that came with my Vegas trip are actually next to unusable.

So I got Saturday night show tickets and hotels easily. Using them is as simple as faxing/making an easy call. But no, not for cheapo JetBlue. When I called a month ago, the very helpful representative told me that there is no way to get tickets on weekends calling so late. No Fridays. No Sundays. No Mondays. Since the show tickets mandate Saturday night, there is just no way around it.

After taking the blame of calling so late, I asked her if there are flights tickets available any weekend up to April. No, it's even not my fault; they are just not giving me weekend tickets. So I could fly, but not for the show...

Well, it might not totally be JetBlue's fault. The mall that gave me the package probably only paid for the cheapest "reward" tickets. And with this impossible task on scheduling a weekend trip without weekend flights, at least they should have someone to arrange the trip for me. So the mall sucks, too.

Out of spite, I am considering flying roundtrip on the same day on some weekday to waste their resources...

Anyway, I'm driving to Vegas tomorrow. Have a nice weekend!

DSmania

2007-10-08T21:24:00.000-07:00

Sony has recently released the "Slim & Lite" version of PSP, but looks like the winner has already been decided: DS Lite. That's a great news for a proud owner like me.

How do I know DS Lite has won? Well, if you go to my office's cafeteria at around 4pm each day, you'll see a gang of 4 to 5 people playing networked games. Last time, when I went to Ralph's for grocery at 6pm, I also saw one of their employees taking a break outside the store with none other than a DS Lite. I can't remember when was the last time I saw someone playing a PSP in public.

24" Commute

2007-10-05T19:25:00.000-07:00

Commuting has become much worse lately. That's unavoidable: traffic is only marginally tolerable during the summer, when many people, particularly those go to UCLA, are not around. But it's ok. I've only got one more week to suffer, before my company moves to Culver City, when I can choose to drive a much shorter and better route or just take a bus.

Beside, I have another reason to be excited. I just got a 24" monitor. Since I don't want to repackage it, I haven't opened the box yet. Can't wait to start using it after the move...

Major Stock Sold

2007-09-30T06:31:00.000-07:00

Finally sold my other stock and major investment that I mentioned in the earlier post. EMC is actually becoming more of a direct competitor to my company, since our acquisition of Veritas to extend to storage and their acquisition of RSA to extend to security. I knew their stock was going up since the announcement of IPO of 10% of VMware, an obvious financial means to push up the stock price by exploiting the sudden public attention to virtual machine technology.

Result? It went up from $13.79 when I bought 6 months ago to $20.70 when I sold last week, a 50% profit. However, it triggers a new problem. Now that the interest rates are declining, and I don't have time to research on my next investment, where should I put my money?

Berkeley DB vs SQLite

2007-09-27T18:21:00.001-07:00

Ok, this is my attempt to make this blog a little bit more "educational."

In my latest project, like most projects, I need a library to quickly store large amount of data and perform some basic queries on the data. Since I want to implement the prototype quickly and make it easy to send the prototype to other people, I decided against using any "real" database. I see two options: Berkeley DB or SQLite. Since SQLite is like new and cool and allows me to dust my SQL, I decided to use it.

Obviously, the rest of this entry is about why it was a stupid choice.

I need the library to map some ID number and hash values in both direction. Doing it fast in SQL engines requires the use of indices on both fields. In SQLite, the only supported index is BTree, which means that it would needlessly sort the millions of hash values...

A quick reimplementation in Berkeley DB with hash based indexing reduced the running time from 10 hours into 3.

Bureaucracy

2007-09-25T21:43:00.000-07:00

I never quite understood this word, other than as something opposite to efficiency, until recently. How do a research person define his "business goals"? How about self-evaluation based on alignment of personal performance with vision and value? It is not to the extent of the Colored Giant but at least they rightfully decided that I don't fit in and I agreed.

But things could get worse. Like unwillingly taking precious vacations so that someone other than me can save cost by shutting down sites during holiday seasons...

It Rained! Twice!

2007-09-23T09:15:00.000-07:00

Oh mine, I was almost completely forgotten this weather condition type. It's been forever since the last time it rained. When I was in Houston, I hated raining very much (except for the hottest days in summer... which means half of the year...). But I didn't mind a bit raining here, not only because it is so rare, but also it cleans up the dirty streets a bit here.

What's amazing, though, is that the small rainfall already caused many traffic accidents and trapping cars in muds. Hard to imagine if we had one of those Houston rainfall here.

California Metric

2007-09-19T11:23:00.000-07:00

Despite its heavy taxes, California is a crowded state. For example, you can't find a house that looks nice within 10 miles from where I live that is selling for less than $1million.

To deal with that living condition, our mattress sizes are different. Say for King size, we have California King instead.

But make no mistake about cars. We have plenty of trucks, SUVs, and Hummers. That's why a compact car here means... an SUV!

Of course, I wouldn't mind so much if I was not late for work today and had to park right next to it.

Loving Virgin

2007-09-15T06:53:00.000-07:00

As a founding member of eleVAte, the frequent flyer program of the new Virgin America airline, of course I should try their flights. And I just did. They really changed the game of flying.

There are a few things that are different in their flights:

"Phased moon-lighting" system, which I don't pay a dime to.
9-inch touch screen for everyone
Gaming control pad with full QWERTY keyboard
Power outlet at every seat for all your gadgets
Unbelievable selection of in-flight entertainments: Live TV, thousands of songs, music videos, movies (some for-fee), and most amazingly, Chinese TV shows!
Chatting (on screen with keyboard with any one on the flight or chat rooms)

When they have Internet access (coming soon), they will just conquer the world...

What can I say! I love Virgin. And that includes the airline... Too bad they only fly to a very limited number of cities right now.

P.S. There's nothing special about becoming a founding member of eleVAte. You simply need to register by the end of this year.

Profitting From Sickness?

2007-09-13T20:11:00.000-07:00

I just went to see a doctor today (that has more to do with the lack of updates than "Must... Stop... Update..."). The visit was covered by my insurance, so I needed not to pay. But I got two prescriptions, and using a coupon from Ralphs, I got back a $30 gift card, while paying only $10 for the pills thanks to my insurance. Had I separate the two prescriptions and also used the CVS coupon to get back another $25 gift card, I would have profited $45 from my sickness... Is this still considered as some kind of deals?

Must... Stop... Update

2007-09-04T18:39:00.000-07:00

Haven't updated for a few days. My right hand has not been feeling well lately. I just bought a new mouse... I hope it is not RSI. I am supposed to have learned from the best, since my former boss started the Typing Injury FAQ. Anyway, I need to use computer less now, so don't expect too many updates.

Shitty LA

2007-08-28T07:18:00.000-07:00

Before moving, people told me I need to be more careful with my properties in LA. I didn't pay much attention to that at the time. How bad could it be in a city, if I don't go to bad neighborhoods? It is not Detroit or New Orleans...

Now I found out. I parked my car in a plaza in Chinatown for a while. When I'm back, my car's antenna mast is gone. Someone has actually stolen that! Can you imagine? A quick check on eBay shows that a new one is around $13 shipped. Damn, I hate cheap people.

I am probably not going to replace it. My car radio and my iPod-to-radio thingy still work well. More importantly, what guarantees that it won't be stolen again?

Rain!

2007-08-26T15:00:00.000-07:00

It was just a bit of precipitation for the last two days, but still exciting. And it also made it not hot here.

I can't remember what was the last time it wasn't sunny here.

Stopping California Stop

2007-08-26T08:26:00.000-07:00

The only reason I moved to California is for California Stop. Well, not really, but it sounds good.

Looks like I have to be more careful. Recently, there is often a black and white waiting in my neighborhood. I have already seen someone got caught, probably for failing to stop at a stop sign...

Water Park

2007-08-23T21:06:00.000-07:00

Free lunch. Free dinner. In between? Free water fun from Raging Waters.

While it was fun at the beginning, after a few attractions, they start look like the same as you are pushed by water from one place to another.

Worse, I got myself burnt. Guess which part. No, it was my left sole. Turns out, walking on bare feet is a fatal mistake, as the sun heat the ground too much...

Adjustable Dumbbells

2007-08-18T16:04:00.000-07:00

I bought a pair of new toys, the Bowflex SelectTech 220 Dumbbells today. While the gym in my apartment has dumbbells, many of them are missing, and I would use them more if I could do while watching TV. The price was unbelievable. These babies go for $199 in Amazon, but I found them in a local Sports Authority. While their web site says that they are going for the same price, they were on clearance at my local for $99.97. With a 25% off coupon I got from the web, it cost me just above $80. And I am also going to write a review on PriceGrabber to get an addition $5 rebate. They are great and convenient dumbbells, since they can go from 2.5 lbs each to 20 lbs at 2.5 lbs intervals, and the switching is as simple as turning a knob.

First Actual Use of Street View

2007-08-17T06:40:00.000-07:00

Street View is fun. But most of the time that is it. Fun.

Until I finally found out a use of it yesterday. Like every other week, I found out my usual commute route is getting slow, so it was again time to look for alternate route. While I was trying to invent a new route by going through small roads, I was stuck at a point, needing to make a left turn from a small road to a major road.

Now the question is, is there traffic lights at that intersection? Since if not, during rush hours, it is next to impossible to make such a left turn (unless you start forcing people to yield to you). Street View comes to rescue. I am happy to report that I found a great route. At least until next week...

God of Stock Market?

2007-08-14T21:11:00.000-07:00

Am I? Just look at the stock price of Apple for the last 6 months. Bought at the lowest price since April and sold at the peak...

Of course, that's just because I didn't tell you the one stock that I lost money on.

Hate UK Conference Calls

2007-08-10T12:09:00.000-07:00

I just did one this morning as part of the evil-turning plan and I didn't enjoy a bit.

First, it has to be in the early mornings due to time difference. Then I have to pay extra attention for the British accent. To make it worse, it is sometimes pretty hard to grasp what they think, since they don't necessarily show their stand or emotion in their tones. Fourth... well I hate to talk to people I don't know well anyway.

Officially Evil

2007-08-05T15:45:00.000-07:00

I declare that I'm officially evil now.

I spent some time this past week learning the patent procedure in my company and started mine. All I can say is, turning evil is a difficult process. First, you need to make some crap that stinks so much that no one has ever touched before. After that, you go and read some worse-than-crap patents that read worse than gibberish (since you know you don't need to understand gibberish). I spent like an hour reading one before deciding that it was something trivial. Then it comes to the worst part, where you actually write your own gibberish. And it wasn't even the application itself--it was only an application for application, subject to approval before the actual application...

But it's not like I have the option of not being evil. Patent applications are a part of my evaluation. Plus, who could resist the path towards evilness, when not only evilness is monetarily rewarded, but also the application to evilness is?

Funny Spam

2007-08-03T11:51:00.001-07:00

It has been a while since I laughed at a spam. I am usually amused at those crap, but not laughed.

The spam I got is in Chinese (I have been receiving a lot of Chinese spam from Taiwan lately). Its subject was "Danish [Lustful Nestle Coffee]." I guess I found it funny probably due to ignorance, but it looked like very weird combinations of words...

Taking Back x 2

2007-08-02T22:12:00.000-07:00

I'm taking back my taking back. My tummy has been hurting, and it must be because of the lunch...

Taking Back

2007-08-02T15:17:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm taking back what I just said. The Indian lunch, which wasn't great, had plenty of meat and was not as bad as I supposed...

I Hate Free Food

2007-08-02T11:05:00.000-07:00

You heard me right. And I can't believe I said that either. But that's true now.

I don't know who is behind these decisions, but lately, the food catering for meetings are just horrible. They keep ordering cuisines that I don't like, like Mexican, Indian, and Middle East. To make it worse, you don't get to know the cuisine before the meeting day, so it is hard to prepare something else. Why can't we have some more common food, like sandwiches and pizzas?

Man, it looks like I won't have lunch today...

Missing BBQ

2007-07-30T13:20:00.000-07:00

Moved from Houston to Los Angeles, barbecue food is one thing that I missed most. Well, maybe except cheaper everything. And freeways that you can usually drive at freeway speed. And more friendly (at least apparently) people. And many else. Anyway, my point is, it becomes much harder to find decent bbq outside Texas.

A few months back I tried Baby Blues BBQ, winner of the AOL CityGugide best bbq award. Other than the waitress was only interested on her cell phone conversation, the food was only mediocre. So I didn't even bother to blog about it.

Last week, not wanting to give up bbq entirely, I tried the best barbecue food according to Citysearch. (Interestingly, Baby Blues was second on the list.) The food in Woody's was a bit better, but still nothing comparing to my favorite Meyer's (in Elgin, just outside Austin) or my favorite chain Rudy's. I don't think I am going back to Woody's because of the not too good neighborhood in Inglewood and the cleanliness of the area...

LA Times

2007-07-28T06:28:00.001-07:00

I have a subscription to LA Times for "weekends," which includes Thursday to Sunday. I am not a fan of its content; I subscribed it only for the Sunday coupons, but with the deal I got ($20 a year) it was actually cheaper to get the whole weekend.

Anyway, it is unbelievable. Like today, on its front page is an article about... the increasing price of beef noodles in Lanzhou. Why would anyone in LA cares about that? I am Chinese and even I don't. Lame!

Apple Sold

2007-07-26T21:27:00.000-07:00

I finally sold all my Apple shares. Bought at $89.93, I sold it at $147.57, one of the higher prices of today, after the great Q3 result announced yesterday and before it was affected by the general market. The over 64% of profit in slightly over 3 months is really amazing. Not that I don't think the stock value is not going up, as I think Apple will still go strong with more refined versions of iPhone coming out, but I think it was a good time to leave with a guaranteed profit.

I could have earned more if I invested more, but a larger portion of my portfolio is betting on another technology company. The last four month holding their stock "only" brought me 33% of profit. But I'm still hopeful on their big coming move over the summer...

Painfully Debugging

2007-07-24T20:59:00.000-07:00

I spent the last two day debugging painfully. It was bad enough that the debugging was done in a beefy 64-bit Linux machine with 8GB of RAM connected via Xwindows tunneled through ssh in a Redhat Linux environment running as a VMware image in my Windows XP laptop. The bug did not emerge until after running the program for half an hour. And the only message I got was a segmentation fault. And debugger only showed corrupted memory...

At last, I realized the bug was because when I compute the memory size for allocation, the result overflowed the 32-bit unsigned long integer. Sigh.

Motorola Sucks

2007-07-17T20:58:00.000-07:00

I am never going to buy another Motorola product, especially mobile phones, again.

While function-wise my Moto Q does everything I expected it to do, it does nothing exceptional. Windows Mobile is horrible. It makes the phone so slow it is only marginally acceptable. The battery life is a joke, as often it cannot last for one day with moderate web surfing.

But the worst of all, it dies randomly. And by that, I mean all of a sudden it just refuses to reboot. This is what happened to me today. I spent hours figuring out what's the problem and how to fix it. Turns out, it is a well known problem, and many units, if not most, are with this defect. I even lost all my data when I tried a master reset (and how can such a buggy hardware comes without a reset button!?).

Anyway, after some effort, it is working again now. God knows when it will die again, and if I could revive it again. For the remaining 21 months that I am still going to be in contract with Sprint, I can only hope...

Carnage II: The Return of the Ants

2007-07-16T15:23:00.000-07:00

Yes, they are back. And they found a new path. Now everyday when I walk to my car, they are moving above my head...

What? How come this episode has nothing to do with the title "Carnage?" Have you not seen movie franchises milking the same title with unrelated sequels?

Another Vegas Trip?

2007-07-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

Man, Vegas loves me...

Just got noticed that I got a free trip to none other than everyone's favorite sin city. It includes cheapo JetBlue flights to Vegas (no more driving through the desert and passing through the unpronounceable Zzyzx road) and two nights in the four star Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino. Note that a Saturday night stay in the hotel could cost up to $400. It even includes a Saturday night musical show Mamma Mia.

Why did I pay for my birthday getaway trip, again?

Carnage!

2007-07-15T10:42:00.000-07:00

Several hundreds, if not thousands, of dead bodies lying down in my apartment on the way to my parking spot. What a terrifying scene!

The ants in my apartment have been building a path from the garbage room to wherever their sweet home is. It has been like that for a few weeks. You could easily kill like 50 of them by stepping on their way any time. Probably due to complaints, the apartment is finally willing to do something to eliminate the ant problem.

Gosh, it is still nothing comparing to the frequently noisy motorcycles and sometimes cars with radio volume turning way up. I need to move again once my lease is over in 9 months...

Vegas Trip

2007-07-10T12:56:00.000-07:00

Back from the exhasuting Vegas trip, I was so tired for the last two days. The traffic was not good on the way back, with frequent congestions in the interstate. And the temperature was insane (115F/45C). It was the first time I feel my Corolla was not powerful enough when going uphill in the desert with air-conditioning.

But on the good side, it was also the first time I saw a Smart ForTwo. I thought they were not available in US yet. It was every bit like I thought, small, cute, easy to park, etc. Too bad I didn't get to talk to the driver...

Oh, you want to know about the concert too? It was loud and flashy. What else do you want to know?

Free Pr0n

2007-07-06T16:16:00.000-07:00

What to know a great way to get free porn? Join Geek Squad...

Oh by the way, happy birthday to me. Thanks everyone for saying nothing and sending me nothing.

Birthday Getaway

2007-07-01T12:09:00.000-07:00

I couldn't believe I am actually doing a birthday getaway this year. Well, not exactly on my birthday, but close enough. I am going to Las Vegas next weekend to see Sammi Cheng's (Hong Kong pop singer) concert in MGM Grand. Since I haven't got any birthday gift from any of you yet, I'll need to look for a way to get back my trip expense in Vegas...

Jersey

2007-06-30T15:13:00.000-07:00

Ok, I admit it. Even though I said I don't care, I lied. I'm still a Rockets fans. Look at my new jersey.

Why 76? No, I'm not a 76ers' fan too. It is just that July 6 is a very important day, as a very important person came to the world on that day...

So I'll expect your gift. I do gladly accept cash or alike.