Recently in Interest Category

Well this past weekend, the Wang went off to the scorching hot land of Las vegas for good friend, the Dij's bach. party. Much fun with had in road trip driving, girl watching and snarky comments all around. But the highlight of the events was definetly when the party goers gathered at the Gun store in vegas and fired off some automatic weapons. The Wang having never shot anything in his life decided to become, one of them "I have 2 pistols in my truck" guys. Since the gun store is famous for thier automatic weapons the Wang decided to go something a little more fast. So the MP5, gun of video gaming choice was the Wang's choice. here' the Dij caught the Wang firing off about 40 rounds on the MP5:

Cant say the Wang is now a man with a gun, but definetly the Wang earned his 1 dot in firearms if we ever play ur self in Zombie apoclypse games... Plus i totally PWNed that upside-down blue target dude.

Cool picture of the day goes to The Stranger magazine's current cover. Seattle is just a much cooler city.

via Mr. Luna

U know when u drive over to Sawtelle, to get some Cinefile rentals and get a sandwhich from Luigis'. U really dont expect to see a Cock in the middle of the street.

This week has been a relatively relaxing week compare to the drinking binge that was last. Though the Wang recent work situation has made Wang, a) more important in the office, b)more loaded with work. But still this week has been a fun one. Due to the broken video card on the Wang’s main gaming computer, WoW-ing has been an all time low. Thus allowing Wang to go back to the roots of TV, and catch up on some DVDs and Battlestar Galactica.

But the definite high-light of the week is Live Journal’s Audiography Community. The audiography Community is a cool LJ music lover group that post songs based on a theme a week. This week’s theme is “5 ATM," which stands for 5 favorite songs At The Moment. And this week the community members have posted some great stuff, the Wang has been going through 30-40 something songs a day. It might be a little late to catch up on the postings of the community, but do go and check out if u have the time and the mood to sample random songs. This week the Wang has sampled everything from Elvis, to Mercury Rev, to Kayne West. Not to mention posting of old time favorites like Rilo Kiley, Big Pig, Tegan & Sara, Cibo Matto, Corrs, Nirvana & way too many to name. This also give the Wang a outlet to learn about ppl like PJ Harvey, Kate Bush, The Chieftains, and many classic artist the Wang did-not grow up with.

Amongst the media that was bombarded to the Wang this week, was a DVD title called Samurai 7. This is an odd anime adaptation of Akira Kurasawa’s Seven Samurai. Some scenes in this anime go word for word to the original. Cept the anime takes place in some sort of futurist Battle Angel Alita-esque word, with guns, cyborgs, and flying ships that look like the Tokugawa Castles. But the opening of the anime does have a cool, Exalted-level samurai vs. armies of mechas + ships. Then we get drawn back to the human level of the Seven Samurai plot. Some how this anime even catches the “feeling of peasants" that Kurasawa seems to portrait in his movies. Of course lacking in Kurasawa’s filmic voice, the Anime relies on the typical anime cuteness and action to carry it through. So far, it’s a very interesting anime, I just hope it doesn crap out like all Anime these days. And The Wang hopes that they release more DVDs, faster. Plus adding a female character in the seven samurai plot is always a bonus, specially a cute priestess. Speaking of which, Kurasawa didn’t have many memorable female characters did he?

Wired’s 10 Years that Changed the World is a must read for ppl of our generation. A great recap of the last 10 yrs on the World Wide Web. Starting from the founding of Netscape to the Empire that is Google, Wired gives us, techno-geeks a look at the past ten yrs of our cyber-lives. Most of us r oblivious to the business and the ppl behind everything that made the interweb what it is today. Wired even gives nods to founding fathers of the multimedia hypertech such as Bush and Nelson, whose idea were not achieved until the technology came around in the 90s. Their visions of a massive repository of knowledge were only truly brought to its virtual existence when we all came to embrace the interweb.

But Wired goes on the mentioning the true spirit behind the interweb. That ppl would gather together without boundaries, to share knowledge, ideas, and files. It is a community of its participants, a entity created by those who feed it. Wired also brings us the last 10 yrs of the struggle between those who wanted to use the interweb for greed and those who want it to be free.

How could we create so much, so fast, so well? In fewer than 4,000 days, we have encoded half a trillion versions of our collective story and put them in front of 1 billion people, or one-sixth of the world's population. That remarkable achievement was not in anyone's 10-year plan.

Writer Kevin Kelly ends with the future. He envisions that one day, the net will becomes a sentient machine. And we, now are the ppl that will bring it life. This machine, much like our brain will be the future of knowledge, and like the visions of Vannevar Bush, the Web will be our collective mind and spirit.

So much as the Wang has learned in the past year in Blogging, some how, this medium, has gotten the Wang of his lazy ass and to create content. I can’t say this is great stuff that I’m writing everyday, but much like the web, it has turned us into active producers. Anyone can and does contribute to this great machine, this mind of the future. In fact we are all parents to this child of Humanity.

A special thank to noble_zone for his fame and advertising that lead to my 15 min of RPG.net fame.

But it also gave me this spike in bandwidth.

Of course headline of the day, Operation "Al-faja" ("Dawn").

Forget Blu-ray, Pioneer = 500gb on 1 Ultraviolet Laser Disc.

Remeber how i use to say, hacking bluetooth wasnt that bad, since only geeks can build bluetooth antennas, imagine Bluetooth at 1 mile wide standard..

And we love the japanese, even if they want to make clothing with speakers built into them.

You too can live in a "Zero-Energy Home", specially in Callifornia.

The finally caught the Nigerian Royalty that went around asking for our bank accounts, so he can "transfer us money..."

For those who cares, the GOD-emporer phone Treo 650 is now taking Sprint Pre-orders. Many have rumor that the Treo 650 can now take video clips, show higher resolutions, and summon large worms.

"Mommy where do babies come from? Do they come from your arm?"
"No honey, The eggs are just made there."

The REAL fabric of life, now Clothing can sense!

Yes officer it was this big!

Ladies and gentlemen of the Academy, for your consideration, Mischa Barton.(via Tvgasm)

I know who needs a Flatulence Deodorizer™

Bored at work/home? play some addictive Flash games from Eyemaze.

When books get database errors.

Jump on the bandwagon and throw in a tagline for the end of Sixfeet under. Cause i really like Six Feet Under To Be Buried This Season” , the Associated Press is so crative sometimes.

And just to add some color to this post, here's bernie, eating a baby:

Can robots be gay?

Jabberwocky is one of my favorite poems, and it can be yours too, in any language you want!

And i'll end the day with a gallery of sleeping white collar japanese business men.

Collected today from observations from the hellbound handbasket, BBC, Thighs Wide Shut, BoingBoing, Screenhead, Waxy.org, Gizmodo, Wired, and Engadget.

Last night, a bunch of friends and I went to the Disney Concert hall in down town LA. Yes the giant metallic monstrosity. But as you can see above, the inside is quite different looking. Mostly covered with some sort of wood, I assume for the acoustics, the inners of this beast is well, beast looking. The roof of the inner hall resembles what, my friends and I called, the underbelly of a Ohmu. Layers upon layers of curved wooden plates covered the ceiling, only to be broken by small openings for lights and other stage-ly devices dangling from the unknown darkness. But the picture above is of the grand organ, which I dig. It seems to use these box shaped wooden frames to covers some of the piping and founder them around like a wooden flower or tree. It does support the organic feel of the whole hall. Which I guess is only an extension of the outer metallic organic-ness. Sound-wise I cant say I’m a fine judge of acoustics, but we sat in the back orchestra section, which is new concept to me. The seats were basically behind the orchestra and we can see the conductor’s face. It is the "Orchestra View section below, the one in purple. The sound sounded a little boxed in. I felt like everything I heard was a echo or some sort of acoustic resonance from somewhere else. It had a very omnipresence sound.

So last evening schedule started with Schubert: Overture in E minor, D. 648 and then Schumann: Cello Concerto with a cello soloist, Peter Stumpf.We had our intermission and our $3 bottled water, and proceeded with the main piece of the evening, the one we went for, Shostakovich: Symphony No. 11 "The Year 1905".

My roommate recommended a few Russian composers for a RPG game I am playing, Shstakovich’s name came up. I guess this lead to him finding out about the performance, thus our evening at the concert hall. I listen to some of these Russian composers the few nights leading up to the event, I do find them quite interesting. I like their wave like rhythm with the emotions of a piece. They tend to get very dramatic, and then very subtle, quiet almost peaceful. I think this piece that we heard last night, as I deducted form the title is about a year of struggle. The La Philharmonic’s guide to the song mentioned it as a piece about 1956 Hungarian uprising. But overall the song does feel like a story, about struggle and conflict. It somehow carries the tone of suffering in the slower movements. I really do get a feel for what they describe as people struggling to survive the harsh coldness. There’s a slow drama in the music about holding on to the fire almost… or just the fire of life. Which I assume is very Russian, as it has a feel of Mainland Chinese movies. But I had a great time waiting for the move dramatic parts where the entire percussion section got up and started to hit things. I think I was most amazed by the sheer focus of the large cymbal player, whom got up like every 5 min. to hit the cymbal twice. But the look on his face for each hit, as if his soul, his entire existence was about that one sound, in that one moment, how his entire body worked into the motion of the hit of cymbal, and the motion that followed the vibrations.

Well overall it was a nice experience. I do miss being in environments like that, it reminds me of my Hawaiian days where I hung out at big dinners and large gatherings. I guess I was so into the whole thing I was about to walk around with a video camera again.

Recently 2 articles nudged me in this train of thought; the iPod is becoming a item of multiple genres. As hip and trendy device of the Apple Company the iPod has take its share in the market. According to articles the iPod holds 92.1% of all hard drive based players (Cnet) and 68% of all MP3 players flash RAM or hard drive in the US. (The Inquirer) Not counting the recently release of the 4th generation iPod is just about to hit the Xmas season. The release of iPod Minis in Japan has also started a craze in the gadget hungry country. Also iTunes is holds 70% of the market for legalized music downloads.

Moon Festival

Sept. 28 th is the Chinese's Moon Festival. Well know for its famous dessert the Moon cake. (Well at least most people know of the dessert. If not give me a call i'll point u to some. ) It was odd that when my roommate asked me about the moon festival i had no idea what the real story behind it, so a basic internet search turned up the following story that explains the background of the Moon festival:

The Chinese Moon Festival, or sometimes called the Mid-Autumn Festival, takes place on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month. The festival dates back to the Tang dynasty 618 A.D. and celebrates the biggest and brightest full moon of the year, the harvest moon.

The Moon Festival is a big holiday with family reunions, moon gazing activities, and feasting on "moon cakes" which are round pastries filled with red bean paste, fruit or jam. Dragon and lion dances, whose origins also date back to ancient China, are wonderful dances done during festivals, especially exciting are the dragon and lion dances.

While the Chinese legend included the story that once there were 10 suns. Because that was just way too hot and way to bright, the emperor of the time asked Hou-Yih to get rid of the suns. Hou-Yih a great hero, shot down 9 of the suns. Of course this angered the Jade Emperor, whom condemned Hou-Yih and his Wife to never return heavenly courts. Chang-o (as stated above, most i learned it as, Chung-Er) Blamed Hou-Yih, and stole some pill that made her float towards the sky, towards the heavenly court. The Jaded Emperor got angry again, and banished Chang-O to the moon, in the form of a Rabbit. Thus the whole rabbit and moon festival thing. The moon is said to have a palace with Chang-O and another guy who is banished there. It seems that the Moon is a prison from the Heavenly court...

Though legends aside, The Moon festival is basically the Thanksgiving of the Chinese people. Families would gather, and feast. The consumer industries would also milk this holiday season as Xmas/Thanksgiving are in the states. The food industry really enjoys this time, desserts of all sort all high in sales, people would visit each other, and gift basket of desserts, that make great visiting gifts, go for bank.

Moon Cakes

Moon cakes also have a nice and interesting legend behind it. Not really sure how accurate this story is but it relates to the moon festival and the Fall of the Yuan Dynasty. A scholar/Taoist/Wiseman/Prophet named Liu Bo-An ( my spelling of it ), during the later days of the Yuan Dynasty, Liu was a aid to the later Ming Emperor, Chiu Yuan Cheung. Whom is credited for leading the revolution against the Mongolians. Liu supposedly came up with the plan that alerted everyone to the revolution. IN light of the moon festival, Liu’s people encouraged all Manchurians (not Mongolians of the Yuan dynasty), to celebrate the Chinese holiday of the moon festival by eating Moon cakes. When everyone bought the moon cakes, they noticed a small note with in the red bean paste that said, “Revolution on 8/15”, which is the lunar calendar date for the Moon Festival. How true this is beyond me. But Liu is credit for being a scholar and Taoist alchemist. And many stories centers around him involving little things like this to the building and the placement of Beijing City.

Moon cakes come in a few basic forms and shapes. The most common are the Cantonese type, which is baked with a brown to dark brown exterior, usually quite think. There are Beijing types with are flatter, similar to pancakes. A Taiwanese types using taro or potatoes and a white skin type, which has layers of soft and flaky crust. Moon cakes are usually filled with a variety of fillings, mostly leaning to the sweet side. Common fillings are, red beans, lotus seeds, Green beans, Egg Yolks, Egg whites, Cinnamon and whole bunch of seeds that I can’t name. Modern day Asia has been creating all sort of new moon cake like desserts. Newer flavors and western influence are all making an appearance in the moon cakes and the festival. Stuff like Japanese influence of Tea moon cakes, to chocolate of even ice cream moon cakes are all hitting the market. None the less moon cakes range in price due to the fame of the company making it. Some famous Moon cake houses are well know and are VERY busy starting early in the year. Reservations are made in advance to order boxes of moon cakes. Companies would order them for employees, or give them out as gifts. Box of moon cakes would be exchanged like xmas fruit cakes, but better tasting.

Of course realistically this is supposedly the day that the moon is at its brightest and fullest in the year, which might relate to something agricultural. But if u r not too bored next Tuesday, go to ur local Ranch 99 and drops some bills on a moon cake or two and feast as if it is thanksgiving.