Jan 28, 2005

Things that suck
Today I wasted a good four hours trying to figure out why my debug session died all of the sudden. The 1394 connection between my debugger machine and the debugee went all wonky, and all of the sudden, it took a minute or more to execute each instruction. It turned out I accidentally yanked the cable, which in turn pulled the 1394 PCI card partway out of its socket. It was in there far enough to somewhat work, but not properly.

Every once in a while, I come home from work at some nutty hour. I stop by the 24 hour Safeway and try to pick up some prepared food that's not too unhealthy sometimes. Sometimes I try the soy protein stuff, I don't know when I'll learn my lesson. I've tried chicken nuggets, buffalo wings, and breakfast links. None are any good, although at this point, I basically treat them as something chewy to eat bbq sauce with. Yum. Yuck. I'm not sure which. On the plus side, it's only $2 for dinner.

Jan 25, 2005

Random
Yesterday, I went to the dentist. Now I've been using Onsite Dental for the past few years that I've been here. They have a Winnebago that drives to our campus twice a month. I just go there for an hour during work. My last appointment was supposed to be in August, and I didn't bother with that one, meaning that the previous appointment must have been last February, so it's been about a year. When I got there, it was a different dentist than the guy I've had for the last few years. In fact, he had also swapped with another dentist who treated me on my first visit. The story I got was that they take rotations to work for the military. It's too bad, by my third appointment with him I had figured out his name was Christian.

So I lost another dentist. But in return I got a new one. I haven't figured her name out yet, but it was the most painless cleaning ever. It crossed my mind whether she was actually cleaning my teeth, or merely scratching the surface. But it was much preferable to dentists who leave my gums in a bloody mess.

I was actually intending to blog about books and movies, but for now you'll have to be satisfied with the, er, exciting story of the new dentist.

Now, if you think this post should have been longer, you can make up for the time not spent reading it by playing Kingdom of Loathing.

Jan 17, 2005

Steamed Bun

Steamed Bun

IMG_9833, originally uploaded by dragonx.

This is a test of the flickr blogging function.

The above shows the final moments of a steamed vegetable bun in Shanghai, moments before it was devoured ravenously by the photographer.

R.I.P.

Flickr

This is a test post from flickr, a fancy photo sharing thing.

Jan 10, 2005

Still Jet Lagged

I've been back for a week and I'm still jet lagged. Yay.
I missed church and slept in this morning. Until noon. I dragged myself out of bed, though I think I could have laid there a few hours more. Had lunch with two of the old crew. Went to work in the afternoon.

Now the reason I was working on Sunday afternoon, is that the past week has been totally unproductive, considering I've been getting into work in a daze, somewhat before noon if I was lucky. I think I landed with a flu, the first few days back sucked. Last Wednesday, the 5th, I woke up at 8am, pretty much incapacitated. I checked my email and decided to sleep in until 11. When I awoke, the sky was still dim. I checked my phone, which said 16:30. I needed to change the time zone back to PST. I checked my computer, it said 4:30 PM. I called in sick.

So the sick part is pretty much gone, except for the occasional sniffles and a lingering cough. I'm still awake at 4 AM though.

I finished Gabriel Garcia Marquez' 100 Years of Solitude on the flight to Hong Kong. I liked it a lot, I couldn't stop reading it to watch the Terminal or the Notebook, or the documentary on China that featured monkeys assaulting chinese people (at least, that's what it looked like, I didn't have the audio on). I liked it a lot last year. I like epic tragedies. This year however, I'm going to be positive, so I cannot like it so much anymore, though in the spirit of positivity, I highly recommend it.

I bought a copy of Garden State from this DVD store where the customers spoke German, French, Italian, English, and Shanghainese, hidden away at the back of a coffee shop in Shanghai. I was watching it last night, the video quality was excellent, until the third chapter from the end, where the disc was unreadable. I need to see the end of the movie before I can give it a review, but I'm pissed off at unscrupulous DVD pirates now.

I also finished Purpose Driven Life today. I'm not quite sure what all the hype was about, but I did think there were a few good chapters in there. I find most of these Christian living books rather uncompelling, in the "please, tell me something I didn't know" sense. If anything though, knowing and acting are two different things, and I often need the reminder to act what I know.

Jan 7, 2005

Vacation
So the vacation was great, so great that I'm having a hard time kicking myself back into work mode. Or it could be the jetlag and flu I picked up on the way home. My sleeping patterns have been all shot for the past week.

When I was younger, trips to Hong Kong were pretty repetitive. I'd basically follow my parents around all day, every day, except maybe for the days I stayed home and watched TV. We'd have breakfast at home, and then maybe drop my Grandma and mom off to wash her hair. My dad might go to the factory to handle some business with my uncle or Grandfather. We'd have lunch, go shopping, tea at the Kowloon Club, maybe go shop some more, have dinner, go home watch some TV, go to bed. Something like that.

The last few trips have been pretty cool though. My Grandma gave me the keys and enough "lai see" for me to get around. I got a cell phone so I could call whenever I got lost, which wasn't too often. The MTR's incredibly efficient and easy to use, and the taxi's are actually not very expensive compared to North American taxis. I got to wander around on my own and hang out with friends from Toronto.

Times like these I wish I had more time to spend with old friends.

As luxurious as it was to have a maid do the laundry, having breakfast ready in the morning, and awesome food for every meal, part of me is glad to have full control of my laundry, a warm room (man, hong kong winter nights are cold, they don't seem to believe in insulation there) and the option of not eating like a pig is rather comforting now.

I was in Shanghai when I saw the news on CNN about tsunamis hitting Indonesia. At the time they were still reporting casualties in the thousands, which already seemed like a disaster. A few days later I was having dinner with my aunt and uncle and their friends, all parents of east coast prep school and Ivy League kids, talking about their friends who precariously escaped the flooding at Phuket, saying how fortunate we were to be dining at a nice restaurant in Hong Kong and not having to deal with the aftermath.

It's sometimes disturbing to think how life can be so great for some people, yet so dismal for others. I felt guilty that entire dinner, although no one else seemed to disturbed (although some of them were concerned about the waterfront real estate in Hong Kong). But at the same time, emotional socialism seems cruel at best. Should everyone constantly be downcast and mourning? After all every day, I'm sure somebody, somewhere is having an awful day.

So I think at any time, a day of mourning for some may be a day of celebration for others. One shouldn't be jealous of the other, for God gives and takes away. My New Year's resolution is to be positive for a year. So I think it's great that the Canadian government is matching donations to the Canadian Red Cross, but only until January 11th, so hurry!

Quick summary: I left California on December 17 (arriving in HK on December 18). Stayed in Hong Kong most of the time, but took a short trip to Shanghai from December 26 through 29. Stayed in Hong Kong after that until New Year's. I left Hong Kong January 2, stayed in Tokyo for 1 day, hosted by a Canadian friend and her Japanese students, who acted as our tour guides. Left Tokyo and arrived back in San Jose on January 3rd. Here's the trip photos.