california conception

Progress.

2012-02-08T17:48:00.000-08:00

Big fan of this film. Often non-techies seem to fear technology, because it's disruptive and changes the world. Age old industries fall apart if when they don't embrace the change. It should bring fear to those profiting from the old business, but for the everyman, it should be times for huge opportunity.

I suspect those who are afraid, aren't really looking hard enough for those opportunities.

PressPausePlay from House of Radon on Vimeo.

Mmmm Fat.

2012-01-08T14:17:00.000-08:00

There's this dish everyone in my family loves. I've always known it as "dee pong", because that's the Shanghainese name for it. It's some part of a pig's leg - that I know because it's got two big bones in it, along with the meat, fat and skin. It's braised in soy sauce and other spices, until the collagen rich skin is the texture of jello and the meat and fat melt off the bone. It's as rich as any foie, but meatier tasting. Unfortunately, there's probably only so much you can eat before keeling over from cardiac arrest.

I tried making it over the holidays. The first challenge was finding a recipe. Searching for combinations of "shanghai pork shoulder leg hock" let me to four similar recipes of varying complication (note: "ti pang" seems to be the most common spelling online). I then decided to screw with the recipes by using my mom's new thermal vacuum pot using some fancy low-temperature cooking technique. Or so I imagined.

I tried the recipe twice, the results were... not great. Perfectly edible, but far from perfect. The great thing about fatty, tough meats is that if you cook them long enough the flavorful fat will make up for all your errors, so even when it's bad, it's reasonably good. The four recipes had varying cooking times, from 2-12 hours. Most involved simmering/braising, though Albertitto's recipe called for an interesting immersed steaming technique. Two of the recipes called for refrigerating overnight.

Instead of using 15lb pork shoulder, I used a 2lb pork hock. That was probably my first mistake, but the pork hock was far more manageable, and I probably would have had leftovers like crazy with the 15lb piece. Also, pork hock is inexpensive. Instead of simmering for hours, I decided to give the vacuum pot a try. The word vacuum sounds fancy, and evokes images of sous vide. In reality, it's really just a giant thermos. The contents of the pot are not under vacuum - the pot has a vacuum insulating wall. You would cook something normally on the stove, and then stick it in the pot. The retained heat will continue cooking the food for hours as it cools - very slowly.

On my first attempt, I followed typical thermal vacuum instructions, bring the water inside to a boil, then letting it cook in the vacuum pot for four hours. At the end the meat was a light tea colour, hardly the rich colour I expected. I refrigerated overnight. The meat had gotten darker. One big difference with vacuum pot cooking is that the fluid doesn't evaporate. I ended up simmering for a couple of hours until the sauce reduced. The meat darkened during the simmering process. Overall the flavour was right, the meat fell off the bone, but was a bit on the dry side. Although soft, the skin wasn't at the desired jelly-like consistency, but was chewier, though some people might like that.

I thought it might have been that the boiling temperature was too high. On my second attempt, I tried lower temperatures. I heated the pork/sauce to about 175F, but let it cool to 160F before I stuck it in the pot. When I took it out 4 hours later, it had dropped to about 138F. I heated it back up to 160F and gave it another 4 hours. When I pulled the pork out, and shoved a meat thermometer in, it was still far stiffer than it should have been. Again, I had to simmer the sauce down, which did enough to tenderize the meat to an edible state. The result the second time wasn't much better than the first.

My suspicion is that I'd either need the low temperature going for much longer than 8 hours... perhaps 24 hours or more, which seems like a lot of work since I would need to reheat the pot every few hours, and make sure it doesn't drop in to the bacterial danger zone below 130F. The simmering process seemed to do far more in tenderizing the meat than the slow cooking. I'll have to try out the 24 hour version sometime... as well as the simple braise and the steaming method. After I've worked off this year's calories.

They should make a movie out of this.

2012-01-08T12:39:00.000-08:00

Stuxnet was probably the most intriguing virus to make news in the last few years. It's pretty old news now, and if you've forgotten, it's a virus that was floating around the internet back in 2010. It was intriguing in that that took advantage of 3 Windows zero-day exploits, which is a feat in itself. Even though it infected plenty of Windows machines, it only targetted SCADA control systems - control software for industrial machinery, not your everyday desktop. Further analysis concluded it was likely designed to infiltrate Iranian nuclear facilities and damage the centrifuges used for enriching weapons grade uranium.

This video isn't new, but it's probably the most interesting thing I've seen on YouTube in the past four months. Almost makes me miss the old WinDbg days. Almost. Warning: there's some serious language in this video.

No Quadrantids.

2012-01-03T22:54:00.001-08:00

Was hoping to see some shooting stars out tonight, but I didn't think about how bright it is with the city lights outside, and all I see is cloud cover at 2am.

Off to bed I guess.

Earth from Space.

2011-11-21T07:41:00.001-08:00

I remember hearing as a child how the Great Wall of China was one of the few man made structures visible from space. And then I saw all these National Geographic published photos of the earth, all blue and green. They didn't have night shots back then. This is incredible.

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

Capture One 6.3: A Performance Review

2011-10-05T18:06:00.000-07:00

Shortly before moving out of California, I noticed that the latest version of Capture One (C1) uses OpenCL. Capture One 6 was announced last December, so it was well over half a year at that point, and I was really surprised that I hadn't heard any buzz about it, especially from the NVIDIA or AMD marketting machines. You would think either would leap at the chance to sell more GPUs. Although GPUs could make RAW editing a whole lot smoother, NVIDIA has never paid serious attention to the photography market. I'm assuming someone must have crunched the numbers and determined that it was too niche a market to address. I know that there was some investigation at some point, which determined that the speedup for processing RAW was not significant enough. This was mostly because part of the RAW decode was done on the CPU, and memory transfer times between CPU and GPU nullified much of the benefit of the GPU decode. I suspected though, that the analysis didn't really reflect real-world situations where users would want to upload the video to the GPU once, and decode the RAW multiple times as they adjusted various settings. This would be a huge improvement for photo editing apps and make the UI much smoother. It looks like Phase One has gone and done that, at least to a degree.

So it's been about a month since I've gotten back, and I've barely touched my pictures in that time. I decided finally to sit down and give Capture One 6 a shot, since I switched over to Lightroom a couple of years ago. The software is already up to version 6.3. I used the trial version, so I could check out Pro. I was curious about some of he features, especially the advanced noise reduction and local adjustments. I'm running on Windows 7 SP1 64-bit, on a Core i7 930 with 12GB of RAM, and a motley assortment of hard disks. I tried using both a GF106 (GeForce GTS450 or Quadro 2000) as well as a GF100 (GeForce GTX 470 or Quadro 6000). I'm playing with full resolution RAW images shot on a Canon 5D MarkII. While I was pretty happy with C1 versions 2 and 3 for dealing with images from my Rebel and Rebel XTi on an old Athlon system, the huge images from the 5DMk2 has put some annoying lag into the workflow, that never went away even after upgrading to the i7.

OpenCL Benefits
C1 allows you to turn on and off OpenCL support in the Edit\Preferences dialog. There's a setting for OpenCL, either Auto or Never (this setting doesn't appear if your system doesn't have an OpenCL driver). Other than the setting, there's no other indicator that OpenCL is being used. There's information in a Phase One knowledgebase article on when OpenCL is used, it's pretty accurate, but not very detailed.

After poking around with the OpenCL setting enabled/disabled, I figured OpenCL is only used for processing the pixels onscreen when viewing a RAW file. This is pretty limited, but it does provide some noticeable benefits that do impact my workflow.

1. the view updates much quicker when switching between images, particularly when zoomed in
2. the view updates much qucker when making adjustments, particularly when zoomed in

*1 Given that these were all visual changes, it was difficult to give any benchmark measurements. Situation 1 was where I noticed the most measurable differences. When switching from one image to another on CPU only, the new image would load in very blurry, then get less blurry, then crisp. There was also about a 0.5 second delay before the image changed at all, but that happened with both CPU and GPU, so I'm going to ignore that in the comparision. My rough attempts at measuring the time with a stopwatch makes it look like this: new image appears very blurry -> 0.5 seconds -> less blurry -> 1 second -> crisp, so it would take almost 2 seconds every time I changed from one image to the next. It gets painful if you're sorting through 150 images after some sort of shoot. The first 0.5 second delay after the keypress was there on every GPU, so I'm going to ignore that, and focus on the first delay after the image appears, and the second delay when it becomes clear.

GPU behavior looked the same, but upon closer inspection it looks liek the pipeline was different. Instead of going from "very blurry"->"less blurry"->crisp, it went through a "blurry"->"crisp"->"denoised/sharpened" stages. It was barely any time at all on either GPU to get from blurry to crisp. I'll say 0.2 seconds. Additionally, the final "denoise/sharpen" stage seemed to vary a bit depending on the zoom level. Initially I thought the speed depended on the GPU, but then I noticed that in zoom levels > 100%, it looked like it would do some sort of denoise, while if the zoom < 100%, it would sharpen. The sharpen (at low zoom) would take about 1 second on both GPUs (I'm guessing it was actually performed on the CPU). The denoise seemed to take about 0.5 second on the GF106, and was nearly instantaneous on the GF100.

For Zoom < 100

Processor	Time to Clear Image	Total time for Final Image (including initial delay)
CPU	1.8	2.3
GF106	0.2	2
GF100	0.2	2

For Zoom > 100

Processor	Time to Clear Image	Total time for Final Image (including initial delay)
CPU	1	1.5
GF106	0.2	1
GF100	0.2	0.3

*2 When making adjustments with the sliders, it was noticeably smoother on the GPUs than the CPU, though even the GPU wasn't perfectly smooth. It also depended on the setting. For example, adjusting Exposure was reasonably smooth on the CPU, and wasn't too much smoother on the GPU. The Moire slider though, which was completely un-smooth on the CPU, showed a marked difference. The biggest difference however, was that when zoomed in, the CPU version of Exposure, Curves, and Colour would use the preview sized image while adjusting. Once you move the slider, the image would get downsampled and blurry to show the adjustments, and then come back into focus. The GPU version would remain in focus the whole time. The GF100 was a bit smoother than the GF106. This isn't something you'd notice initially, since it just seems like the way it ought to be. But if you go back to the CPU version, it's horrible.

Things that don't improve with OpenCL
For all the improvements, there are a lot of things that don't improve, and really reduce the effectiveness of the OpenCL implementation. As I've already mentioned, it looks like there's a CPU sharpening pass that slows down the image rendering. Other noticeable items are:

- Speed depends on whether the image is cached. The numbers above are the best case. If you switch to an image that isn't cached, it could take a few seconds to read from disk, regardless of your CPU or GPU. This actually happens a lot, so you don't really get the optimized speeds listed above unless you're going back and forth between a set of images.
- JPEGs don't go through the GPU pipeline, so if you happen to have JPEG thumbnails, sorting through them will slow you down, even though scrolling through RAWs is now faster.
- Zooming in isn't sped up, you still see a bunch of pixelated pixels for half a second before the proper pixels are displayed.
- Panning isn't sped up, so when you move the image over, you get a bunch of new pixelated pixels for half a second before the proper pixels are displayed.
- Final rendering doesn't take advantage of the GPU. You might get a slight improvement if they're going on in the background, since the CPU is a little less busy with the UI.

Shoehorned in
As I mentioned initially, it looks like Phase One took whatever was visible onscreen, and sped up the processing of that bitmap using OpenCL. This makes sense given that they have an existing codebase, This means they don't have to start from scratch, and they can reuse existing functions like their CPU sharpening algorithm. The problem is that their original design is based on the fact that processing many pixels is processor intensive, so they optimize by only processing the pixels onscreen. Trying to shim the GPU using their existing design is rather limiting. They're most likely sending the visible bitmap to the GPU for OpenCL processing, which is fast. Then I suspect they're copying back down to system memory so that it can fit right back into their existing pipeline and have the CPU finish whatever work it needed to do. There's a few items that are sped up, but they're far from perfect, and in the grand scheme of things, they perceived improvement is just not that spectacular given the bottlenecks.

The ideal design to take full advantage of the GPU would be to upload the entire image to video memory, and manipulate it in video memory using the GPU, and display it, without copying it back down to system memory. With GPU memories being typically 512MB or 1GB+ these days, it should be a problem to fit multiple 20MP images in video memory. Making copies of the images is much faster on the GPU as well, since video memory tends to be 3-10x as fast as system memory. The result would be much smoother performance in adjustments, as well as smooth zooming and panning.

The main drawback, and I suspect the reason Phase One didn't go down this route, is that it requires rewriting the entire application. All the complicated image processing algorithms would need to be rewritten. Not only that but they'd need to maintain both pipelines. It's hard to argue against this. While technically far superior, this would mean twice the work. Phase One would need twice the sales to justify it. If C1 was fully GPU accelerated, I'd probably switch to it over Lightroom. One strong argument is that an i3 laptop with a midrange GPU could outperform a much more expensive i7 system. It's quite possible that C1 could take a sizeable share of the Lightroom market if their app is that much faster and smoother.

They could also potentially support one pipeline with OpenCL (or CUDA), and rely on CPU implmentations when the user does not have a GPU.

A third, weak argument to design C1 around GPU processing is that the CPUs on forthcoming Wiin8 tablet PCs will be rather weak. A GPU solution would far smoother, especially for allowing the user to drag the image around with their fingertips. A RAW editing app on a tablet would be great, but I suspect it would HAVE to be GPU oriented. Problem is none of the tablet GPUs are particularly programmable yet. We'd probably have to wait another generation - I suspect late 2012, and at this point I wouldn't know whether CUDA, OpenCL or DirectX 12 would be the way to go.

Other Bottlenecks
The other major bottleneck in C1 is the disk while rendering final images. The rendering is done purely on CPU. Tests across the multiple GPUs showed the same time, roughly 3:20 for 30 RAWs from a 5D MarkII. On a quad core i7, the CPU cycled between 0-100% load. The average was only maybe 50%. I suspected the bottleneck was my disk, so I tried using two disks, using one as the source, and the other as the destination. That made no difference. What I did notice was that C1 was writing to 8 output JPEGs at once. Most likely, the thrashing caused by this was limiting performance. The disk output was pretty slow, maybe 1-5MB/s, probably due to the thrashing. Phase One may be relying on their customers to purchase SSDs or use RAID arrays, but if they queued up their disk writes, it could potentially halve their rendering time on quad-core CPUs.

As a side note, I probably bought the wrong components on my PC. With a quad core i7 and 12GB of RAM, I rarely saturate the CPU (only when compiling using MSVC), or the RAM (only when running multiple VMs). Very few apps seem to be optimized for a fast CPU and lots of RAM. I had though that the extra RAM would mean fewer disk accesses, but there's still many cases (like both C1 and Lightroom) where I'm disk bound, with plenty of free memory.

Other notes on C1
Capture One LE was my first RAW workflow application, and I'm probably biased towards it because of that. I never fully got used to Lightroom's model with different modes, and the Lightroom's export to JPEG always felt a little weird, since the UI features rendering for print or web, and I never do either. When C1 was redesigned with the new .NET based UI, there were a number of things that turned me off, and I eventually switched over to Lightroom. I always organized my RAW files in folders by date. I hated the way C1 would put its working folder into every one of my folders. I loved the way the older C1 let me put all my final output files as subfolders of the image folders - now this seems to be available in the Pro version only. I find this seriously annoying.

In addition to those annoyances, the slowness of C1, the poor noise reduction, and the spot healing tool led me over to Lightroom. The OpenCL support has definitely improved the performance. The noise reduction seems much improved as well, though I haven't played with it enough to really judge it against Lightroom 3. There's a new spot removal tool that works pretty well. They've also added in keystone correction, which is only in the Pro version.

Right now I'm quite happy to use C1 Pro over LR3. It's $399 though, which is pretty steep unless it's discounted. There's a handful of features that I'd use in the Pro over Express - the output folder management, along with keystone correction, and maybe RGB curves. If they could come up with a third intermediate version that would match the LR3 feature set, that'd be perfect.

Canada vs. The World

2011-09-09T12:33:00.000-07:00

Did a bit of research on current smartphone OS market share.

	Android	iOS	RIM	Symbian
Global	43%	18%	12%	22%
Canada	12%	31%	42%	6.4%
US	36%	26%	21%	1.9%

I assume the high adoption for Android and Symbian globally is because cheaper phones are more common in less wealthy countries. Canadians must be pretty well off, since they love their iPhones, and hate on Android. I'm not sure if the RIM-love is patriotism, deals between RIM and Bell/Rogers, or some kinda of duty implication that benefits RIM handsets.(US/Canada data from Comscore, Global data from Gartner)

Road Trip Day 11

2011-08-29T23:03:00.000-07:00

The next few days will be a bit of a break from this vacation. That is, we've been going pretty much non-stop, from one city to the next. And while great fun, it's also a bit tiring. I'm sure most travellers have had that feeling at some point. Today we headed up to Chicago. We stopped by at the Arcade Pancake House in the town of Paxton, for some hearty small town grub and hospitality. The rest of the drive to Chicago was pretty straightforward. We first went downtown to Millennium Park, with its silver bean sculpture and animated fountains. We discovered though, that the parking was geared towards all-day parking. For example, the Millenium Park lot cost $17 for 0-8 hrs, the best deal we found was $14 for 1pm-midnight. Both were really expensive since we only planned to stay a short time.

The rest of the evening was spent hanging out with cousins. The next few days will be similar. We will however, find the end-of-Route 66 sign, there must be one around here.

Road Trip Day 10

2011-08-28T22:19:00.000-07:00

I was to arrive in Chicago on the August 29th, but somehow I was a day ahead of schedule. To kill a bit of time, and inspired by the Whithers gallery, we went to visit the Lorraine Motel, where MLK Jr. was shot. It's been converted to the National Civil Rights Museum. On the whole drive over, I could hear U2's Pride playing in my head.

The museum was educational. I had read about Rosa Parks before, but the museum put many of the different parts of the civil rights movement together in perspective. It also helped that Memphis, unlike say Toronto and San Francisco, has a significant black population.

A few years ago, I had this sense that San Francisco was a city stuck in the past. It was obsessed with its significant history, especially in the Vietnam and hippie era. Many of the buildings were old, and I couldn't really see where the city was going. My view on the city has changed over the last two years, seeing the significant development in the Dogpatch area, as well as spate of new and fairly innovate restaurants. The start-up scene is picking up again as well.

It took me a while to see the development in SF, so I'm probably wrong with my two-day impression of Memphis, but I did get a feeling of a city somewhat stuck in the past. Most of the tourist destinations were celebrations of the 50s and 60s. The National Civil Rights Museum was beautiful. While the neighborhood around it was gentrifying, it still wasn't that well developed. There's probably some cool music going on in the hipster scene which we mostly glazed over. Memphis was a fun enough town to be worth visiting again, but I'd hope that the city that gave birth to rock and roll would get its groove back and give birth to something new again.

The rest of the day was a drive up north. It was about 9pm by the time we made it up to Champaign, Illinois, so we stopped there for the night. Having had a good few days of BBQ, we finally had some asian food at Arirang, apparently an old student hangout. The dol sot bibimbap was as good as any.

Road Trip Day 9

2011-08-28T21:00:00.000-07:00

My priority in Memphis was to check out the local BBQ. It was a little hard to pick out an top BBQ joint in a town chock full of them. There were a few that were rated highly on Yelp!, Chowhound, and Urbanspoon, I ended up going to the Bar-B-Q Shop.

Now I'm no specialist in BBQ. I was told there was a wet style and a dry, and one was from Texas, and the other was in Memphis. I'm just as confused at this point, because they both seemed about equivalently dry. Bar-B-Q Shop had a special platter including brisket, pulled pork, ribs and BBQ spaghetti, which was perfect since it had everything I wanted to try! The ribs were served glazed, with a dash of dry rub on top for flavor. It was delicious, fall off the bone, juicy. It would definitley be in the running for the best ribs ever. The pulled pork and brisket though, were much leaner than I expected. The pulled pork was a bit moister, but the brisket was pretty much completely lean. Both had a great smoked flavour, but a bit more fat would have made both juicier. The supposedly award winning sauce was way too salty for me - as was the BBQ spaghetti. The spicy version was pretty good though.

We had passed by the Sun Records studio the previous evening, and we headed back after lunch for the tour. Known for the discovery of Elvis, and Johnny Cash, as well as a number of other blues greats, and the "birthplace of rock and roll", the tour was entertaining and informative. The studio was originally started in the 50s, recording blues and rock and roll acts that eventually became stars. It later declined, and was closed, but re-opened in the 80s, when a number of significant acts recorded there for its history, including part of U2's Rattle and Hum album.

We returned to the hotel, and took the downtown trolley to Beale St., Memphis' answer to Bourbon St. Lined with neon, bars, live music and crowds. It was plenty touristy, but also a lot of fun. One of the most interesting shops on the street was the Ernest Withers gallery, which covered both music artists, and the civil rights movement, including many photos of MLK Jr. We closed off the night in a bar, watching the Ghost City Blues Band live.

Road Trip Day 8

2011-08-27T18:37:00.000-07:00

After a 500 mile+ driving day, we still have another 300 miles to go to Memphis. Already having cut north off of I40, I decided to take the side roads across Arkansas instead of driving back down to the main highway. For the majority, it was a single lane in each direction, twisting broadly through the Ozarks. The sides of the roads were mostly shrubs and fields, barns, but very few houses. There were many churches though, many of them "First"s. First Baptist, First Methodist, etc. etc. I'm not sure what happened to the Seconds or Thirds.

We were getting hungry after noon, and decided to stop, randomly in the town of Yellville. We passed by a Subway and local pizza place, which seemed promising, but I waited another half mile down the road, and we passed by Razorback Ribs, a promising local BBQ joint. I got a "tasting size" order, of 4 ribs, along with deep fried pickles, okra, and beans. I'm probably not the pickiest BBQ eater, since these ribs were just as great as the Texas ribs, though maybe not as meaty.

The total drive to Memphis was maybe 6 hours. At the end, we crossed over the Mississippi, into Tennessee and into town. There was a Tenessee welcome center at the first exit, we stopped by briefly, seeing the statue of Elvis, the statue of B.B. King, and a random guy picking through a trash can.

We tried out Chick-Fil-A, a fast food chicken burger joint, common in the South, and followed a NYT article around the "hipster" scene in Memphis, through two dive bars, somewhat empty (although, it was only 8:30 or so), and finally to the more upscale Mollie Fontaine, which had a great vibe, with two bars on two floors in an old Victorian home, and a baby grand piano in the living room.

Road Trip Day 7

2011-08-27T07:36:00.000-07:00

It doesn't seem like a week since we've left. The days have been full, either of driving, sightseeing, researching tourist sites, eating, and occasionally attempting to catch up on emails and chatting briefly with friends. Day 7 started off with a debate of where to go. We could stop off in Oklahoma, but the most notable city was Oklahoma City, and we've been told by multiple parties that it's not a particularly exciting town. Alternatively, we could continue straight through to Little Rock, Arkansas, but we didn't know much of what to see there either. Finally we found an old New York Times article on 36 hours in Fayetteville, AK. It sounded interesting enough, so we made that our destination.

The storm from the previous night seemed to have blown over, with a lot of lightning, but not much thunder and just a bit of rain. The sky was clear and the temperature was rising. It was already in the mid-20s as we left, a little before 10am. We got back onto the I40, and just drove, watching the landscape change. For the first two hours, there was little variation. We were surrounded by flat fields of golden grass. Occasionally cows could be seen grazing. The radio stations contained mostly Christian and country stations - I'm not sure I noticed any spanish language stations anymore. As we crossed Texas into Oklahoma, we lost data access on Verizon. we stopped off for lunch at Lucille's Roadhouse off the highway, an American burger/diner/steakhouse kinda place running on the Route 66 theme. The patty melt and deep fried chicken bites were surprisingly tasty, for a roadside diner. While greasy, the portions weren't outstandingly huge, which made me feel a bit better. The temperature outside had jumped to 35C at this point, though as we got back on the road, the brush started appearing in the fields, first brown, then turning green. Green watered farm fields also began appearing. About four hours into the drive, we got to Oklahoma City, with surprisingly tall high rises in the plains of farmlands. About 15 minutes later, we were past the city. Route 66 would head northwards towards Tulsa, and onwards to Chicago. We would take the slightly longer route through to Memphis, but we'd eventually get to the east end of Route 66. The plains got steadily greener. Brush turned to trees and the plains got a little less flat.

By the time we got to Arkansas, another four hours later, the landscape reminded me a little of the Ontario countryside, with a highway cutting through small deciduous forests. The temperature had peaked at 37 somewhere through Oklahoma, though it was still stayed in the 30s. We finally got data access in Arkansas, and called up the Inn at the Mill in Johnson, just outside Fayetteville. It was featured in the NYT article, and was only $89 on a Thrusdays night. We finally broke off of the I40, which we had followed four states ago since LA. The highway curved through the foothills of the Ozarks, and the green hills rolled on into the distance. The Inn at the Mill was definitely the most beautiful hotel we had stopped at up to this point. It incorporated an old waterwheel mill as the main lobby, with a separate building for rooms, as well as another new glass building for their upscale restaurant. The aqueducts that fed the waterwheel were fashioned into mini waterfalls, and there was plenty of bubbling water running through the property. I had imagined Texas being a wealthy oil state, and Arkansas being somewhat of a backwater. In stark contrast, Amarillo seemed like a suburban, underdeveloped wasteland, and Fayetteville, a university town, a center of Confederate history and culture.

After checking in and showering, we drove down to Fayetteville. We stopped by the Confederate Cemetary for some photos on our way to downtown. The semester at the University of Arkansas starts next Monday, and students had began filling the town. Dickson St, the main street running through the town featured a variety of bars, pubs, and even one upscale lounge. There was a biker convention at one of the bars, with a lve band on their outdoor patio. There were at least two other live bands on other patios on the street though. We grabbed dinner at Hugo's a student burger joint with more going with the ambiance than the food, though the food was good enough. I had pretty low expectations for Arkansas, but this town was one of the nicest places to spend the night so far.

Road Trip Day 6

2011-08-24T22:38:00.000-07:00

Having walked through downtown santa Fe last night, I didn't feel like we needed another full day, so we decided to move on to Amarillo. This would put us two days ahead of schedule. We spent the morning at the outdoor pool, making up for the hours of just sitting in the car, and eating American food.

I used Urbanspoon again look up a good brunch place. Harry's Roadhouse topped the list, but it was a ways out of downtown and close to the highway, so we walked back to browse some of the downtown shops a bit more before leaving. The shops were mostly closed the night before, so it was a bit different to actually walk into some of the shops. There were an abundance of art galleries, as well as shops selling kitschy knick-knacks. Native american themes were popular, but there was a huge variety as well, both in art and widgets.

While looking up hotels for Santa Fe, there were a lot of upscale options, upwards of $300 a night. It was interesting to note that the people browsing around town mostly seemed to be elderly and well off, or young and dressed like punks or white-trash. While walking around, the fancy hotels didn't really stick out. They must have been located outside of the downtown plaza a bit. Though not dumpy, the downtown didn't seem too upscale either, except for the prices on some of the pieces in some galleries, and the prices of the local gourmet cupcakes. Dream Cakes sold $4.50 cupcakes. That's $0.75 more than Los Angeles. Unfortunatly, it was closed for the one day we were in town, so we didn't get to sample it. Maybe that wasn't too unfortunate, otherwise I might need to do quite a few more laps at the pool.

By the time we got to Harry's, breakfast was no longer served. Dissapoined but hungry, we went for the lunch fare, which was still good, though mayber not amazing. Healthy options were available, which was a good thing, since dinner would be BBQ in Amarillo.

Most of the afternoon was on the road. Again, lightning flashed in the distance. We drove through two 3-minute downpours which cleaned off the windshield again. Otherwise, the drive was mostly sunny, straight, flat and boring. The landscape slowly got greener. First the brush, which eventually got replaced by trees and gold grass as we moved from New Mexico to Texas. The red mesas in the distance eventually disappeared into the rearview, and grazing cows and cornfields became the norm along the higway.

As we pulled into Amarillo, we stopped by the Cadillac Ranch, an art exhibit of sorts, of 10 Caddilacs half-buried vertically in a field. Around are strewn cans of spray paint. If you're lucky enough to find one that's not yet empty, you can contribute to the painting of the cars. After a few photos, we moved on to Tyler's Barbeque. We got in before closing, and had a taste of authentic Texan BBQ, complete with a smokey crust of dry rub over some tender, but extremely lean brisket, and some of the best ribs I've had. I would have preferried a fattier brisket, but overall the food was great, and pretty cheap. Tyler was very friendly, and came out to chat with the patrons of the order-at-the-counter restaurant. It wasn't as busy as I expected, but it was also earlier to closing time than I had expected. We had passed through another time zone without realizing it.

We didn't do much more exploring of Amarillo, but we did find a ghetto laundromat to do our laundry, while lightining flashed overhead, rather silently.

Road Trip Day 5

2011-08-24T22:37:00.000-07:00

Entry here.

Road Trip Day 4

2011-08-22T21:58:00.000-07:00

We didn't do much exploring in Flagstaff - there didn't appear to be much as we drove through in the evening. We started out a little earlier today, well rested. The first step was to grab food at McDonald's and Safeway, both in the same mall. Lunch would be sandwiches; I had packed some kitchen equipment in the car. We had planned to spend tonight camping in or near Petrified Forest National Park (PFNP), but given the daytime heat, and the flash thunderstorm last night, I decided to go the easy route and camp out in a hotel in Albuquerque instead. We'd have to leave PFNP earlier in the day, but it would put us half a day ahead of schedule on the rest of the drive. So far, it seemed like a good decision.

Route 66 goes all the way through Arizona, and we followed parts of it along the I40 from Flagstaff. The landscape had dried up a bit, and the greenery around the Grand Canyon area turned back into Mojave-like shrubs. Rock formations started peeking up through the desert soil and yellow sandstone mesas started appearing, first in the distance, then closer. The first stop on the drive was Meteor Crater. Along the highway, signs advertised AM 1610 on the radio, which contained a looped advertisement for the crater, as well as the town of Winslow. We took the 6 mile drive to the crater, but balked at the $15/person entrance fee, and dceided to take a photo from the distance. Next up along the route was the Jackrabbit Trading Post, a small curio shop just off the I40. I suspect the shop had seen better days, but as we pulled up, we were the only car in the lot. The store had an assortment of curios and Route 66 souvenirs, as well as a far back wall that had an assortment of suede moccasins, though the wall was about half empty. I remember as kids, we had bought mocassins on some road trip through Utah or Colorado. I wonder if it was at a similar trading post stop. This one had obviously seen better times.

A few years ago I had considered switching fields to photojournalism. In the process I had met a bunch of photographers, and some journalists. During that time, I heard a lot of stories of the glory days of photojournalism in the past. Those were the days when American photographers could be sent to exotic eastern countries, paid well, and put up in expensive hotels. They were the glory days of film, that fantastic medium that evokes nostalgia, but that simply doesn't compete with modern digital cameras. Still, I met photographers who swore they would never stop shooting film. That was a long aside, but the Jackrabbit Trading Post, a fossil stuck in time, refusing to move on, reminded me of the whole industry of journalism, as it struggles to adapt to an age where information flows much more freely through the internet.

The next bunch of fossils appeared at the PFNP. Immediately at the south entrance were petrified logs, behind the visitors' center. Along with giant sequoias and redwoods in California, the petrified forest was something I had read about a good 25 years ago, but had never been able to see until recent years. We had a picnic lunch under some corrugated metal picnic shades by the visitors' center, and spent the next two hours checking out the various sites along the main road. This park seemed like a smaller version of Death Valley. Some of the eroded desert landscapes were familiar, but the petrified logs and petroglyphs stood out. There were plenty of European tourists around, which was a bit different from the flood of Korean tourists in the LA area.

As we got back onto the I40 and headed eastward toward Albuquerque, the landscape got greener, and the mesas got redder. Again, lightning bolts struck far off in the distance in front of us. It was a 4 hour drive onwards to Albuquerque. We made it about halfway when we pulled off to check out Sky City, a native american casino. We probably should have waited until we got to the Route 66 Casino, which seemed far grander and flashy. The Sky City was far less impressive than the highway ads might have suggested (no surprise). The bathrooms were mighty clean, though the sharps disposal container (i.e. syringes) seemed odd. Either there were a lot of diabetics, or addicts. I'm guessing the former, given the number of elderly and obese people I saw around the place. As with most other casinos, the place felt dreary and depressing to me, though the large Bingo room was fairly full, and seemed a bit more social than the slots.

By the time we checked into the hotel and settled down, it was past 8pm, which actually meant that it was past 9pm, since we had passed one time zone. Downtown Albuquerque seemed a little on the sketchy side, most places being open being bars, pool halls, and a strip club. A quick Yelp! search for "late night" at the "current location" didn't turn up anything - most results were closed by 9pm. A Google search popped up an Urbanspoon page, which suggested Frontier restaurant, close to the University. College kids know how to eat cheap. The place was just 10 minutes away, and was still fairly busy. After ordering at the counter I watched fresh flour tortillas being made as I waited for our order. The soft tacos contained a ground meat mix, unlike Californian style carne asada tacos, but they were also served on a 12" flour tortilla, making thems pretty much like half-sized burritos for less than $3. The green chili was delicious, and the large came with two flour tortillas. The iced tea was also surprisingly good, with a strong black tea flavor. A hearty meal for two for $12.61 was pretty much a quarter of the price of dinner at Son of a Gun in L.A., which was a quarter of my last dinner in S.F. I'm pretty sure I'm hitting the bottom end of this trend.

Road Trip Day 3

2011-08-22T21:45:00.002-07:00

While we had passed by the end of Route 66 in Santa Monica the day before, day 3 felt like the first day exploring the historic route. We took part of the old route 66 off of the I40 to Amboy, passing the non-extant town of Siberia, and the Amoby Crater along the way.

We also stopped off at Seligman for lunch. It was pretty much as expected, with touristy knick-knacks of a declining (actually, mostly dead) tourist route. The Roadkill Cafe was pretty much a gimmick, and we were hungry. The food was basic "american" fare, a BLT, and a chicken wrap. Both were reasonably well done for what they were, but the lack of truly "healthy" choices reminded me why America is so fat. The desert landscape, however reminded me how fortunate California is, with the wide variety of fresh local fruits, vegetables, livestock and seafood. Something like San Francisco's green "locavore" movement doesn't work nearly as well in Arizona, where it seems like there's a wide variety of desert shrubs. With all the sun though, I wonder if it might make sense to grow food in greenhouses here at some point.

There were a few hours of driving to go to the Grand Canyon. As we moved from the Mojave, up through the mountains, and to the plains of Arizona, there was a clear change in the landscape. The land flattened, the shrubs got slightly greener, but most tellingly little fluffy clouds appeared in the sky. San Francisco has its share of fog, but rarely cumulus clouds, and rarely so many.

I think the last time I had been to the Grand Canyon was when I first moved down to California, before I even started this blog. There had been a long hike that time, an adventure a battle of youth vs. nature, where youth fortunately prevailed. This time around was far lazier. For one thing, it took two and a half days to get there, and there was no hiking involved this time, except for the walk around the paved rim trail. We managed to catch a gorgeous sunset from one of the less crowded vantage points. Unlike the last time, the beauty was not marred by the concern of hiking in the darkness. What hadn't changed was the sense of grandeur staring down into the canyon, and across to the distant rim. The little fluffy clouds had gathered into a a giant dark cloud on the far North Rim. While it was relatively clear and peaceful where we stood, we could see distant lightning on the far rim.

While driving around the rim, we also happened on numerous elk. At one point, I spotted a huge stag, through the trees. We were driving along, not slowly, so the trees nearby whizzed by, but the stag stood tall and grand in the distance. It was a regal creature.

The drive back to Flagstaff in the dark was mostly uneventful. We were hoping to drive past the Sunset Crater, which we did, but it was not visible in the pitch blackness. The sun had gone and the clouds had gathered. The lightning we had seen in the distance got closer and brighter as we drove along. Eventually, a stroke covered the sky from end to end outside our windshield, and torrents of rain came down for a few minutes. For a few moments as we hydroplaned through huge pools of water on the road, the rain and the water splashing up rendered the windshield a sheet of water that we could not see through. But as quickly as the rain came down, it was over within a few minutes, leaving the windshield clear, and free of the myriad of dead bugs that were previously on it.

These moments are beyond rare in the everyday.

Road Trip Day 2

2011-08-22T21:45:00.001-07:00

We had stayed at the Marriot near the Burbank airport, which was pretty cheap off Priceline. We planned to see Santa Monica, which meant a bit of a drive, but fortunately, the traffic wasn't too bad.

We spend the late morning on the 3rd St. Promenade, where a farmer's market was running. While it was pointless to get groceries, we did get some interesting pastries (marmalade/onion, pesto/goat cheese/mint), and some incredibly delicious "flavor grenade pluots".

Time was spent on Santa Monica beach, which wasn't actually all that busy earlier in the day. We also rented a tandem bike for an easy ride down to Venice beach. The whole Santa Monica area feels clean and yuppie, while the hippies hang out at Venice beach. Cast of characters included a homeless looking Santa (in August), and a tanned dude that looked like Conan the Barbarian. There was less weed in the air than I'd expected, but maybe that's just after living in SF for so long.

After a few hours on the beach, we drove over to Beverly Hills for a stroll. Window shopping at Rodeo/Wilshire resulted in buying a cupcake at Crumbs, which we noted was at least 50c more than a cupcake at Kara's (though, somewhat bigger as well).

For dinner we drove over to Monterey Park. I hadn't been in the area since the early 2000s, but it didn't really look like too much had changed. We stopped at Savoy Kitchen for the much praised Hainan chicken rice, which was quite good, as well as the beef brisket curry, which was quite outstanding.

I napped a bit in the car after dinner to kill some time, and headed over to Pomona for teh Body Language show there. I probably should have showed up earlier this time, since they were playing last and there were some other bands playing before them. Pomona was a surprisingly hip town. Just stepping out of the car in the parking lot, I could hear at least two different live bands playing. Walking around showed even more tiny venues with live music. Most of the crowd looked college aged, but there were a few older folks around. It wasn't a crazy party environment, but definitely fun on a Friday night.

Unfortunately, I had already booked a hotel further down on our route, and we moved on for Barstow before the night got late.

Road Trip Day 1

2011-08-21T15:47:00.001-07:00

I had initially planned to leave San Francisco on 8/16, but I discovered later that Body Language was going to be in town on the 18th. I delayed the start date by a few days, which ended up being perfect, since it gave me a few days to rest for the drive after a hectic weekend.

Viv most generously hosted me, since I already moved out of my apartment. Hence we were well rested as we left on the morning of the 19th. It was a few hours after I had originally planned to leave; I had brought the car in for an oil change the day before, but they ended up replacing the water pump and a valve gasket as well.

We left Burlingame around 10am and took a quick stop for breakfast in Santa Clara, and then drove on to Carmel. It was cloudy all morning, but fortunately skies were clear by the time we got to the beach. We passed through the town pretty quickly, but took some stops to admire the beach and some of the fancy oceanfront properties. We also stopped by the Carmel Mission, which I had never noticed before. It had a satisfying historic feel to the museum in the restored building. Definitely worth visiting on a trip to Carmel.

Next down the route was Big Sur. We only stopped a few times for photos, but the beauty was constant on a wonderful drive. We stopped for a moment also in San Simeon to see the elephant seals. I had read about them ages ago, but it was the first time seeing the blubbery giants. I could see that it wasn't really worth a trip just for the seals though. They mostly just lie there, and scratch themselves lazily occasionally.

We also made a quick stop at the Hearst Castle visitor center. It was almost 4, and the tours were already done for the day. I didn't realize that the visitor center was miles away from the actual buildings and you could only see it from afar, perched at the top of a distant hill. It did give the estate a sense of grandeur, but wasn't really interesting enough to make me want to repeat the drive.

The next stop was supposed to be the Griffith Observatory in LA. It was hard to tell what the quickest route would be. We stopped off at the Main St. Grill in Cambria to grab a quick late lunch. Sinyee had recommended it almost 10 years ago, and the fat dripping BBQ tri-tip sandwich met expectations.

We took the route through Paso Robles, passing the vast field of oil wells at Lost Hills. It was a bit of a detour, and took about an hour and a half to get back to the I5, but the route was mostly straight and clear. We made it to the Observatory around 9, an hour and a half late for sunset, but the place was still open.

You have to drive past the Greek Theater on the way up. Death Cab for Cutie was playing that night, but the concert had already started and there wasn't too much traffic, though the Observatory parking lot was packed.

After checking out the view of LA, we swung by Son of a Gun for dinner. It was featured in Bon Appetit the previous week, but surprisingly there was no line when we arrived; I guess we were late enough. The smoked mahi dip wasn't bad, but far less interesting than the Bon Appetit article might have suggested. It reminded me of a tuna sandwich filling, with the addition of a nice smokiness. The alligator schnitzel, crisp and thin, exceeded expectations. There was no fishy flavour, it could have been mistaken for tender pork. The lobster roll compared favorably to the one I just tried a few days before at the Old Port Lobster Shack in Redwood City, though this one was about 1/3 the size, and 1/3 the price. I preferred the "naked", mayo-free version at Old Port, but the SoaG roll was better toasted and buttered.

The lime frozen yogurt though, was fantastic. Hands down best $5 dessert with the sweet meringue and graham crunch on the side. I have to say this was better than the dessert at Benu the night before, and that meal cost 4x as much (though that meal was also great).

Gas tracker

2011-08-21T01:46:00.001-07:00

8/19 Pilot, Lost Hills, CA 10.626 gal, 305.6 miles, $3.819/gal
8/20 Shell, Pomona, CA 9.510 gal, 249.8 miles, $3.899/gal
8/21 Chevron, Ludlow, CA 5.434 gal, 138.2 miles, $4.599/gal
8/21 Chevron, Seligman, AZ 9.374 gal, 237.0 miles, $4.099/gal
8/22 Chevron, Flagstaff, AZ 7.635 gal, 218.6 miles, $3.799/gal
8/23 Circle K, Albuquerque, NM 12.882 gal, 388.0 miles, $3.679/gal
8/24 Love's, Amarillo, TX 2.747 gal, 367.3 miles, $3.639/gal partial
8/25 Toot, Amarillo, TX 11.404 gal, 15.8 miles, $3.699/gal
8/25 Love's, McCloud, OK 10.489 gal, 281.6 miles, $3.639/gal
8/26 Citgo, Springdale, AK 10.451 gal, 253.8 miles, $3.789/gal
8/27 Exxon, Memphis, TN 13.843 gal, 343.7 miles, $3.799/gal
8/28 Citgo, Farina, IL, 12.497 gal, 318.0 miles, $3.899/gal
9/01 One Stop, Chicago, IL 12.478 gal 299.5 miles, $4.299/gal
9/04 Shell, Port Huron, IL, 13.392 gal 356.9 miles, $4.10/gal

Farewell

2011-08-16T01:47:00.001-07:00

Today I bid farewell to my colleagues. I bid farewell to my apartment. I bid farewell to my bartender.

I'm not comfortable with the concept of goodbye. I'm not ready for anything so permanent, with people or places that I've grown attached to.

I'd much rather have it be 'see you later'. I mean it.

Another blast from the past.

2011-07-29T23:34:00.000-07:00

An excerpt from my MasterCard bill circa April 2001, on a road trip down to NYC.

It cost $40.64USD to fill the tank of a minivan, and $1USD = $1.57CDN.

Things change slowly and constantly, but when you look back a decade, it's amazing how drastic the changes are.

Oh, I also remember trying to return the rental car with an empty gas tank, which led to me putting in $5 worth of gas twice in order to make it home.

Back when I was a young scrap...

2011-07-27T00:24:00.000-07:00

I spent the weekend clearing junk out of my closet, which included piles of old credit card receipts. At one point I used to track my purchases closely, which wasn't that hard when I was a student and only made a handful of purchases a month. While there may have been once where I was able to refer to a credit card bill to check when I purchased an item for a warranty claim, the receipts have been practically worthless.

However, they definitely held nostalgic value. Skimming through them brought back memories. Some were blurrier - meals at Morty's or King Tin - there were many of them, and I wouldn't have remembered one from another. But others that were more unique, I recalled though I would not have thought of them at all without the receipts. A meal at CN Tower stood out, that was in 1998. In a way, they were almost like a journal, a lifetime narrated in purchases and payments.

It was also interesting to look at how quickly the value of gadgets decline. Not that I'm not already keenly aware of that, but to actually compare the dollar values, then and now, can sometimes be pretty staggering. This isn't at all scientific, since for some items I'm comparing what the same product costs now, and for others, a higher end modern equivalent. I also don't take inflation into account. Consider this purely for entertainment.

Ritex 4GB 80X CF $103.50 2006
Kingston 4GB 133X CF $13.29 2011
This one didn't surprise me much because I've been watching the price of Flash drop since I bought my first 128MB CF card for my Canon G1. I think that cost me a few hundred dollars. Anything made with silicon drops fast as the chips shrink. Moore's Law says transistor counts double every 2 years. You would expect prices to halve every 2 years, and be maybe 1/8th after 6 years, but in this case it's more like 1/10th after 5 years.

Dell UltraSharp 3007WFP 30" Monitor $1435.00 2006
Dell UltraSharp U3011 30" Monitor $1349.00 2011
The latest model has much improved colours and connectivity, but I feel like I got a pretty good buy 5 years ago with this monitor. Seems to have held it's value far better than the TV below.

350W Fanless power supply $89.61USD 2006
Seasonic 400W Fanless power supply $151.35 2011
Fanless power supplies were never popular, so they were always more expensive due to the lack of scale. As the desktop market shrinks to laptops, I suppose the market's becoming even more niche. This is probably the one item on this list that's getting more expensive over the years.

Burton Ruler boots $124.99USD 2003
Burton Ruler boots $199.99USD 2011
Looks like the price of snowboard gear is pretty stable, though you can always get last season's gear at steep discounts, which was why my boots are cheaper than the current ones. I think the MSRP is probably pretty similar.

SMC7004AWBR 802.11b router $174.95USD 2001
Linksys WRT54GL 802.11b/g router $49.99USD 2011
There's wireless routers for as low as $25. I'm surprised to see that the WRT54GL still sells. It's a really old product that doesn't support the latest fast wireless standards, but lives on due to it's hackability with DD-WRT. There's also high end $130 devices, but it seems most new devices are in the $50-80 range.

SMC2632W 802.11b PC card $74.95USD 2001
Rosewill 802.11b/g/n USB2.0 dongle $14.99USD 2011
Wifi was new back in 2001, but it's completely commoditized now. What's more interesting is to see how PCMCIA slots in laptops slowly transform to PC Card slots, then to ExpressCard slots, and then being ditched pretty much entirely for USB accessories.

Heine HR 2.5x 420mm Loupe $635.00USD 2001
Heine HR 2.5x 420mm Binocular set $1395.00 2011
Heine makes binocular loupes, they come in pairs, like your eyes. I have no idea why I only bought only 1 in 2001. I must have been retarded. But it seems like they haven't depreciated much in the last decade.

Createive Labs Nomad 20GB $349.99USD 2001
Archos GMINI 120 20GB $249.99 2004
iPod classic 160GB $249 2011
iPod nano 16GB $179 2011
Given how fast the price of a MB of storage drops, either on HD or in Flash, I would have expected the price of MP3 players to plumet like a bomb. An iPod classic stores 8x as much as the GMINI from 7 years ago, and it also plays movies now. But it's still $250 for an mp3 player. The iPod nano contains less than $20 of flash memory, and I'm sure the other parts might add up to another $20. Somehow Apple's managed to keep the price of these products up and reap the margins as the value of the components drop. I'm pretty much expecting this market to disappear as people are using their phones for pretty much everything now.

Toshiba TW40X81 40" TV $2956.52CDN 2000
Toshiba 40G300U 40" TV $659.00USD 2011
Big bulky rear projection TV in the era where 540p was "high definition", compared to a sleek 1080p LCD. Big progress here. Also shows how a 40" TV was considered pretty big back then, now it's about as small as you can get.

Hollywood DVD Decoder Card $120.00CDN 2000
This was an add in card that let my Pentium Pro machine play DVDs, since the CPU itself wasn't fast enough to decode DVDs. Products like this just don't exist now, so I can't compare the current value. Depreciation at infinity.

Denon AVR3300 $1478.26CDN 1999
Denon AVR3312CI $1099.99USD 2011
Audio gear hasn't progressed nearly as fast as TVs. Lack of any significant technology improvements in the power amplifiers may be part of it, but I suspect marketting of home theater audio as a luxury good has something to do with keeping the prices up. Still the audio market has changed a lot. Stereo amps have pretty much disappeared, and Hi-fi magazines have been replaced by home theater magazines. The latest AVR3312CI is networked, which is a big difference from the AVR3300 on top of all the other improvements.

Toshiba SD3109 DVD Player $679.00 1999
Toshiba SD4300 DVD Player $37.99 2011
The pitfalls of being an early adopter, seriously. It can handle 2 DVDs at once though, modern players don't do that!

Panasonic 4x/8x CD-R IDE $370CDN 1998
Sony 24X/16X DVD+R/+RW $19.99USD 2011
Wow I bought that? Oh yeah, I remember, it was for archiving data, and $370 plus a stack of CDs seemed cheap compared to the 10GB hard disks of the times. In addition to cleaning out my old receipts this past weekend, I also copied all my archived CDs/DVDs onto a 2TB hard drive so I could throw out the huge stack of plastic. Optical drives are going the way of the dodo.

Pioneer 10X DVD Slot load $199CDN 2000
Sony DVD-ROM $16.99 2011
I wish everything dropped in price like this.

Twin Mattress $279.99CDN 1996
Twin Mattress $259.99USD 2011
Why can't mattress prices decline be like DVD players?

It's gonna be a great year.

2011-01-14T00:14:00.000-08:00

Wow, it looks like 2010 was my least blogged year ever. And looking at the links on the right column, it seems like personal blogging has pretty much died, replaced by pithy updates on facebook or twitter.

Every so often, something crosses my mind that deserves a bit more thought, a bit more organization, and maybe some time to pen it down. It seems like that time never comes though. Today I heard a bit on KPFA 94.1, the ultra-leftist talk radio station in Berkeley, about how this generation of Americans can expect to have a lower standard of living than their parents. A film major called in, talking about pursuing her dream, and how, since all careers were longshots, she'd rather pick one that she was passionate about. This is probably the kind of kid who'd get smacked silly by a Chinese mother. It's interesting to compare the vastly different mindsets out there between America, Europe and Asia. I could probably devote an entire essay to the topic, but my two main thoughts from this are:

1) Regardless of your opinion of Amy Chua's mothering methodology, she's a genius. The purpose of her article was really to promote her book, and it's been a while since I've seen any one article get so much publicity. It's probably got a vastly larger mindshare than any 15 second internet ad.
2) I bet in two generations time, children of refugees from the Iraqi or Afghan wars will be the new model minority. That might seem like a non-sequitur, but it ties directly to the personal drive for success that immigrant parents pass on as values to their children. There are probably few greater motivators than knowing war and destruction and having to struggle to build a better life for your children.

On a completely different note, I had one of those moments at the gym - when they play one of those older songs that you know you know... but you just can't place it. Hanging by a rope, I couldn't quite Shazam it. Anyways, later when I got home, I thought maybe I could find it again... it had a guy and girl singing. Maybe it was The XX? Nope, but the YouTube search revealed that The XX has a song called Stars, which finally triggered the memory that the song was by the Stars. Anyways, here's the old music plus some music for this month.

Java + XML

2010-12-11T19:09:00.000-08:00

Started trying to parse some XML in Java. I figured this would be simple considering that both technologies are so well developed - but the case is, it's so well developed that there's so many choices out there that it's confusing. I had a hard time trying to find a good succinct introduction to help choose which technology to use. Surprisingly, even though almost all the work is pre-2005, it's hard to find a single simple introduction. There's a lot of documentation out there, and it took me a long time to read through various different API specs, other docs, and tutorials, before I felt like I had a firm grasp on the world of XML parsing/manipulation in Java. Now I assume if you're interested in XML, you already know what it is, if not there's plenty of primers on that topic. Here's some info on how to work with XML with Java.

First of all,

DTD, Document Type Definition: text file in a standardized format that defines the rules of a specific type of XML file, and the allowed elements, attributes, and structure.

xsd, XML Schema: equivalent of a DTD, but written in XML. Newer.

Note: you would only use one of either DTD or xsd, more DTD in the past, xsd for newer stuff.

DOM, Document Object Model: a parser API (ie a bunch of defined classes) that represents an XML or HTML document as a tree of Node objects. After parsing, the user can navigate the tree to find and manipulate the data they are looking for. While conceptually simple, the implementation is tedious because it's generic. You can navigate to an Element, but you have to use String objects to find the particular element or attribute you are looking for every time. It ends up having high memory usage and is slow. DOM can be used for XML or HTML, and the standard Java implementation for XML is org.w3c.dom.

SAX, Simple API for XML: a competing parser API designed for performance, but does not define how a document is represented - that's left to the user. Instead it uses a callback model that calls user-implemented functions when the parser hits elements or attributes. The user can represent the document any way he likes, from a tree of specific classes for pertinent datatypes, to a linked list or array or hash table if that's more convenient. This may be straightforward for a very simple document, or time consuming if there are many types of elements/attributes. The standard Java implementation is org.xml.sax.

Note: you would only use one of either DOM or SAX. DOM is heavyweight but allows you to navigate the tree, and is generally less work. SAX is faster, but you have to create your own object model, which may be simple or hard, depending on the complexity of your XML schema. It's most likely more work than using the DOM if your XML is complicated.

JAXP, Java API for XML Parsing: A standard API that lets you interact with XML documents, primarily by parsing, and then transforming from source to destination formats. For example, writing to file is implemented as a transform. The API is under java.xml.parsers and java.xml.transform. There are SAX and DOM implementations, using JAXP hides much of the details of the underlying parser. This is one of the simpler ways to go initially, but look up some samples to help you along, since the API docs are not so intuitive. JAXP also includes ways to transform XML documents using XSLT styles, and validate your XML using a Schema. I found using JAXP to be much less code for my purposes, which was just to write some structures to XML.

All the APIs described so far will give you Element or Attribute objects, but then you'd check the string inside to figure out what type of Element it is, and then look for the appropriate Attribute inside. Now it would be much simpler if you actually had Java classes representing the element and attribute types, and simply navigated that. One way to do this is to code up your own Java classes to represent the various element and attribute types, and instantiate them as you go with an SAX parser.

An alternative is to code up your own Java classes that wrap the DOM classes, so that your own classes perform the appropriate DOM manipulation operations, and expose a much simpler interface to the user. Too bad there's so much manual work involved. You would have thought that with a DTD or Schema, you would have all that information about your XML document... That's where JAXB comes into play.

JAXB, Java Architecture for XML Binding: JAXB is an intermediate "compiler" that generates Java classes based on an XML Schema. You can then build these auto-generated classes into your app without the tedium of dealing with DOM or SAX. Juicy!

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-27T01:15:00.000-07:00

Samples.

2010-09-27T02:39:00.000-07:00

I like the KiD CUDi one the best.

Movies.

2010-02-09T21:42:00.000-08:00

I meant to write something last month, after Sundance. But I didn't get around to it. I do have to say though, that it was fun times, and far more accessible than I had imagined. Movie tickets did require a bit of getting up early and waiting in line effort, but I think that's part of the experience. Considering going again next year, ping me if you're interested.

Restrepo
Was interested in this movie, because it was shot by the pretty darn awesome photojournalist Tim Hethrington and journalist Sebastian Junger. This is a real war movie, and none like I've ever seen. Through ten trips over the course of a year to the same camp, the viewers experience a sense of intimacy with real soldiers. It's an hour and a half of the raw experience of being a soldier - digging, camping, patrolling, fighting. Post-tour interviews are moments of calm in the film between literal cinema verite experiences in the Korengal valley of Afghanistan, shooting at distant invisible targets, and being shot at. It's just a sense of audio calmness when the guns stop shooting though; the viewer still bears witness to the emotional turmoil of the young veterans trying to internalize the experience and bring it back home.

The film doesn't portray anything that goes on back in the US. There's no high level discussion on how the war is waged, it's pretty much only what's going on on the ground. However, despite the lack of commentary, I got a frightening sense that the war to win over the hearts and minds of the people was being lost by a bunch of macho and culturally ignorant kids, fumbling their way through botched negotiations with village elders over collateral damage.

If the purpose of a documentary is to educate, this film is about as hands on and practical as it gets. I left feeling like I understood what it's like to be "over there". All the print articles you've read about the war in Afghanistan don't hold a candle to this. Apparently the rights have been sold to National Geographic. I'd expect to see it on TV sometime this year. Watch it.

Enter the Void
I'm probably not qualified to write a review for this movie, since I walked out about halfway through. Apparently a crowd favourite during the Midnight Madness run at TIFF, this movie did not work, at all, as a morning showing. I was tempted to stay until the end to ask the director why he hated his audience so. An epilepsy-inducing opening credit sequence physically assaults the viewer with heavy techno music and gaudy flashing colours making the worst internet banner ad seem like a GAP commercial. And the only times the film stops beating the viewer are when it subjects you to boredom of equally painful proportions.

While there's was some impressive camerawork done in the opening scene, a continuous real-time shot of the last 20 minutes of the main character's life, the horrible acting, worse writing and flatlining from boredom timing just killed it for me. The entire production was an experiment in creative camerawork, but there's not much film in there. On top of that, the gut-wrenching shakycam had me covering my eyes in an attempt to postpone my non-existant breakfast from making a return visit. While I hear there's some semblance of a character development a bit later, I think everything was pretty much laid out in the first 20 minutes. After that, it's a flood of shock tactics, drugs, sex and violence. Unfortunately, no rock and roll. I'm curious if there's a twist ending. Someone post the last 5 minutes on youtube please.

Departures
I'm not sure where I read or heard about this movie. It might be that it won an Oscar. I was spellbound by the way this film masterfully danced between comedy and drama. You think from the synopsis that it's a film about a laid of concert cellist who goes to work in a funeral home, but it turns out to be a movie about dreams, regrets, family, honour, respect, love, loss and redemption. You might knock a few points for some fairly contrived situations, to make all the pieces fit - but the film comes together so well that it's a worthy cause in itself. You'll enjoy this one.

Examined Life
I was impressed that this was a National Film Board of Canada production, though it seemed mostly shot in New York City. You pretty much watch a bunch of modern day philosophers talk their stuff, while walking around, or rowing a boat, or riding around town in a car. Fill it was some cutscenes of things that happen around town, driving down a road, or walking down a path. If you're lucky, the scenery might match the topic of discussion. That's about it.

The content really is the talk. Hearing articulate thoughts presented eloquently from the mouths of the philosophers themselves is a vastly different experience than reading it off of a thick stack of pages. Some of it sounds like self-justifying academic bullshit, but there's definitely a few gems in there, as long as you can get through the more obtuse ones droning on. I particularly liked the Martha Nussbaum and Slavoj Zizek segments for their pragmatic analyses of our current society.

(note that the last two films were not viewed at Sundance, they're both available on Netflix streaming)

One shall stand, one shall fall.

2010-01-13T00:09:00.000-08:00

I don't know how this will turn out, but the trailer is chock full of AWESOME.

Bumblebee looks like Bumblebee. There's a lot of recognizable characters, including Trypticon and Omega Supreme.
Thank God Michael Bay did not direct this.

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-20T21:21:00.000-08:00

I can settle with a fake plastic tree.

Winter.

2009-12-11T15:12:00.000-08:00

It's a cold winter, the fireplace is barely hot enough. The street outside is wet, the sky is grey. There aren't many people walking their dogs, and those who are, are huddled up and shivering.

Yeah, I shouldn't be whining, this is California and not Ontario, but they really don't know how to insulate buildings here. I liked wandering around the neighborhood when it was warm - it's not as pleasant now. In memory of happier times, here's something I found scrawled on a nearby building a month ago, when the sun was still shining.

New phone time

2009-11-11T00:46:00.000-08:00

After many mostly-reliable years of Nokia-ness, I've finally upgraded to an Android phone. Overall, it's a lot more features, but a lot less UI polish. I feel like I need a lot more apps to get things done. And while I used to be able to text with one hand while driving, that's pretty much impossible now.

On the plus side, I did get a free show out of it. This video, is NOT from the phone camera though.

Being sentimental

2009-10-29T01:27:00.000-07:00

Had a few drinks at the wine bar down the street (nice neighborhood joint, got a free sticker!), which lead to being sentimental. So thus comes three items of canned seafood from my childhood:
- Brunswick brand sardines with Tabasco peppers
- Clover Leaf brand canned tuna
- Unknown chinese brand of fried dace with black beans

I can forsee some cheap tasty meals in the near future...

Need to post more pictures.

2009-10-15T00:45:00.000-07:00

Randoms.

2009-09-30T16:15:00.000-07:00

Been flipping through the NYT runway slideshows, and it seems like that season of madness that was the mid-2000s has passed, with the booming economy, towering platforms, and garbage-bag silhouettes. I'm sure there's tonnes of articles out there on how fashion reflects the highs and lows of the economy and consumer confidence. I'm not sure. Maybe tighter budgets mean tighter waistlines, and practical sensibilities mean practical shoes (practical can be relative?). Or maybe Timberlake's been busy off-stage bringing sexy back. I particularly liked the United Bamboo shots. Never heard of the label before, but I'm wondering if it's hinting at a boom in asian/american designers (along with names like Derek Lam, Peter Som, Jason Chu, Richard Chai, and Alexander Wang).

Spring fashion shows means its actually fall. I'm not sure where that came about, maybe it's just a symbolic gesture on how detached from the real world these designer folks are. But anyways, fall means winter is coming, and that means my mind's detached and is running 3 months ahead. Well, that's what happened when I saw this video.

Yeah, I got that from browsing too much YouTube. Some other awesome stuff on YouTube. I might try doing some time lapse videos. After I get around to uploading vacation pics.

And finally, somehow I found this video. Now last year I had thought Lady Gaga was some forgettable flavor-of-the-week dance music singer(?), prancing around in her music videos with her tight little swimsuits and funky makeup. The whole attention whoring outfits didn't help. Never realized she actually could sing. Now I want to go see her live. Maybe she'll be the Elton John of the 2010s...

Here's another one, with absolutely lo-fi audio, from a Marc Jacobs party. Which brings us back to fashion shows. Darn.

A different pace of life.

2009-09-11T15:57:00.000-07:00

I can't believe that I was on vacation just 2 weeks ago. I also can't believe it was already 2 weeks ago.

Not that I want to live in a village in the middle of nowhere, where there's nothing to do but farm quinoa and llamas, but the slow pace out there is kinda relaxing.

Figs.

2009-09-08T11:03:00.000-07:00

Apparently my coworker has a neighbor with a fig tree, that drops a tonne of figs each summer and makes a mess. So the neighbor gives boxes of figs to the coworker, who doesn't happen to like figs. So now I get a box. Now I just gotta find me some prosciutto or jamon serrano.

I hate Ticketmaster. With a passion.

2009-09-02T11:14:00.001-07:00

Every time I buy a ticket for an event through either TicketMaster or LiveNation, a swell of an rage and anger floods my being. Ok, LiveNation is a little better because of their occasional sales.

But get this:
Full Price Ticekt: 22.50x2
Facility Charge: 2.50x2
Convenience Charge: 8.50x2
Delivery: 2.50
Order Processing Fee: 5.40
Total 74.50

That's practically 40% in fees on top of the ticket prices. It's insane.

Views from above.

2009-09-01T12:17:00.000-07:00

Lima's pretty dim at night. I'd have expected more lights from a city its size.

La Paz spreads like a brown blanket over the Andean hills. The size is surprising, as well as the violent layer of air that you pass through right before you land.

Miami is big and bright; the energy of the city pulses, lightning flashing through the clouds above and around.

Los Angeles is burning, choking in the billowing smoke.

I recognized the contours of the Los Altos hills on the way down, with a warm sense of familiarity. Does that make this home?

Book.

2009-08-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

I'm a big fan of Gabriel Garcia Marquez' flowery style. I'm almost halfway through "Love in the time of Cholera". It's nowhere near as epic as "100 Years of Solitude", but it's still a decent read. I've learned a new word, "atavistic", but I haven't figured out "the bicycle on the sea, or the chicken on the grill, or the drawn-and-quartered angel".

Looking forward to the flight home, I might finish on the plane.

Unprepared

2009-08-28T05:38:00.000-07:00

One thing I forgot to do before taking off was to install photo software on my netbook. There's two apps I usually use. Breeze System Downloader Pro copies photos off of my camera's CF card, and gives you a bunch of options on how to organize the photos as they're downloaded. I organize mine by date. It makes my life easy, since it doesn't copy photos that have already been copied before. All I have to do is plug in my CF card, and photos are automatically copied over and organized quickly.

I'm still using C1 RAW to convert RAW images to JPGs that I can upload to flickr. RAW files are much preferred, since they contain a lot more colour information than JPGs. That is, you can fix the white balance, or find detail information in areas that appear to be all white or all back. C1 is far from being the top app out their for this purpose. I'm using both apps because they were more or less the best of their breed a few years ago, and they're purchased and legit.

Unfortunately, after the first two days in Cuzco, I realized that I was filling up my CF card. Although I had a few more cards, I suspected they proably wouldn't last too long. Luckily I had a trial version of Adobe Lightroom installed. Lightroom's probably the best of the breed right now, but I'm still not certain I'm ready to drop $200 to replace C1 which is sufficient on the most part.

That's the long way of saying that Lightroom was useful on the first day of the trip, I got a few photos up on flickr, but trial period expired within a couple of days. I managed to extend it a few days by never shutting down and only using hibernate. Unfortunately, Win7 crashed once when I unplugged my memory card reader. I can try shooting in RAW+JPG, but I won't have a chance to put up any MP pics before I get back.

July was awesome.

2009-08-05T14:38:00.000-07:00

Hm, I keep thinking of blogging about things, like visiting Montreal and eating at Au Pied de Cochon, visiting Crater Lake, weekends in SF, meeting strange online people IRL, or water-balloon-sniping the CEO at a company fundraiser, but I never seem to get around to it.

I can't believe it's already August. Last month was packed, and the birds are all out chirping this month.

Things I didn't expect to find in Toronto.

2009-07-17T18:24:00.000-07:00

We can make this an entirely unfair scavenger hunt. Next time I'm back I'll bring a present for whoever can identify where these are. If I remember. If you were there when I took the picture, you don't qualify.

It's not the same Toronto.

2009-07-09T12:42:00.000-07:00

People change. That's a given. For better or worse, I'd run into people after a few years and find they're not quite as I remembered. Recognizeable of course, but usually the interests aren't necessarily the same as before. Some people grow more adventurous, others a little more settled and staid. Others have additions they carry around in diapers.

Toronto's a little different too. Don Mills and York Mills used to be kinda dead, now it's upscale. The condo on the corner of Bayview and Sheppard used to be a big grassy hill on the edge of a parking lot. The garbage dump on the corner of Bayview and Leslie used to be a parking lot too.

While still flooded with immigrants, it seems like the faces are changing. I'm noticing more people with darker skin then before, and hearing more Arabic, along with other languages I don't recognize.

I was wondering, listening to the radio, whether 102.1 was still the Edge. It seemed somehow, a little less edgy. Like how alternative's gone mainstream. Then just yesterday I read about the suicide of Martin Streek. I've been listening to the Edge for so long that his voice had become a fixture. Even though I *know* they come and go (like morning show hosts "Don and Erin" and "Humble and Fred", I still find it mind-boggling when they change or disappear, especially in such a tragic manner.

Speaking of celebrity, does it strike anyone else as kinda odd how the protests in Iran kinda toned down with MJ's passing, and now they're back up and at it now that his tribute's done?

Ok, I know I'm writing about YYZ, but I've been listening to a band from SFO.

Retro Monday.

2009-07-06T17:40:00.000-07:00

I seem to be keeping myself pretty entertained these days. I haven't even blogged about camping out in Joshua Tree in June, and already it's July.

There's a deep subtle thrill to camp out in the middle of nowhere. Not at a campground with facilities, but just out there, where there isn't another soul in a 10 mile radius. It might not be as exciting as night in the hustle of the city, but for a moment the world falls into another perspective.

I felt so small and insignificant in the vast emptiness. Looking upwards just revealed an even greater vastness of an incomprehensible scale. The rest of the world seemed so far away and inconsequtial; only the blinking lights of high flying planes or slow moving satellites reminded me of that high tech society on the other side of the mountain range. It felt like the world could end, and I'd miss it entirely. It was brilliant.

On another note, I heard a Matthew Good song on the radio the other day. Haven't heard any of that down here. How's this one for going back a few years?

I do requests.

2009-06-18T09:33:00.000-07:00

This NAFTA thing clearly isn't working, because whenever I make a trip back to Canada, 3/4 of my suitcase ends up carrying things that are cheaper when bought online in the US. Take for example:

Anonymous Stranger: hi
me: hi Anonymous Stranger.
AS: can i ask a favour?
me: yes?
AS: do you have room in your bag to bring something for me from US?
me: a lens?
AS: no....
AS: a colon cleanse system?

Yes, my friends can be incredibly funny. In this case, even without joking.

On healthy eating.

2009-06-11T21:41:00.000-07:00

Remember those drink your vegetable commercials? Do hops count as vegetables?

What about pesto?

Reminder to self.

2009-06-03T02:48:00.001-07:00

The world isn't all bad.

Beyond all expectations.

2009-05-23T10:10:00.000-07:00

It's a McG movie, so there's the lowered expectations and all. But how bad can a Terminator movie be, especially with Christian Bale as John Connor? I'll have to say, this wasn't the movie I thought from the trailer. It didn't for a moment, feel dark or gritty. This is the cheeziest, most cliched, feel-good Terminator yet. So, the answer is: about as bad as you can imagine, and maybe a little bit more. Thanks McG, you've exceeded my expectations again!

Whatever happened to winter?

2009-05-19T00:17:00.000-07:00

I like looking forward to that last snowboarding trip of the year, the one where you end the season with a bang and wave goodbye to the snow capped peaks for another seven or eight months. Some years don't quite work that way though, a few busy weekends here, bad weather there, and before you know it, it's 35C out and the grass on the east bay hills is golden again.

I had an idea to blog about music, but the days flowed into weeks and months, and I've forgotten most of it. I have noticed that imeem's somewhat become my new radio (Pandora seems down a lot, and YouTube audio quality just isn't that great).

Not that any of these are new, but just an assortment from the past couple of months:

Your Hand In Mine - Explosions In The Sky

im good im gone - lykke li

Hope For The Hopeless - A Fine Frenzy

L.E.S. Artistes (Single) - Santigold

1901 - Phoenix

Bach: Partita No. 2 in D Minor - J. S. Bach

Quixotic.

2009-05-06T13:57:00.000-07:00

I just got $300 in Amazon gift certificates. At first I thought it was spam, but then I found the certificate codes work. I think someone out there can't type their own email address.

Braindead.

2009-04-29T21:54:00.000-07:00

How come every so often, I'll read something intriguing or inspirational, and I'll never get around to blogging about it?

And when I do come around to blogger, my mind draws a blank?

Work is sucking out my brains. <slurp>.

Now where's that schmassion?

what monoculture?

2009-03-17T17:35:00.000-07:00

Toronto's always boasted about it's multiculturalism. But since there's a small group discussion going on in Hindi in the cube to my left, and my coworker's talking on the phone in Mandarin in the cube to my right, I don't feel *that* far from home.

On Storytelling.

2009-03-05T23:30:00.000-08:00

Part of the appeal of studying the sciences is the immutability of the physical laws. There's the hope (or perhaps fantasy) that contributions to the field will last as long as the physical laws themselves, to be applied universally by mankind, years and millenia down the road. Like how Einstein's theory of relativity is still constantly applied to physics and astronomy. The arts on the other hand, are subject to fashion, politics, and the capricious winds of humanity's trends. One man's epic may be another's satire; a woman's fashion statement may be the laughingstock to the next generation; a failed artist can die in poverty - either to be hailed a master posthumously, or to remain in the obscurity for the rest of history.

Perhaps unchanged over the millenia of human existence is the enjoyment of a good story. The intriguing characters, the rise and turn of the plot, the ideas and commentary all serve to play upon both the intellect and emotions. Story after story, fact or fiction or some combination of the two, have been repeated across the globe and through the ages. The story's taken many forms, spoken by a grandparent, sang by a bard, a puppet show, a play, a dance.

Today's most popular medium is probably film or television. But the video games industry is already bigger than Hollywood. I still recall playing "Grim Fandango" a decade ago; the story there was entirely captivating, in a way few following games have succeeded. Some recent titles, "Dead Space", "Mirror's Edge", and "Need for Speed: Underground", all from EA, all shared the same story. You do task after task (kill zombies/jump across buildings/drive your fast car) to get to some goal, just to realize that the character who's been giving you directions is a traitor and you have to defeat them.

There was no great storytelling, but all three games attempted to create some sort of cinematic atmosphere, and it's just an indicator that the industry is moving beyond twitch-based entertainment to a real storytelling medium.

After reading "Watchmen" a month ago (after having heard about it for years), I was struck by the stupendous storytelling genius behind it. In my mind, Dostoyevsky was literature, comic books cheap entertainment, and graphic novels somewhere in between. "Watchmen" firmly put itself into my literature category, with its allusions to religion, discussion of humanity and exploration of (anti-)(super-)heroes buried in the plot. And compared to your standard novel, it was rendered two-fold, in both the text and the symbolism in the art. Perhaps four-fold if you include the comic-book-within-the-comic book.

Just as the comic-book matured into something like "Watchmen", I suspect it'll just be a matter of time before a game of such epic proportions would be created - provided game creators aim above the teenage male demographic (just like graphic novelists).

That being said, I'm skeptical of how well the "Watchmen" will translate to film. I'm sure there's plenty like me out there. It would be extremely difficult for some of the nuanced symbolism to come across in a moving picture. Plus, let's face it, comic book text bubbles just need to have that little extra bravado and flair. Speaking it aloud in a leotard onscreen would be just - cheezy.

On supply and demand.

2009-02-23T18:43:00.000-08:00

A few days after release, I had to call around to maybe 6 stores to find myself a copy of Street Fighter 4. All the stores were sold out of the two $80 or $150 Mad Catz built, Street Fighter branded 6 button joysticks though.

Checking online, the high end stick is now going for over $400. That's more than 6 times the price of the game itself. Recession wha?

It's pouring.

2009-02-18T22:27:00.000-08:00

Not working on a midweek Wednesday and hitting these conditions instead:

Snow Stats (snow totals in inches)
Last 24 hours 14-16"
Last 48 hours 38-44"
Last 7 days 102-132"

Oh, and it wasn't actually pouring, it did that over the weekend. It was sunny. I'd like to think it's a little like what heaven's like. Except maybe in heaven I won't suck and spill in waist deep powder on the flats. Oh, and T & V will be there too.

It's raining...

2009-02-17T21:32:00.000-08:00

What's better than working on a long weekend Monday?

There's probably a Law for this somewhere.

2009-01-21T20:51:00.000-08:00

It's been sunny for what, 3 weeks straight? So no fresh snow up in the mountains. Great. So how come it is that the day I want to ride the bike around, my battery is dead, and the following day when I actually have it all recharged and ready to go, it starts raining?

Yo Obama, you gotta work on controlling the weather.

Early to the party.

2009-01-20T12:34:00.001-08:00

Back at what we used to call the old house, there was this small magnolia tree, smack dab in the middle of the front lawn. Every spring we'd see it's tiny fuzzy buds emerge like like pussy willows, but bloom into huge magenta and white flowers until the petals fall off and whither on the ground while the leaves eventually fill the tree.

That was then, this is now. Screw waiting for spring, the flowers come out in January. I hope this isn't the end of the snowboarding season, it's barely started!

Hm, that magnolia tree back home must be fricking huge now.

RAW Workflow: Bibble Pro 4.10

2009-01-16T17:02:00.001-08:00

While Bibble Labs has announced a faster and more featureful Bibble 5, the latest version available is still 4.10. While screenshots of 5 show a modern grey UI like C1 4, Lightroom and Apple's Aperture, the existing incarnation bears a more traditional, labyrinthine interface. Once upon a time, I believed that an app should be judged by its capabilities, and that the user interface was merely gloss. By that reasoning, Bibble should earn top scores. In terms of things that you can do with your image, it's got almost everything that you can do with Lightroom 2 (except dodge and burn), and far more than you can with C1. It's also reasonably priced, with Bibble Lite coming in at $89 with all the image manipulation features, and the Pro version coming in at $159 with more batch processing and tethered shooting.

When it comes to workflow apps though, a better UI isn't just about being prettier, it means you can get stuff done faster. While I wouldn't say Bibble's interface is poor, it's a minor frustration after being comfortable with C1 or Lightroom. After using C1, playing with Lightroom and Aperture were quite intuitive (even C1 was pretty intuitive to start with). Out of all these apps, Bibble had the steepest learning curve, probably because it gives the user the most choice. Instead of giving you a single view like C1, or different views where you can do different things like Lightroom, Bibble offers you multiple views where you can pretty much accomplish the same things; some are more optimized for particular tasks, but i found that it distracted me more than anything. If you're the type that appreciates being able to set things up just so, you'd like Bibble's options of customizing your UI. Personally, I'd prefer it if the app developer did the research to figure out what's the most efficient UI so I don't have to experiment myself, but I'm sure others would like to spend the time figuring out what's their personal preference - I lack the patience.

My main complaint about Bibble though, is that the browsing of images is incredibly slow when compared to the competitors. Again, it's a case where Bibble has not prioritized the UI sufficiently. Bibble actually has the fastest RAW->JPG conversion; the thing is, if I can queue up all the conversions in one step, I can walk away from the computer and do other things, like make dinner, and wait for all the images to get processed. What I would prefer to be speedy is browsing through my hundreds of images, when I actually have to sit in front of the computer. This is the case though, where Bibble is pathetically slow compared to its competitors. The developers have optimized the wrong thing.

Another case where too much choice comes in is the selection of plugins. Not only can I tweak the image through the standard contrast/saturation/curves/levels tools, but also through a bunch of other plugins with anthropomorphosized names like Sadie, Andy, and Rumplestiltskin. Seriously, by looking at these plugins, I can't tell exactly what they're meant to do. Plus it seems I can get similar results with some of the standard tools. I'm just confused, and that's not a good state to be in. C'mon guys, make it clear, not confounding.

One final comment about Bibble is the use of Noise Ninja. A few years ago, I had tried out the actual Noise Ninja product, and it was awesome compared to any other noise reduction algorithm that I've used. Noise Ninja is entirely worth it's price, and it seemed like Bibble included this piece of software. Unfortunately, the version of Noise Ninja includeded in Bibble is not much better than the noise reduction technology that you get in any of the competitors (okay, maybe better than the muddy results the C1 produces when you turn up the NR, but it's not noticeably better than Lightroom). To get the real Noise Ninja, you still need to pay to upgrade to the Real Deal.

Overall, I think a lot of good work in Bibble. The features work well, and there are a lot of them. Unfortunately, it lacks polish, and the other apps have it. If you told me, Bibble is actually faster to use once you get used to it, I'd be tempted to believe you, although you'd still have to prove it to me. In my short experiments though, the learning curve just threw me off, and I'd still prefer one of the other apps.

Best weekend in ages.

2009-01-11T22:10:00.000-08:00

It's a matter of getting back to the roots, hanging out with old friends, and having all the pieces fall together just so.

Hiking up Mission Peak with djpraise to get back into shape brought back memories of Morocco, though this hike was far easier than hiking up the dunes in the Erg.

Getting the old crew back together for a few hours of zergling rushes and dropping nukes, this time across the continent, instead of an IPX lan.

Driving up to Tahoe, towards the sun, rising golden in the horizon above the haze in Livermore as the full moon set in the rear view mirror. Driving back and watching the hazy crimson disk of the sun disappear behind the East Bay hills, and a blazing orange moon rise peek above the western horizon. The camera was in the trunk, but the picture's in my mind.

I miss Amsterdam.

2009-01-08T23:05:00.000-08:00

The renovated Safeway's got a new big beer fridge. Unfortunately, it doesn't have any Affligem or Leffe or Chimay or Westmalle. I would have settled for a Jupiter or even Alexander Keith's.

Anecdotal data on drive failure.

2009-01-02T12:33:00.000-08:00

While cleaning up my old archived data, I realized I had a couple of backups of my old computer, Totoro. Totoro was my main machine during university, from 1997-2001. It never got to the point of failure, it was sitting around mostly unused between 2001 and 2007 when I eventually recycled it. One backup was from around 2004, the other around 2007. Since that machine was mostly unused during that period, I expected most of the files to be the same. Just for fun, I did a comparison to check. The interesting thing was that I had 19,294 identical files, and 18 files that were different. Somehow, after sitting around for 3 years, about 0.093% of my files became corrupt.

Now, I have way too many uncontrolled variables to even determine where the corruption occurred. I had backed up that original disk twice - the first time was over the network to my archive server, the second time was after I had pulled it out of Totoro, stuck it into a different computer, and copied it onto a portable disk. My guess is that the disk became corrupt, although the errors could also have been introduced at some point when I was copying the files around.

In any case, this introduces a bit of paranoia. Just because I have something backed up, I have no idea that the backup copy is perfect. My current "backup process" is just to copy important files over to my archive server, which has mirrored disks, meaning if one of the disks in the server dies, I still have a 2nd copy. This experience has shown that I ought to look for some specialized backup software that generates CRCs and can verify file integrity instead of simply using "copy".

Addendum: Found another partition from Totoro that I had backed up twice. This time the "newer" backup contained 285 truncated files out of 4377, that's 6.5%.

Advent conspiracy.

2008-12-14T21:29:00.000-08:00

Here's an awfully un-timely video given the struggling economy. I think there's still hope that Christmas will be more than just another consumer holiday when people don't feel like spending. While I have enjoyed shopping for my cousins (as tough as that could be at times), and I admire thoughtfully purchased gifts, I've noticed that I've somewhat missed out on the Christmas spirit in the past few years, given all the rush and commotion (though the family time is always excellent).

So hopefully I'll do something about that this year.

RAW workflow: Lightroom 2

2008-12-14T00:46:00.000-08:00

Most RAW workflow apps were developed by smaller companies focused on the needs of photographers. When Adobe came out with Lightroom 1.0 early in 2007, ir validated the market, confirming that Photoshop alone didn't meet the needs of professional or advanced amateur photographers. I had toyed with the Lightroom 1 beta release. It was slow and didn't much impetus to switch over. However, through various releases, bugs were fixed and performance improved. At $299, Lightroom 2 is priced less the Capture One 4 PRO, but still double the price of Capture One 4 or Bibble Pro.

Lightroom operates in one of 5 modes, Library, Develop, Slideshow, Print, Web. This structure forces you into a certain workflow. First, in the Library mode, you "import" your images, after which you can quickly browse and make your edit. Lightroom offers a number of tools to aid in organizing photos, including the ability to add tags to images and search with them, as well as "smart collections" that can update themselves. I was able to easily create a smart collection of all photos within a date range that were rated 3 and above. After I finished rating my photos, this folder automatically contained all the files that fit the rule. I don't have a habit of tagging images, so I haven't done this.

After you have your edit, you can move on to the Develop mode, where all the postprocessing tools are provided. In addition to having all the basic tools that I'm familiar with in C1, there's a number of new tools, all potentially useful for creative manipulation, but which also give you power to violate your sense of "journalistic integrity". Advanced colour controls let you tweak particular colours, for example you can make your oranges redder without affecting your blues or greens. Split toning allows you to modify the colours of your bright and dark areas separately. There are tools to fix chromatic aberration and vignetting flaws in your lenses (available in C1 PRO), although some people (like wedding photographers) may choose to use this to add some vignetting for that vintage effect.

The most standout features though, are the tools that allow you to manipulate a small area of your image, something that Photoshop does effortlessly, but are unavailable in C1. Use the clone/healing tool to get rid of a spot of dust here or a pimple there (available in Bibble). Or do some dodging/burning by changing the brightness, contrast, saturation or sharpness of one little area of your image (unavailable in Bibble). These aren't as full-featured as they are in Photoshop, but having them built in means there's much less reason that you would actually need to start up Photoshop at all.

One other thing I like about Lightroom is the availability of Presets. You can save a certain set of settings and name them, say "Super Contrasty" or "Way Oversaturated" or "Fake Lomo", which will then appear in an organized list on the left. You can then select them to apply to your image. In C1 and Bibble you can mimic the functionality with some clunky methods, either by saving presets to file and reloading them (takes a lot more moouse clicks), or having "template" images with your presets applied, and copy from them later. However, the real magic they can't emulate; when you mouse over the names of the presets in the list, the effect is shown practically immediately on a preview image. You don't even need to you click, just move your mouse up and down and decide extremely quickly what preset you want. Potentially huge time saver.

My biggest gripe with the Develop mode is that you can only manipulate one image at a time. For example, you can't select a bunch of images and apply a Preset to all of them. Now, it's possible to do this in the Library mode, so all is not lost. It is annoying however, to have to switch between modes to do this, and it was not at all intuitive.

When I'm done processing my images, I select the ones I want to convert to JPEG, and use the File\Export option to convert to JPEG. It's pretty convenient, especially since you can create Presets on where and how you'd like your files exported. There's also plugins available that can do stuff like automatically upload your photos to flickr or smugmug with the tags you added while editing in the Library mode. There's also three modes, Slideshow, Print, and Web for creating ways of presenting your images. Right now, I'm done when I export to JPEG, so I haven't used any of these modes.

Overall Lightroom 2 was the favourite of the apps I tried. The features are great, it's quick and responsive, the layout is easy to use and is mostly intuitive. The only drawback really is the price, but if you can get a student discount or a similar deal, it's a good way to go. As a last random thought, one way to increase your productivity in any of these workflow apps is to learn to use hotkeys instead of clicking through menus and options with your mouse. Common hotkeys get picked up fairly quickly with use, once you know what they are, but there's probably enough in any of these apps that you won't memorize them all immediately. One thing about Lightroom is that there's only one must-remember hotkey, Ctrl-/, which will bring up a well-organized list of the hotkeys available in the current mode. It's just one more example how the UI design of this app is so well polished.

Dubious achievement.

2008-12-12T03:45:00.000-08:00

I don't recall the last time I've been at work this late. But maybe it means I'm back to being focused. Now, I better leave early tomorrow.

Here's to consolation.

2008-12-09T01:36:00.000-08:00

What's with days at work where nothing works properly? I'm supposed to be done when I leave at midnight, instead of having spent the whole day just figuring out how to get to where I can start.

I guess the consolation prize is that the new baby's here!

RAW workflow: Capture One 4.1

2008-12-05T00:06:00.000-08:00

Phase One is a Danish company that manufactures high end digital "backs" for medium format cameras, systems that cost halfway into the five digits. They've also been developing Capture One (C1), RAW workflow software for both their cameras as well as popular digital SLRs. They've been releasing their full featured "professional" version, as well as a less expensive and dumbed down "consumer" version.

I bought Capture One LE (the consumer version) for $99 in 2004, and have been using it, along with free upgrade versions, since. The current consumer version is simply called Capture One 4 ($129), whereas the full-fledged version is Capture One PRO ($399). Although I've tried the demo of the pro version a few years ago, I've been using the consumer version, and the notes here reflect Capture One 4.1 (though now a more recent 4.5 release is now available). I definitely have a bias since I've grown used to C1's way of doing things, though that's probably had some negative influence as well.

The first step in RAW processing is to select images. At the very least, you need to be able to browse all the images available to select the single image, or the set of images you actually want to spend time working on, a process called "editing". When editing you need to be able to view many files at once, but you also need to able to zoom into an image to check the details. Sometimes you may also need to be able to view two or three images onscreen, but also in close enough detail to be able to compare side by side. Being able to do zoom in and out and switch between images exteremely quickly is key. Often it only takes a moment to determine whether an image catches you, but if it takes a few seconds to switch between views, the task of editing may take many times longer, a problem when you have hundreds of images to sort through. Although C1 4.x (built on .NET, at least for Windows) takes somewhat longer to start up than the older 3.x versions, it's still reasonably responsive when changing images or zoom.

When I edit in C1, I typically keep my hands on the keyboard, using the arrow keys to switch back and forth between images, and the number keys 1-5 to "rate" each image. When I'm done rating, I just sort the images by their rating, and decide where the cutoff point is. What C1 does not offer is an organizational tool for keeping track of a vast library of images. You cannot tag images with keywords, or search for particular images, or filter them by criteria (other than by sorting). Although C1 does allow you to create "albums" of images, they only exist within the application. Consequently, I haven't tagged or "organized" my archive of images, although I have organized them by date taken (outside of C1).

Photoshop is the gorilla standard of image processing applications. RAW workflow apps seem to know better than to compete; most focus on the basic tools that photographers use the majority of the time. Since I "grew up" on C1, I've managed to get by using the limited set of processing tools it provides. One tradeoff from having fewer possible tools is that it's easier to and quicker to switch between the few tools you have, or to be able to have the majority of them be displayed onscreen at the same time, as opposed to constantly having to switch between menus to get things done. One of the things I still like a lot about C1 is its simple and uncluttered UI that gives quick access to most tools without the need to search around much.

C1 lets you process whichever image you have selected while browsing, so you are free to adjust your processing even as you "edit". I've found this works well when you have a few images to go through, though when you have large sets, I find it easier to finish the edit first before going back through and processing your edit. I find myself using most of the tools provided in C1. I almost always use the curves and saturation controls, exposure and white balance whenever required. I crop a significant fraction of my images, but always with the same width to height ratio as the original image. I use the sharpening and noise reduction as they are applied, but I usually leave them fixed to a setting and almost never play with them, unless the noise is exceptionally bad. C1 3.x did not support arbitrary rotation (except in the expensive pro version) so I got by without it. Since it's been introduced, I've found it very useful in straightening slightly crooked pictures, but I wonder if it's simply encouraged to be lazier and less precise. The other recent addition has been to C1 4.x has been the high dynamic range tools to recover blown highlights and underexposed shadows. I'm extremely grateful that these are available when needed.

I find the quality of the output generally acceptable. The one exception is that when the noise reduction is turned up high on noisy data, one sometimes gets extremely muddy output tha tis pretty much unusable.

When generating output, C1 has options for formats (JPEG, TIFF, DNG), scaling, output location, colour profile to apply, and an option to launch a another app when the conversion is done. To generate output in C1, you first select an output directory. After that's done any image you view can quickly be "queued" to generate output in the background. The queue can either be running as you edit and process, or if your computer is slow, you can focus on processing, and have the queue run after you're done and you can let the computer crank away. Personally, I haven't had any problems with the queue running. I generally like this process since it's very convenient to generate output, and most of the time when I'm done editing and processing, the queue has often almost completed operating on my images. Earlier 3.x versions of C1 allowed you to specify that the output directory always be a subdirectory of the current image's directory, a system that worked well for me. This was removed in 4.1, meaning that I would have to manually create and select the output directory every time I switched to images in a new directory.

My current biggest grip with C1 is that it will generate a directory for temporary files (ie thumbnails, etc.) called CaptureOne in each directory that you work in, and it leaves this directory lying around. Since these are fairly large, I find myself cleaning them up fairly often. It would be great of the app had an option to clean these all up automatically (even though that implies losing track of your changes).

I'll probably continue to use C1 simply because I've already paid for it and am using it legally. It's reasonably functional and the drawback aren't too severe. It is however, currently outclassed by the competition.

RAW workflow, an introduction

2008-11-30T00:41:00.000-08:00

Back in August I was thinking of doing an informal review of the various RAW workflow applications out there to determine which one would suit me best. I figured with three months off, I'd have plenty of time to do a writeup; I'm not sure how that never came to fruition. Hopefully I still remember enough to come up with something moderately useful in the next few installments. I definitely do not recall enough for a comprehensive review; my methods were neither stringent nor controlled.

Before jumping in, this is an introduction for beginners. What is RAW? Why should I use it? What's the difference between RAW workflow software and Photoshop?

The first digital camera I had, the Canon G1 in 2000, could save files to either RAW or JPEG format. At the time, I couldn't quite figure out the benefit of using RAW files. They were bigger, and they were a pain to "process" on the computer before I could post them online or do anything with them. This recent (and in my opinion, heavily flawed) comparison of the two options reflected my thinking back then: JPEG were easier to post online, RAW files were a hassle and used up all the space on my 128MB CF card. However, when I got my for dSLR, I spent more time playing with RAW, looked into RAW workflow software and eventually moved to shooting RAW exclusively.

The JPEG format was standardized in 1994, and is pretty much the standard for photos stored and displayed online. Pretty much every camera can save its images as a JPEG. JPEG uses a "lossy" compression format, meaning that it will drop detail information to make a smaller file. Most cameras have some quality settings for JPEG to balance the file size and detail level. At the highest quality level, detail is not a problem with JPEG. The primary issue with JPEG is that the range of possible colour values for each pixel is limited compared to RAW. Every pixel is stored as three values representing red, green and blue. In JPEG, each of these values is an 8-bit number, meaning it can range from 0-255.

Now unlike JPEG, there isn't a single RAW format. Rather the term refers to a camera specific format that contains all the "raw" data captured from the camera's sensor, before it's compressed into JPEG. As cameras improve, the RAW files contain more and more data that ends up being lost when compressed to JPEG. On my G1, the RAW file contained 8-bits for each colour component, no better than the JPEG. On modern dSLRs though, the RAW file contains up to 14-bits for each colour, a range of 0-16383. All this extra data is lost when compressing to JPEG. The camera picks a subset out of that range for each colour in order to get the proper white balance and drops the rest. Details in very bright or very dark areas may also be lost in the compression. Camera settings such as contrast, brightness, saturation and sharpness are also applied before saving to JPEG, and cannot be fully undone. Though not available on most point-and-shoot cameras, some form of RAW is available on some high end models and pretty much all dSLRs.

The larger RAW files gives much more flexibility to save not-quite perfect photos, especially when the white balance or exposure are off. These two changes in particular are practically impossible to do well after compression to JPEG. The extra data also lends itself to better results in general with other tweaks, reducing ugly "colour banding". With 4GB CF cards costing under $20, storage is no longer a significant problem; I'd much rather be able to recover an almost-perfect shot. Although modern displays can only show JPEG's 8-bits per component, technology is on the verge of improving this within the next few years. At some point in the future, all the extra data in RAW files would likely translate to richer colours and more detail in bright and dark areas than JPEGs would ever allow.

In addition to the file size, the other primary complaint about RAW files is the time required for processing. Back in 2000, the RAW conversion software that came with my G1 let me open a .CRW (Canon RAW) file, make some tweaks, and then save a JPEG version of the image. It might take a few minutes to go through this process, but even if it took me 3 minutes a photo, then going through say 300 photos from a wedding would still take 15 hours!

This is where the RAW workflow software comes in. Instead of following your average application's model of opening a file, editing and saving (much like Word or Photoshop), workflow software is specifically designed to expedite working photographers process of converting RAW files to JPEGs (or other publishing formats).
Usually this process goes through three main phases:
1) sorting photos, applying "tags" to make them easier to search later, and selecting the photos for publishing over a set of hundreds or thousands of photos taken over a shoot (known to photographers as "editing")
2) tweaking individual image settings of the selected good photos, and changing the picture to appear as desired (known as "postprocessing")
3) converting to a final JPEG (or other format) and printing, or publishing to DVD or the Web.

Workflow applications tend to combine all 3 steps into a single application. Photoshop on the other hand, is a general image processing app, aimed not only at photographers, but also for artists, video postprocessing and editing, game developers, web designers, graphic designers, publishers and even scientist, engineers and architects. Photoshop gives you amazing capabilities for step 2, but you'll need separate applications for steps 1 and 3. Workflow software on the other hand, gives the full package, but lacks the majority of Photoshops features in step 2. You'll be able to complete common photographer postprocessing tasks that apply to the entire image very quickly, with a UI and hotkeys designed specifically for efficiency: fixing white balance, exposure, contrast, saturation, "curves", cropping, sharpenning, noise reduction. However, any "special effects" will require a more advanced processing application. You probably won't be able to do stuff like cut the ex-girlfriend out of one image or insert grandma into another, changing the colours or license plate of a car, or removing wrinkles and adjust the unevenly large right eye of your aspiring models.

On the argument of RAW processing taking a long time, you'll realize that step 1 (and perhaps 3) are steps that are required if you take JPEGs anyways. Step 2 will take significant amounts of time if you process each image individually. However, if you just stick to the automatic settings (as you would have by shooting JPEG), and convert to JPEG, it takes about an extra 6 minutes for every 100 images, which is probably manageable for most photographers.

I took a look at three apps: Phase One's Capture One 4, Adobe's Lightroom 2, and Bibble Lab's Bibble 4.10. There's a number of other contenders. Camera manufacturers each have their own RAW conversion software, which I haven't looked at. Apple has Aperture, which is available on Mac only. It's a very serious contender, but since I use Windows, I haven't taken the time to review it. Hopefully I'll have individual discussions up soon.

Zero.

2008-11-29T23:20:00.000-08:00

Went fishing in Capitola and caught nothing. Zippo. Not one bite. So much for getting up at 6am. This is the second attempt, I'm not sure there will be a third. Should have been surfing instead. On the plus side, there's something extremely relaxing in napping in a gently bobbing boat with the warm sun on your face.

In other non-news, my long weekend productivity has been mostly zero. Not only did I not catch a single fish, I've finally started (and caught up with) the current season of The Office and Heroes, and transforming characters seems to be the common point between the two series. The last few seasons of the Office have actually started to be funny. As Michael Scott has shifted from being tyranical to bumbling, so has the show's humour shifted from mostly uncomfortable awkward moments to actual hilarity. Ryan's schizophrenic shift from the hapless abused temp to the confident wunderkind to the disgraced yet manipulative temp further illustrates how the tone of the show has gradually shifted from season to season.
I had put off Season 3 of Heroes because of the utter disappointment that was Season 2. My hopes were pretty low after seeing this article on the show. Much to my surprise though, I was engrossed through most of episodes 1-9, and was quickly reminded of why the cliffhangers in the first season were so great. The writing keeps you on your toes as the story comes together amongst the twists and turns. The whole premise of the heroes becoming villains and vice versa certainly fleshes out a lot of the character and brings back questions about how we perceived the first season. The only disappointment is now that I'm all caught up in a day, I have to wait weeks between episodes now, just like everyone else.

A day in the life.

2008-11-28T01:13:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to get over the uneasy feeling that I should be doing something better with my time. I'm still in the process of just learning to slack off on the long weekend. Happy Thanksgiving!

On photography.

2008-11-26T01:49:00.000-08:00

I think the question I've heard most often regarding my LOA is "So did you take a lot of pictures?". One answer might be yes, I think I took about 3000 pictures over the three months in europe (plus another 1000 over a weekend in San Francisco). From a numbers perspective, I guess it's reasonably large. But then a lot of them are duplicates, multiple shots of the same subject or scene, maybe with different settings or different angles. So off the top, there's only a fraction of those that contain different subjects. And out of those subjects only a fraction were probably really interesting. And out of the interesting subjects only a fraction were visually appealing.

To say the least I'm not particularly happy or proud of any of the pictures; I don't think I really "accomplished" much in terms of photography in the past few months. My initial lofty goals of intimate portraits of some human condition never came fruition. It never got off the ground. I really just ended up with a collection of tourist photos, distant and detached. I already knew engaging people isn't my forte. I guess I had somehow imagined I'd just get better at it by taking more pictures in an unfamiliar place; perhaps I'd be forced into it by the mere fact that I just didn't know anyone in Amsterdam.

Obviously, it didn't come so easily, and getting to know random strangers doesn't come naturally either way. I guess I'll just have to make much more of an effort in the future. The first weekend I was in Amsterdam happened to be the gay pride parade. I did manage to take a lot of pictures of mostly drunk partygoers. There's other random pictures of Amsterdam here as well.

The one below's probably one of my favourite shots, from my first few days at the hostel. It's not really a picture of Amsterdam though, it could be a picture of any city. People each with their own destinations and priorities, passing by within a few feet of others with entirely different lives.

Brutal Bond.

2008-11-16T02:31:00.000-08:00

I don’t know what it is with all these poor reviews of Quantum of Solace.

For the most part it was brilliantly executed and impeccably choreographed. Craig is the most f!@#$%^ badass Bond ever. I think he’d be the first Bond who’d have me scared s!@#less as an adversary. Any complaints might be that he’s less suave (and perhaps less sexy, but I wouldn't know) than the Bonds of old. This Bond is certainly no Dalton, Moore or Pierce pretty pansy boy.

For all the action, you also see in Bond a broken killing machine acting on impulse, a driven psychopath in denial of his murderous inner rage. Yet in between there's moments of compassion before he buries beneath his facade of control. Maybe this was executed a little to deftly, too subtly, but I think for once you see there’s some emotions (albeit dark ones) in Bond, instead of a caricature of a superspy. I suspect however, many Bond fans adore the warm and fuzzy happy Bond.

Overall I liked the way that most Bond elements were much more subtle than the films of old. There's no Q introducing over-the-top gadgets, but who wouldn't give their firstborn grandchild to get at M's multitouch international intelligence database, or Bond's phone with GPS suspect tracking and 3D camera? He doesn't order a martini, but his bartender up in first class certain knows he likes it shaken and not stirred (although that martini ended up being awfully clear for a shaken drink).

Even the plot that everyone complains about as being sparse mostly makes sense. The criminal organization here is no SPECTRE. There's no gaudy plot with Dr. Evil demanding a ransom of $1 million and the world blowing up. Instead they're less flashy, similar to any other profitteering corporation plundering resources from third world countries, insidiously invisible and efficient.

Overall this Bond film is about as realistic as Bond films get after all the flashy elements and cheezy oneliners have been toned down. Despite all that, Bond wreaks some mighty havoc.

Also worth mentioning, the trademark implied-naked-bond-girls opening sequence was one of the less cheesy ones, and the Jack White/Alicia Keys theme is pretty sweet too, up there with "A View to a Kill" and "Live and Let Die".

Regression.

2008-11-15T11:24:00.000-08:00

Back in California. Back at work. Back living with the roommates that I lived with during school in '97. Back to playing video games till 5am, except now only on weekends. Incidentally, the game happens to be Fallout 3. The original Fallout also came out in '97.

So it seems like a regression of sorts. At work a "regression" refers to a bug where a new change breaks something that used to work fine. In that sense, progress almost inevitably leads to regression. Joints that crack a little more. Skin that's a little drier. Injuries that take a little longer to heal. Wrinkles that dig in a little deeper.

Wait, what am I talking about? I'm asian and well protected from solar radiation. Speaking of solar radiation, it's 24C and blazingly sunny. And the battery on my bike is dead. Bummer of a regression.

Feet planted loosely.

2008-11-07T07:11:00.000-08:00

Before leaving Amsterdam I had whipped together one last cake. It was a failure in terms of using up my remaining eggs, butter, sugar and pancake mix - I still had a fair bit of the last two ingredients remaining. As a dense yet moist chocolate cake though, it worked pretty well. Especially surprising since I normally don't bake, and the saying the baking requires precision doesn't mesh well with my throw everything in the pan style. Oh, and it also helped me finish off one box of ice cream.

I was trying to use up the box of dutch pancake mix I had. Dutch pancakes are similar to crepes, so I figure there isn't much rising agent in it, so I suspect it's something like flour/milk powder/egg powder (if that exists), but I suspect this same recipe would work with just flour. It would probably lead to a pretty dense cake, hence the whipped egg whites in the recipe.

2 eggs
2 bars of 70% dark chocolate
8 heaping teaspons of sugar
4 heaping teaspoons of Koopmans pancake mix
1/4 stick of butter

1. Melt butter and chocolate together in a bowl in the microwave. Nuke for short periods of time (20-30 seconds), if it's soft, stir until melted, if not, give it another 20 seconds. Do not burn the chocolate. Let cool so it doesn't cook the eggs when you mix it.
2. Separate the eggs. Whip egg whites until soft peaks form. You should have a full bowl of egg foam, with very little liquid.
3. Beat egg yolks and mix in the sugar.
4. Mix melted chocolate with egg yolk mix.
5. Mix pancake mix into chocolate mix.
6. Fold egg whites into chocolate mix.
7. Pour into ramekins, bake for about 14 minutes at 250F (or until the batter inside does not stick to a stick that's poked into the center).

It amazes me that I've already been back home for a week.

Three months seemed to be just long enough to start getting to know people and finding a place to fit in. I think at two months, I would have been glad to head home, with little more than a bit of experience at a photo agency backoffice, having checked out visa pour l'image, and a few random interesting but ultimately forgettable one-off encounters. In the last month I found that I was actually getting to know people well enought that leaving meant missing newfound friends.

It's been good to be back, I was pleasantly surprised by the warm welcome here. Not having seen friends for three months is enough time for a good few changes. Some couples are now married couples, other married couples are now parents or expecting parents. Sunnyvale Town Center, where we used to go for cheap sushi-maru and dimsum, is now demolished, soon to be built into something else. I got back just in time to watch the first half-black president get elected in the US, after being able to get the European perspective on the importance of the American election.

Overall the past three months weren't as encouraging as I had hoped. I didn't really "figure out" the future, I've gotten home with more questions and fewer answers. There were a few lessons to be learned here and there, and some things did make an impression. I'm much more motivated to learn new languages, I'm reminded of the need to take more initiatives, I've even reaffirmed that my initial impressions of people tend to be pretty accurate. It'll probably be another year before I make up my mind on something significantly new, but since I'm back I think I'll put some of those lessons to use and invest my time here better than I have in the past.

Oh, and how come I've never known of the awesomeness of the Pixies? I mean that song from "Fight Club" was great, although I never knew who it was by. That plus it sounded thoroughly cool when the movie came out in '99, even though "Where Is My Mind" was out in '88!

Braindead.

2008-10-29T05:11:00.000-07:00

I have to say, eastern Europe has a certain endearing charm; I find Zagreb's just calling me to return. It's got it's own sense of burgeoning coolness, a trendy looking take-out sushi bar with external signage looks like it'd be right at home in an upscale San Francisco district, but with some pretty unique anime-inspired art inside, and hot brunette Croatian servers.

On the other hand, maybe I was a little too comfortable, as I left me camera in my friend's car when getting off at the airport. I guess that means I can't be a photographer! Ugh.

Leftovers

2008-10-23T15:18:00.000-07:00

I was really more excited with the various leftovers I managed to clean out of my fridge with this, rather than how good it really was. But then, it really was pretty good. A personal sized chai flavoured bread pudding.

Sitting around:
1. 1 rock hard 3 day old bread roll
2. 2 eggs
3. half a liter of milk

Solution:
1. Make some chai:
1a. Boil milk with a couple of teaspoons of Assam tea, 2 cloves, half a stick of cinammon, and a cardammom pod.
1b. When at a boil, add lots of sugar, until it's super sweet.
1c. Strain and let cool.
2. Cut up the bread. This was the most difficult part when the bread was rock hard. A hammer might have worked better, place bread in a non-stick (or buttered) pan so it fits snuggly. You want to be able to pour in liquid and have it fill in the cracks, if your pan is too big, this won't happen.
3. Beat the egg till frothy.
4. After the chai has cooled a bit (so it doesn't cook the egg on contact) add chai to the egg. Add enough so that you have enough liquid to fill what space is left in the pan.
5. Let bread soak up the liquid. This could take 10 minutes.
6. Bake for until the custard sets. It took me 20 minutes at 300C (my combo nuke-convection-broiler oven doesn't go any higher) with my thin dessert. I think it could take up to 45 minutes if you have a larger and thicker bread pudding. Serve warm a la mode.

I could only find a big bread pan that was too big, or two small shell shaped pans, which worked well. I ended up having enough stuff to make 2. The second sat another 2 days in the fridge before I baked it, no worse for the wear. I really should have taken a picture, on a plate, with ice cream, but I got impatient and ate it.

Something new

2008-10-01T16:30:00.000-07:00

I was at a concert in Amsterdam's Concertgebouw today. The first half was Beethoven's 6th, the second half Bartok. I find baroque and classical music easy to listen to, and Beethoven's 6th is both familiar and pleasant. It's the first time I've ever listened to Bartok - up till now I've pretty much dismissed any "modern" composer as unlistenable.

The first thing that struck me is that it sounded a lot like movie soundtrack music. I guess Bartok must have had a significant impact on current movie soundtrack composers. While listening and thinking about it, pieces began falling in place. Compared to the Beethoven, the Bartok piece seemed extremely disjointed, mostly missing any sort of melody, and instead featuring dissonant chords.

Although all the chords don't form a musical piece that draws me a long, they're very moody. The modern classical sets the mood instead of providing a tune to hum along to - which it makes sens that it's influenced a lot of today's movie music. However, I still think it doesn't stand well on it's own - without the clear melody, it's hard to follow. I do keep trying to picture the movie scenes that would go with the music though.

Apparently I had an awesome seat, I was told that I was sitting right in front of the mayor of Amsterdam!

Amsterdam

2008-09-29T15:03:00.000-07:00

Why is it so hard to go to bed early, even when I'm exhausted from a lack of sleep? Anyways, so I figured out how to get around my wifi problem. Had to go in and change the channel that I was on. I always wondered what the practical use of the various channels were, I guess I figured it out now.

So amongst the DVD collection here is the Coldplay Live 2003 disc. Since I had enjoyed the concert at Shoreline, I stuck the disc in and it's been playing on repeat for the last couple of days (except for a 12-hour stretch where I plowed through Band of Brothers). 2003 seems like a lifetime ago.

I'd never noticed this song "Amsterdam" before. Well, I've heard it while listening to the CD, but I've never even noticed the song title, and barely the lyrics either. Oddly, they both seem rather fitting at the moment though.

Come on, my star is fading
And I swerve out of control
If i, if I’d only waited
I’d not be stuck here in this hole
Come here my star is fading
And I swerve out of control
And I swear I waited and waited
I’ve got to get out of this hole

But time is on your side
Its on your side now
Not pushing you down and all around
It’s no cause for concern

Come on, oh my star is fading
And I see no chance of release
And I know I’m dead on the surface
But I am screaming underneath

And time is on your side
Its on your side now
Not pushing you down
And all around, no
It’s no cause for concern

Stuck on the end of this ball and chain
And I’m on my way back down again
Stood on a bridge, tied to the noose
Sick to the stomach
You can say what you mean
But it won’t change a thing
I’m sick of the secrets
Stood on the edge, tied to a noose
You came along and you cut me loose
You came along and you cut me loose
You came along and you cut me loose.

Caos Calmo - pointless review

2008-09-28T16:39:00.000-07:00

I must be some kinda genius to think that I could understand an italian movie subtitled in dutch - or, at least, I must think I'm some kinda genius, since I neither speak italian nor do I read dutch, nor is my french anywhere close to good enough to understand the few scenes where business deals go on in that language. I think my favourite scene was when Roman Polanski, playing a high level executive, asks to continue a meeting in English (although pretty much right after, the dialog in the scene fades out to music).

It's a movie about a widower and his elementary school level daughter dealing with grief after his wife/her mothe dies suddenly in their garden. He promises to wait outside her school, and passes up on his job responsibilities to sit in the park. As the days pass, he builds up meaningless yet heartwarming "relationships" of the people who pass through the park daily, as well as his colleagues and friends who drop in on his park bench.

I'm sure I missed out a lot from not fully understanding almost all of the conversations, although from the very few bits I know of either language, the film was straightforward enough so that I wasn't entirely lost either. I pretty much missed out on much of the symbolism in the film. I didn't get the significance of most of the park characters (if there was any), nor of the gratuitious sex scene which probably ought to give this film an OLD rating for folks 45 and up. On the plus side, I'm now familiar with Stars' Your Ex-Lover is Dead and Rufus Wainwright's Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk.

Images from Amsterdam

2008-09-26T17:00:00.000-07:00

A little experiment with larger images.

the little things that keep me down

2008-09-26T07:21:00.000-07:00

So there was a matter of this little item, a tiny item, that was Fedexed to me. The problem is, it was sent to my home address in Amsterdam, and I don't happen to be home during the day since I go to work. Unfortunately, the Fedex box was too big to fit in my mail slot, so hence although it took less than a week to cross from California to Europe, it spent two weeks lingering in the Fedex truck, making one failed attempt at delivery after another.

So finally after two weeks, I have a weekday off (weekends were useless since the Fedex office was closed). They've long since given up on delivering the fricking package, so I took the bus to the depot, which happened to be in a warehouse by the airport. It took three different buses in each direction, and the roundtrip took two hours. When I got the package, I opened it on the spot. Inside the box was a bunch of bubble wrap and a letter sized envelope. Inside the envelope was my little key fob. I stuck the key fob in my pocket and left the box and the bubble wrap in the trash and headed back to the bus stop.

Ugh.

If I had been smarter, I'd would have had it sent to my office, like I usually do back at home. It blows my mind though, how such a little thing can turn into such a huge hassle.

Miracle Food

2008-09-25T14:39:00.000-07:00

It's surprising it's not more popular (maybe it is, and I'm just unaware of it), and I feel pretty foolish for not having taken advantage of it much earlier, but over the past few months, I've realized that cous cous is probably one of the best instant foods out there.

It's not like it's the first time I've had it. I recall visiting a Moroccan restaurant in Boulder, Colorado when I was still in elementary, and thinking cous cous was one of the best things ever. I had the idea that it was exotic and difficult to prepare though, having heard that it was hand rolled from semolina and required a long steaming time.

I didn't really realize until maybe a couple of years ago that the common supermarket version is already pre-cooked and dried, meaning that preparation simply amounts to soaking in boiling water (off of the heat, but covered) for about 5 minutes or so. It's not quite as fluffy as the real thing, but for something that can be prepared in about half the time of cooking pasta, I'd be willing to forgo that Slow Food mentality. And unlike most other instant foods, it's not packed with preservatives, salt or fat. It's pretty much just dried starch.

So although cous cous has that wonderful grainy yet soft-like-rice texture, it's not the most flavourful item out there when prepared with boiling hot water, but since it absorbs liquid so well, using some sort of flavoured liquid gives you a dish that hardly needs a side. As usual, I just throw together whatever's available in the kitchen, but with cous cous, it only takes 5 minutes to make another batch if you fail!

Braised Lamb Shanks with Instant Cous Cous
1. Marinate a lamb shank for as long as you can. I made up a marinade with some soy sauce, oregano, black pepper, bordeaux, chinese cooking wine and paprika. That's what I call fusion. Pretty good too. Use a lot of marinade, you'll end up cooking the meat in the liquid.

2. Chop up an onion and a red pepper (intead of using a red bell pepper, I got this long version, but it's the same idea).

3. Heat up a mid sized pot on the stove at high heat. When hot, add some olive oil and spread it out over the bottom of the pot, and sautee the onion for a minute or two before tossing in the red pepper. Continue to sautee until the onion is slightly translucent, and pour out the onion and pepper into a side bowl.

4. Return the pot to the heat, and before the remaining juices burn, put the lamb shank (without the marinade) into the empty pot. Sear for a minute or so, and then flip it and sear the opposite side for another minute.

5. Turn the heat down low and pour the onions and peppers back into the pot. Also pour the marinade into the pot.

6. Chop a tomato or two and add to the pot. I mostly toss this in for the extra liquid. If it looks like you need more liquid, add more tomatoes. Toss in some fresh basil too, for the taste. Also add plenty of salt. Generally you'd want the liquid to be very salty for the flavour to sink into the meat. Continue to cook at very low heat - a bare simmer, for two hours or so. Check on the fluid level, if it gets low, add some water or water/wine, or some other tasty liquid.

Sure, this takes two hours, but I've found that braised meats keep pretty well, so this is something you can do, say on a lazy Sunday afternoon for a Monday and Tuesday meal. When you're ready to eat, just stick the pot back on the stove, and maybe add a bit of fluid to reheat.

7. When ready to eat, take the lamb shank out. You'll be left with a very flavourful stew of onions, pepper, and tomatoes. Add enough water so that there's about 1.25 times as much stew as cous cous, and bring to a boil. Pour in the amount of cous cous you want for dinner, turn off the heat, and stir until mixed, and cover for about 5 minutes. Uncover and you've got some tasty cous cous to go along with your lamb.

If you don't have time to make a braised dish or stew, you can sauteeing/pan fry a main dish. When done, deglaze the pan with some wine, then add water and bring that combo to a boil, and add some salt to taste. Add the cous cous, stir, and cover for 5 minutes, and voila, there's your starch side.

More Food Thoughts

2008-09-24T16:03:00.000-07:00

It seems like all I think about these days are food. That and how my internet access has been all screwed up today. I can now access the internet fine with my laptop plugged into the wireless router via ethernet, but it just keeps disconnecting via wifi. Either the wifi on the router is dying (I have problems on both laptops), or I'm being innundated by some sort of high energy radio frequency radiation that's enough to disrupt my wifi and most likely kill me.

Back to the food. I can't comprehend how President brand brie can be so popular. In the US, it was the worst brie I've ever had - to the point where I'd avoid buying brie altogether if President was the only one available. The stuff is flavourless, not creamy, and rather stiff (for brie). It bears only slight resemblance to good brie. So I was rather surprised to see the brand being popular in the supermarkets, both in France and Amsterdam.

Maybe the European version is significantly better? Maybe the brand was well established in Europe, and it's merely the North American licensee that produces an inferior product? You'd think the Dutch, who pride themselves on their cheese consumption, would have somewhat of a taste for cheese right? Or you'd think the French would be able to pick out a good French cheese? So I tried buying some, and comparing it to another brie at a local cheese shop. Verdict: President brie is still shit. I need to ditch all my preconcieved notions that Europeans have a more refined cuisine than North Americans. They certainly don't (try ordering a pizza in France and see what travesty you end up with), but they may still be more snobbish about it.

Second food related thought for the night, more alcohol does not make a better beer. I've been taken up with Belgian beers, especially abbey ales, after visiting the beer fridge at Bo's BBQ in Lafayett, CA. I guess one good thing about the Netherlands is that it's close to Belgium, meaning that access to Belgian beer is much easier than it is in California, although Dutch beers (which are still better than American beers) are still more popular. La Trappe is a Dutch Trappist brewery, with beers available at local supermarkets. I've tried their Dubbel (which usually refers to a brown ale) and Tripel (which usually refers to a stronger brown ale). I found that La Trappe also has a Quadrupel, which one assumes, is an even stronger ale (it is, at 10%). I bought a sixpack, which was a mistake, considering the taste of the stuff is pretty harsh. If there ever was a sipping beer, this is it, I couldn't imagine anyone would really enjoy just gulping this dark fluid down.

Dutch Efficiencies

2008-09-22T15:14:00.000-07:00

That would be an oxymoron, if I've ever coined one. I'm impressed how locals can bear with some of the bureacracies here, let alone get anything done. Even more impressively, I'm often told with the shake of the head to bear with it and be patient, as if it's the only possibility, and that it's a virtue to wait and abide on idiocy. Patience certainly has its place, but in Amsterdam, it's absurd. Take my attempts at opening a bank account for example:

1. Go to a bank to open an account, with all your required paperwork. The standard response (I've tried a couple of different banks) is that I need to make an appointment. Seriously, come on now, it's 9am and there's 2 people working in the bank and 0 customers, and I need to make an appointment to come back another day? Where's the logic in that? Do you not want accounts to be opened? Two banks actually asked me to make the appointment by phone because they were unable to make an appointment for some reason (although a 3rd branch did it on the spot for me).

2. Actually open an account. Even though I have the proper paperwork, it takes them an hour to verify that what I have is sufficient, and that's before they begin the process of opening the account. Opening the account takes another half hour, mostly because the bank person (I have no idea what to call him, he seems to amount to a teller, but they don't actually have the teller stalls they have in the rest of the world... they just sit around at their desks doing God knows what) hunts and pecks at the keyboard. Seriously, you have 3 other fingers and opposable thumbs, learn to use them.

3. Wait for the bank card. I don't understand why they can't provide me with the card at the bank when I open the account, especially since I made an appointment in advance. Can't they send the card to the bank when I make the appointment? Can't they at least give me a temporary card, as I've gotten pretty much at every bank in North America?

4. Activate the bank card. Ok, I've waited a little less than a week to actually receive my bank card, but I'm told I need to bring it to a branch to activate it. This sounds like a minor annoyance, but I've failed at least 3 times now. Attempt #1, I'm told I need my passport. Ok, it makes a bit of sense since I used my passport as ID to open the account, but please, I had other photo ID, and the "teller" who opened my account could have mentioned this requirement to save me a trip. Attempt #2, the next day, the branch is closed, with a sign telling me to go to another branch. Heck I was there yesterday, and you could have told me that you would be closed instead of telling me to "come back tomorrow with my passport". #3 Ok, I had to wait past the weekend, so on Monday I give it another shot in the morning and I realize that banks open on Mondays from 1-5pm. Seriously guys, I can understand a case of Mondays, but this is a little out of hand.

I'm no big fan of America, but compared to Dutch banking practices, I wouldn't put my bets on the Euro either. Now if corporate America could throw around some of its weight in a good way and get these European banks to get their acts together.

Food in Amsterdam

2008-09-21T14:30:00.000-07:00

Frankly, I haven't eaten out too much since I've arrived in Amsterdam. The last time I tried eating at a sit-down restaurant before my little jaunt in Chinatown (for BBQ pork and duck on flat rice noodles) was during Alex and Sinyee's visit at the beginning of August.

Having a place of my own and a kitchen to myself means I can procrastinate all I want. Most recently I had some nice strawberries that I had bought for smallgroup, but had forgotten to bring out after dinner. A week later, they weren't in the best shape; I thought I'd cut them up and toss them in a pan and make some glazed strawberries to put atop my ice cream (yeah, my average saturday night when I'm down with a cold - I needed the vitamin C). I ended up with more strawberries than ice cream, so the rest ended up in an impromptu strawberry jam, which I was pretty happy with. Ended up in a home-made pop-tart the next morning in conjunction with some mini-pita bread and penotti duo (nutella-like spread).

The next item is a mystery inside an enigma, put through a meat grinder and masked in artificial food colouring. The concoction is known "Filet Americain", which begs the questions, where does the concept of "filet" come in, and what's so "Americain" about it (bonus question: where does "Americain" come from, since the Dutch word is "Amerikaan")? Wikipedia claims it's simply the Belgian term for steak tartare, but as you can see from the image below, the produce is actually rather different.

A steak tartare is identifiable as finely chopped raw beef, mixed with spices, olive oil, and perhaps a raw egg. Along with carpaccio, I have the mental image that it's a European dish. I've met one too many Americans who find any sort of raw food too exciting to think that such a dish could originate in the US (although I rather do enjoy raw beef, provided it's served at a reputable enough establishment).
A "filet Americain" though, is sold at supermarkets, with an expiry date at least two weeks out of the purchase date. The meat is ground to the consistency of a paste, and both the texture and flavour are closer to pate than beef. My understanding of economics and food preparation says that meat ground to the point of being unidentifiable is most likely from an inexpensive cut rather than a filet. The fact that it has a two week shelf life suggests that it makes heavy uses of nitrates/nitrite and food colouring to ensure that it remains a tasty orange instead of a drab grey. All in all though, it's a fairly tasty meat-that-you-can-spread-on-toast.

Chinatown

2008-09-20T13:50:00.000-07:00

Everyone kept telling me that Chinatown in Amsterdam was right beside the Red Light district. Obviously, I haven't spent enough time in the RL, since I haven't found the chinatown till today, when I made a concerted effort to locate it.

It was surprisingly, pretty much smack dab in the center of the old city, and despite being mixed in with Thai, Indonesian, and Sushi restaurants, had a few passable chinese BBQ restaurants as well as a surprisingly well stocked supermarket, meaning that I now have chinese cooking wine, soy sauce, fried dace and korean aloe drink.
As a constant reminder of my inadequacy with language here in Europe, people in Chinatown seemed to be able to speak Cantonese, Mandarin, Indonesian (?), English and Dutch. At least I learned how to say 'alsjeblieft', I'll call that a moral victory.

Easy come, easy go.

2008-09-17T15:58:00.001-07:00

The pedal on my almost-free bike keeps falling off. I think I tried to screw it back on this morning when I parked it, and probably forgot to lock it up after fixing the pedal. Now it's gone.

I hope whoever took it loses the pedal and screws himself over.

It's here!

2008-09-17T01:16:00.000-07:00

Ok, now when can I actually buy it?

Edit: Ah, disappointment, it won't be available till November. The other new cameras announced today, the G10, SX10 IS, 980 IS and 870 IS all look interesting for one reason or another. It's a much more interesting launch this year than last, and my bank account will be hurting for sure.

On Perpignan

2008-09-14T16:01:00.000-07:00

I was in Perpignan, France from Sept 2-7 for Visa pour l'Image, supposedly the biggest annual international photojournalism festival. I heard about it last year from photographer Adam Ferguson; at the time I had no expectation to go any time in the near future. Somehow I ended up in Amsterdam, working for a photo agency. Since the staff of the agency were attending the festival, myself, another intern, and an ex-intern were also invited to join, although on our own travel expense.

Fortunately, the agency had a house rented out where we were invited to stay, which is nice in a town where the hotels are pretty booked out a year in advance for the event. As interns, there wasn't too much we had to do there. I was pretty much there to enjoy it and absorb as much as I could; which was good, since I felt pretty tired and drained going in.

I didn't do much at all there. I checked out some of the photo exhibits, checked out some of the evening screenings, and attended one of the panels. I probably should have attended more of the panels; although they dind't seem that interesting, the debates could have been educational.

In retrospect, I could have done some more. Could have studied the exhibits more, could have networked more. I really wasn't in the mood for the latter, and it's hard to throw yourself out there as an advanced hobbyist when everyone else is either a photographer or an agent or an editor. Plus, there were far more ambitious photographers throwing themselves at editors, networking to sell, whereas I have no work to push or to motivate me to chitchat, although I guess I really could have done the "hi, how are you, you have any kids?" kinda smalltalk to at least get to know some people and get my foot in the door.

In the evenings there were photography screenings projected on a huge widescreen. The image was created by six projectors. Each evening would start with a slideshow of the news stories of 2007, broken down into a few months for each evening. After that, various photographers and their stories would be featured.

One thing really struck me about the nightly "news" - for a festival that celebrates photojournalism, a profession that idealizes "real news" over "censorship" or simply news pushed by commercial media outlets, there seemed to be a certain filter applied. There was a strong presence of African stories and very little North American, or developed world coverage. Obituaries presented were mostly of musicians, ones that I've never heard of and were probably mostly of interest to people in their 50s or 60s. Few were what I'd consider world news.

The screening on Friday night was focused on the 20th anniversary of the festival. At the end, the director of the festival, Jean-Francois Leroy, himself was feted and presented a gift of prints from the many photographers who are his friends and have benefitted from the festival.

Which brings me to the one thing that I didn't really like about the festival - which, should be taken as an opinion more than a criticism: the professional week has a certain cult of personality to it. There are important people, who all know each other. The festival is the time for them to see each other and catch up with each other. If you're in the clique, you get to hang out and drink with your friends. If not, you're a nobody, left scrounging around the Cafe de la Poste in the evenings in search of other nobodies who are trying to make it as photographers. That's not to say that there aren't friendly photographers, but as a generalization, that's the way it goes. I guess it's the same if you go anywhere where people already know each other and connections are already firm.

One place I lucked out on was to have a front row seat to watch photographer, Philip Blenkinsop, receive the Visa d'Or, one of the three top prizes given at the festival. As an oddity in the history of the festival, the final night's screening and closing party were cancelled due to rain/security, instead Jean-Francois found Philip as he was having dinner and dragged him out onto the street to present him with the award.

I was a little disappointed at the closing party being cancelled - it was famous for being a good time. I did, however, get to see the tiny closing ceremony, held for the benefit of the organizint staff, which lasted for maybe 20 minutes before everyone returned back to the Cafe de la Poste to hang out until the cafe closed.

So simple but so good

2008-09-09T12:49:00.000-07:00

I didn't get this from a recipe, so it's probably not authentic, but it's very simple and makes me feel all deutche:

2 supermarket bratwurst (aka braadworst)
a pack of supermarket saurkraut (aka wijnzuurkool)
an onion
a pepper (I got a yellow one)
a bottle of leffe (brune dubbel)

In a 10 or 12 inch frying pan sautee the onions and peppers on high heat until slightly brown. Move them aside in the pan and sear the bratwurst for about 45 seconds, then turn bratwurst over and sear for another 45 seconds.

Pour in beer until the frothing mess covers half the sausage; cover the pan and reduce heat to a simmer until the liquid boils off. It takes about 8 minutes (ok I just made that up, I didn't watch the clock). Add some more beer, as well as the saurkraut, and simmer until mostly dry. Take out the brats and mix the vegetables together.

I got impatient while waiting for the sausages to cook, so I had some warm crusty bread (they sell parbaked bread here that you can finish off yourself at home) with some pate and brie. Having my own kitchen is bad news. This passage comes to mind:

Phil 3:18-21 For, as I have often told you before and now say again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.

Baggage #2

2008-09-07T08:16:00.000-07:00

My transfer at Lyon was about an hour, after that I grabbed a local train to Montpellier. I had just decided on Montpellier as a destination on Monday morning. I needed to be in Perpignan on Tuesday, so I had thought about taking an overnight train. It was over $100 more for the overnight train than the regular train, if I took the regular train though, I'd have to stay somewhere overnight. I had considered Lyon, Marseilles and Montpellier, and decided on the last one since it was closest to Perignan, meaning I'd have the most flexibility on getting there on Tuesday.

I intentionally didn't look ahead for accomodations. The plan was to lock up my rolling suitcase and explore the city and see what came up. Unfortunately, upon arriving at 10pm, I discovered there were no lockers available in the train station. Wandering around the area near the train station, I found that pretty much all the hotels were full (not sure why, but it was the day before school started so I suspect that was related), and none of them had lockers. In the end I found a Holiday Inn, where the desk clerk agreed to lock up my suitcase in the storage room, provided that I pick it up before 7am when his shift was over.

I've found that one of the parts I hate most in travelling is carrying luggage around. It slows you down and drastically limits how far you can go before you're exhausted. Add to that the clumsiness of carrying it around, worrying about theft, and the fact that it marks you out as a vulnerable tourist.

After having stowed the suitcase, I explored the town by foot a bit before jumping on the tram. The first night in Geneva, I had taken the trams around the city to get a feel of the outlying areas and was planning to do the same. Unfortunately the outbound train I took was the last one. It was about 1am when I got to the end of the line, and there were no returning trams. It took me about 4 hours to walk back to the train station. The trip included a couple of short naps on park bences along the way, and meeting a bunch of guys playing football in the empty square at the center of the city at 4:30am. It got colder than I expected, so I was glad to get back to the station, where I found other travellers sleeping for the night. If I had to have carried the suitcase through the night, it would have been pretty miserable, but as it was, it was only tiring (and my feet hurt after).

The next morning I first took a bus to the sea, took a few photos, and then bussed back wandered around the city a little more, when I ran into two dutch tourists that I happened to see the night before. It was interesting that they were photographers, so I hung around with them as they explored the town. Ultimiately it wasn't the best decision; because of them I missed the train I was planning on taking to Perpignan (which meant a lot more walking when I got there since I then didn't have a ride to the house I was staying at).

The more vocal of the two dutch guys proved to be arrogant, opinionated and ignorant, a combination I find downright unbearable. It's something I pretty much guessed at, but maybe I was too generous in not making early judgements. Maybe this is too harsh, but then maybe the lesson to be learned is to trust my judgement and not waste time with the wrong people who will drag me down.

On an absolutely unrelated note, I gotta learn to sail.

Baggage #1

2008-09-04T05:27:00.000-07:00

On Monday I took the train from Geneva, Switzerland, to Montpellier, France, which involved a stop to change trains in Lyon, France. On the train to Lyon, I saw a black woman on a train, carrying her three kids. She looked tall, slender and strong as she tried to manage two toddlers and a baby at once by herself. Initially she didn't find all the seats together and put the two toddlers in one car, and sat in the next car and watched them through a window. I watched first as she efficiently changed three diapers, and then filled three baby bottles from a bottle of juice while holding the baby.

I felt a little bad for her, trying to watch over the three kids. At moments I felt like offering to help, but I always have this sense that unsolicited may be unwelcome, especially with protective mothers and their children. Maybe it's just the way I don't necessarily feel like I need people to offer me assistance most of the time. The daughter, one of the two toddlers, at first seemed quite capable of taking care of her younger brother as they sat together in the other car. Later though, as seats freed up and she came back to sit with her mother, she seemed a little out of it, first slipping on the seat as she was moving across it, and banging her head against the train wall, and again later falling off the seat completely and landing on her butt. I suspect they must have been having a long trip, since her brother was nodding off with a baby bottle in his mouth, occasionally jerking up to hold the bottle, but not sucking anything out of it.

As I got off the train, I felt a little uneasy as everyone rushed off and the woman packed her stuff and got her kids in tow. I hung around to watch, just to make sure she and her kids all got off the train. The mother got off, carrying the baby and her luggage, and looked around the platform for someone as her toddler boy stumbled off the train in a half-awake daze. The clumsy sister also stumbled off the train, and at first stepped in the crack between the train and the platform, and then fell all the way through the crack probably bumping her head and limbs against the train and platform on the way down.

I rushed over as the mom started screaming. Another woman who was just beside the train had gotten on her knees as well, and together we reached down and grabbed the girl and pulled her up, as some men stood in the train's doorway to make sure it didn't close and the train didn't move. The tracks and gravel were only about three feet down below the platform, but it was a fairly big fall I think, when the girl was much shorter than that. We managed to pull her up quickly, and returned her to the distressed mother. A station employee had been summoned and came over and checked the girls head, and a crowd gathered.

I have no idea if the station employee had any medical training, but since the woman seemed to be taken care of by plenty of native french speakers, I just went on my way. Later I saw her two boys leaving with a couple of other people that I had noticed with her on the platform. I guess the woman probably went to take care of her daughter.

I ended up feeling bad for the woman (and considering perhaps that I should have been helping her kids off the train instead of merely watching). At the same time though, it seemed almost inevitable that some sort of accident would happen considering that the woman had her hands full with luggage and two toddlers running around. It seems almost negligent to allow your children to stumble off the train by themselves. She could have put her luggage down off the train first and then helped each kid out, or vice versa. While I may be rather insensitive, it seems almost foolish to even attempt to travel alone with three small children given all the things that could go wrong. I find it difficult enough to travel around alone and keep my eye on my belongings, having three children that move around would be next to impossible. It seems like the type of situation that would require far more careful planning. I understand that perhaps this woman may have had no choice. If that were the case it must be a difficult life to have to carry around all that baggage.

Solitude

2008-08-31T19:35:00.000-07:00

A reminder to self. Being alone doesn't mean you're experience the benefits of solitude. You can be alone yet easily to busy and preoccupied to meditate and reflect, to know yourself and evaluate your strengths and failures, to know what you need and what you want, to know where you stand ethically and morally, to know how far you are from God.

On the other hand, time spent with others does not preclude being able to set aside some time, even a moment, between yourself and something great.

Geneva, day 1

2008-08-30T02:46:00.000-07:00

There's a big difference between Geneva and Amsterdam. All the expensive looking cars and women really gives a feeling there's a lot more money in this town. Oh, and all the watch stores and private banks as well. But the banks here actually aren't that impressive looking from the outside.

I need an excuse.

2008-08-28T17:00:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted up the photos from Budapest two weekends ago. Or the ones from the beach at Zandvoort aan Zee last weekend. How long will it be till I get the pics up from Geneve this weekend, or Perpignan next week?

Chez moi

2008-08-19T16:50:00.000-07:00

The problem with getting into a routine is that you get unmotivated. Instead of striving forward and pushing yourself, you get comfortable and lazy. Instead of planning ahead and thinking of a meal for dinner, I just end up buying whatever looks good at the supermarket and combining it with whatever I had in the fridge. Usually I make it work, but I have to admit, while being edible and tasty, it's hardle restaurant quality.

Today's supermarket haul: belgian endives, haricots verts, cooked crawfish.
What was in the fish: sausage that looks like kielbasa (but tastes like spam), arugula, a block of parmesan reggiano.
Sitting on the counter: basil plant.

1. Boil haricots verts for about 3 minutes, then toss in ice water to maintain colour.
2. Peel belgian endive leaves.
3. Chop up belgian endive hearts and spam-sausage. Chop up or grate parmesan. Chiffonade 5 or 6 basil leaves.
4. Sautee chopped up endive hearts and spam-sausage, flavour with salt, pepper, paprika, oregano and thyme in olive oil.
5. Toss cooked crawfish into sautee.
6. When chopped up endive hearts are browned and spam-sausage is crisped, turn off heat.
7. Toss haricots verts, endive leaves, arugula, parmesan and basil in pan, along with a splash of balsamic vinegar.
8. Serve salad with a tall glass of acai and passionfruit juice (preferably generously spiked with export strength Tanqueray).

To be honest, it would have been pretty damn good if it wasn't for the spam-sausage. I should have known better than to keep it around. Maybe if I have visitors, I'll be smart enough to toss out anything spam-flavoured from my fridge (hint hint).

As Usual, Time Flies

2008-08-11T13:18:00.000-07:00

I had a constant sense of unease during the first week here, trying to figure out how to get around a new city, not knowing where I'll live, and being unsure of whether my luggage would still be there when I got back from work. The second week was quite the opposite though; it surprised me how quickly I got into a routine. The weekdays on the past week have flown by.

I try to leave the house by 9:30am, it's a 25 minute walk to work to get there by 10. I've been leaving work around 7pm, and by the time I walk home, buy groceries, make dinner, and clean up, the day's pretty much over. I found a climbing gym, so a couple of nights were spent climbing (kinda expensive at 9 euro to boulder for an evening). Wednesday night was home group night from one of the two churches. after a week I hadn't had time to start working on the side project I had wanted to work on at home, and I've barely gotten through processing photos or updating the blog.

So I've been meaning to put up photos of the apartment for a while:

It's pretty roomy 1 bedroom, and fully stocked with IKEA furniture. The kitchen is pretty well stocked with IKEA kitchenware, and has a decent spice rack too. I'm pretty much set for visitors, in case anyone wants to come by.

Things here are definitely more expensive than the US. I'm feeling it but I'm trying not to do the currency conversion in my head. One of the cheapest meals I've found is a "turkish pizza", a round flatbread with some toppings (ie spinach & feta), covered with some sauces and condiments and rolled up. They can be had for as low as 2 euro. A bagel with cream cheese goes for around 3 euro. Falafel sandwiches are usually a little under 4 euro, shwarma sandwiches are usually around 5 euro. These constitue the majority of the cheap fast food. The cheapest sit down meal I've had was a 10 euro quarter chicken with fries and salad.

Drinks and juices tend to be fairly pricey. A 500 ml bottle of pop at a corner store tends to go for about 2 euro, a 350 ml beer around 2.30 euro, a coffee at a cafe around 3 euro, a large fresh orange juice around 4 euro.

I'm hoping to save at least a little by eating in more. Here's a sample of my first grocery trip (click through for prices), and the price of a meal of pasta comes out to about 4 euro. Right now though, I think I'm spending a lot more on snacks than on meals themselves. For example, Kettle Chips are 2 euro for a 150g bag, and a pint of Haagen-Dazs went for 6 euro. The Kettle Chips here are made in the UK, and they're far less crispy and crunchy as the US version. They're also a lot less tasty. I don't think I'll be getting any more.

I've also noticed that they don't seem to have baking soda here, I don't know how they get rid of fridge smells.

Settled In

2008-08-04T18:22:00.000-07:00

I have this syndrome that whenever I actually sit down to write a blog, my mind goes blank and I can't think of what to write about.

I could start and write about hanging out in Toronto with friends. I had planned to drop by for a couple of days and not do anything but relax, but I ended up filling up the schedule randomly, meeting up with high school friends I haven't seen in over a decade, and friends who just happened to be visiting from Hong Kong.

Or I could write about going to Jason's wedding and seeing University friends I haven't seen in seven years.

Or I guess I could talk about flying to Amsterdam and looking for an apartment on the day I arrived, and how after looking at 3 rooms, I picked (the wrong) one. The guy renting the place bailed. Staying in the hostel for the first few days really wasn't too bad. The worst part was the fact that I had two suitcases and I constantly had to stuff everything back in them and make sure they were locked up properly every day. If I had fewer belongings, it wouldn't have felt as difficult.

I could write about giving up in frustration and calling up the rental agency I had called while in California, but which I dismissed because of the price. I think maybe it just indicates how spoiled I am in just throwing money at the problem and getting myself an apartment. It's not quite as central a location as I initially wanted, but it's fully furnished, and more than large enough to have visitors, and it's actually within walking distance to work.

Oh that reminds me, the one thing I thought I'd write about was that both churches I checked out on Sunday (after staying up way too late on Saturday) ended up playing the same song to close the service. They must really like this song here.

Blessed be your name
In the land that is plentiful
Where the streams of abundance flow
Blessed be your name

Blessed be your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed be your name

Every blessing you pour out,
I turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say...
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be your name

Reading.

2008-07-20T03:06:00.000-07:00

The test of our work is not the profit gained from it or the status we receive from it but its effects on creation. Are persons impoverished? Is the land diminished? Is society defrauded? Is the world less or more because of my work? We have become so accustomed to evaluating work in terms of productivity that we have little sense of its meaning in terms of creativity. We have for so long asked the questions of efficiency and profit that it does not even occur to us to ask the question of virtue. But Adam Smith is not canonical and Psalm 82 is.

-"Where Your Treasure Is", Eugene Peterson.

I've been doing a bit of reading lately, which I think is a good thing. I finished Peter Enns' "Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament" last month, and I thought it was an excellent book, and much more honest in terms of dealing with problems of Biblical interpretation than I tend to see in most Christian books.

Recently I've been trying to finish Eugene Peterson's book, which I was supposed to have read for my intern class a few years ago. It's one of those less honest books, that reads a lot out of a few lines of scripture. But at the same time, it's really quite encouraging, and I think he makes valid points.

Cheese

2008-07-13T18:21:00.000-07:00

Cleaning up my stacks of junk revealed a cheese menu from Gary Danko. From flickr, it looks like the last time I went was back in August 06.

I had forgotten to take a picture of the cheese course. It consisted of:

gorgonzola dolce - italy
epoisses - cow's milk, Burgandy, France
cravanzina - sheep's milk, Langhe, Italy
carre du berry - goat's milk, Loire, France

I keep junk around for way too long.