Final Entry of the Year

Man, the freak snowstorm was a real hoot. I woke up this morning and opened up my window to a total whiteout. My apartment, being on the bottom floor, has windows that open up to the ground level. Yeah, so you can imagine....

The guys took a while before they cleared the path in front of my apartment. When I went out only half of the way to the carpark was cleared, so I had to brave the 6-8 inch thick sea of snow to get to my car. When I reached my car, I almost couldnt find it.

Interestingly, the snow turned my car from a coupe into a station wagon! Yes, there was an extension to the back of my car that made it look like a really long hatchback. Well, the cleaning process took quite a while. I even had to clear the little molehill of snow behing my car so I could back out. Ah, it's winter all over again....

It's my last entry for the year. A bunch of four of us are going down to Florida to escape the cold. Good deal. So I'll see you guys next year! Blessed Christmas and have a Happy New Year all of you!


Overnight transformation.

Ah, the joys of winter....

Ba ra ba ba ba....

I had a great time of fellowship with a bunch of friends over lunch today. Wee Hong, Roger, James, Foo Ming, Satchi, Lynn and I went to Siam Square for lunch. The food wasn’t really that great. We sort of suspected so since having a restaurant in a motel building doesn’t inspire much confidence. The only Thai dish we had was tom yam. Everything else tasted pretty much like Chinese food. But the hanging out part was good enough for me.

After lunch, I decided to finally do something about my punctured tire and low level of coolant. Yes, I procrastinated long enough and now that I actually had the time, it felt like the right thing to do. Drove to Belle Tire and got my tire patched up and a Drain & Fill for $52.00. Owning a car isn’t cheap.

I also got to install and try out the new Price of Persia game; Warrior Within. It looks and feels pretty similar to its predecessor, but there are a few enhancements. In the second game, you can pick up the enemies’ weapons and use them. There are new attacking combos too which makes the whole experience even better than the last one. The Prince this time around is portrayed as a darker character, which reminds me a lot of Garrett from the Thief series. He’s no longer the goofy young prince as in the previous game. I’m too lazy to die and keep trying so I’m cheating by playing it in trainer mode. I’m expecting it to be as long as Sands of Time, so I should be done by the middle of next semester, fingers crossed.

Why a fast car? If you're important enough, they can wait.

Hah, it’s over! FINE! FINISHED! The semester is officially over for me! What a great feeling! I’m so free I don’t know what I want to do with my free time. It’s sad really. This freedom is so alien to me. Yeah, I’ve been relatively occupied for the past four months. Now there’s no homework or assignments, no material to read up, no direction, no focus.

After an afternoon of computer games (FIFA 2005 followed by NFSU2), I decided to go catch up on my movies. Some really good movies opened during my exam week but I had to refrain from watching them. So this was my chance. I went to see Ocean’s Twelve and Blade Trinity. Yeah, the first one was pretty good. The second one well, I was already pretty tired so I couldn’t deal with another movie that required some brain energy. At that point I was just there for the ride.

Hmmm, I’ve heard from some people that Oceans Twelve was really confusing. What are you talking about? It was a pretty straightforward movie to me. Well, there’s the double jeopardy, spy vs spy thing going on. But it wasn’t too hard to follow.

So which one was better? Oceans Eleven or Ocean’s Twelve? I think this one was more interesting plot-wise. The writer lived up to his reputation of producing a very clever movie. But the really corny part was Julia Roberts having to “fake” being herself in the show. If you haven’t seen this movie, you probably don’t understand what I’m talking about. But go see the movie. I highly recommend it. As for Blade Trinity, I’m pretty embarrassed having admitted that I saw it.

The Monday Grill...

Hah, I was so worried that I wouldnt be able to pull it off, but I actually managed to. Two exams in a span of 5 hours is really no joke. But I heard that Satchi and Roger got it worse today with two exams in 4 and 1/2 hours, both EECS courses.

Today I learned what vile creatures professors can be. My professors for both examinations were real meanies. It's really frustrating how they can totally build up your confidence by setting both the midterms at a relatively do-able level, and then suddenly kill you on the final exam. That's what happened to me today. Urgh...got one more exam to go and I'll be DONE!

Just added a little script from the weather channel to my page. I feel it would be a useful tool so that our friends in warmer regions can get a better idea of what we Michiganians have to deal with. Fantastic.

Ebay comes to Malaysia

It has just come to my attention that Ebay will be starting up in Malaysia. The news article that was published by Star Online can be found here . While this is a step forward for Malaysians to be recognized on the global level, I do questions whether the whole idea will really take off locally. Here are the reasons why Ebay will be a flop in Malaysia....

1.FEAR OF ONLINE TRANSACTIONS:
Only a handful of brave souls actually use the internet to make monetary transactions in Malaysia. No one really trusts the security of computers at home. Malaysians still want to "try before buying".

2.SLOW CONNECTION SPEEDS:
On Ebay, it really helps to have a fast connection speed especially if you want to be a sniper (someone who undercuts the highest bidder at the last second). Because bids are time sensitive, your data transfer rate is critical and a 56k modem just wont cut it.

3.NO RELIABLE ONLINE PAYMENT SERVICES:
Here in the USA we have Paypal, which makes transactions quick and easy. People can pay with their credit cards or their bank accounts directly and have their items shipped the very same day. Paypal doesnt offer its services in Malaysia because of rampant credit card frauds. Maybank offers some kind of service similar to this, but not everyone uses Maybank.

4.HORRIBLE SHIPPING SERVICES:
With Poslaju's incompetence, it will be a real gamble when it comes to shipping products. There's always FedEx and DHL, but their fees will probably cost more than the item you're purchasing.

5.RAMPANT SCAMMING:
Every single day, Ebay is faced with reports of scammers and conmen. Chances are, they're going to be a whole lot more of that going in Malaysia. It's not so bad because the legal services and law enforcement agencies in the USA are pretty good. But in Malaysia, dont ever hope to get your money back.

6.ASIAN KIASU MENTALITY:
Listing items on Ebay isnt free. There's a listing fee, then there's a cut off the final selling price. Asians love free stuff, and a simple thing such as a sellers fee is enough to turn many away.

7.LACK OF VOLUME:
Ebay's huge success comes from the number of people using it to either buy or list their items. In Malaysia, not every household has internet access. From that number think about the number of people who will actually use Ebay to buy stuff (after considering the factors above). Ebay Malaysia will run at a loss.

Such-a-day Sat-a-day.

Ran out of stuff to cook today so I went to do some grocery shopping. I still had some mutton from last week in my freezer. Thought it would be a good idea to make something out of it, but I was out of kurma spices. As I was perusing down the aisles of Jerusalem Market, I stumbled upon some all-in-one mutton biryani packet so I decided to give it a try.

I got home and got to work. The instructions required me to get some yoghurt, which I’m not exactly a big fan of, but I decided to go ahead without it. I ended up with too much sauce and too little rice. The whole mush was too spicy and salty that I really couldn’t take more than a few bites of it. So decided to cook more rice and eat the mush as a side dish, which worked pretty well. It actually tastes pretty good, but my stomach isnt taking it too well. Must have been a long time since I had such spicy stuff.

*Pardon me (heads to the Men's room).....

Today was also laundry day for me. The day that I feared the worst had arrived: a day which I had to do laundry while it was snowing. The thing is, the laundry area is in another building and I have to scurry for about 25 meters through the cold just to get there. And the thing is I have to go there once to load my clothes, hurry back home and wait for 40 mins, get back to load the washed clothes into the dryer, head back and wait for another hour and brave the snow once more to collect the dried clothes. I’ve calculated it to be a total of six 30 second exposures to the elements. Not fun.

I’m glad that I got my guitar back from Adli today. He borrowed it for a week. I really missed it especially when there were times when my fingers were itching to fiddle with something. Hahaha.

I learned a new song today. Just checked out the guitar tabs for Nora Jones’ Don’t Know Why. You’d think that it’s a song written mainly for the piano, but if you listen carefully, the guitar plays a really prominent role too. It’s actually equally if not more important that the piano. Sounds really good on the guitar too. Nice descending chords, minor keys etc. Great jazzy, lounge-style music. :)

The EECS Man!

In the spirit of uncovering EECS students desperately trying to find an form of release by bursting into spontaneous song, here's another song called the EECS Man. Thanks, James for bringing this cracker of a song to my attention. :)

If you want to listen to it, you can download it HERE.


The EECS Man
Performed by Michael Connolly with Steve P.

Intro:
Dude, what are you doing tonight?
I’m going to the Media Union
No way! Me too! Got your calculator?
Yeah, I got my new TI-89!
Sweet! Lets get on board!

Verse 1:
Who’s the saddest student?
At the U of M,
Wait until he graduates,
So he can sleep again,

The EECS Man…

Verse 2:
Thick and dirty glasses,
Orthopedic shoes,
Diligence and discipline,
And lots of Mountain Dew,

The EECS Man….
Oh, the EECS Man.

Verse 3:
Friday night at the CAEN Lab,
Who will make the scene,
Who will help me figure out my Finite State Machine?
The EECS Man
Oh, the EECS Man.

The EECS Man....(2x)

Wonders of Technology

I just got myself a really nice Christmas present in the form of a tricked out Nikon lens. I had to sell a lens and a camera just to afford it but it was well worth it. I got the 70-200mm f2.8G AFS VR ED lens, which many say is the best telephoto zoom lens that Nikon has ever made.

The lens arrived this afternoon via FedEx. Since it arrived i've been playing around with it. Goodness and to think I have a Psych final in a couple of hours. What impeccable timing!

The really cool thing about this lens is that it features Vibration Reduction (VR). It's like the "Steady Shot" feature on Sony Handycams and Image Stabilization (IS) on Canon cameras. It eliminates the effects of camera shake when taking pictures, so images come out sharp and not blurred due to slower shutter speeds. This eliminates the use of tripods in most shooting situations. I've tried it out and it really works. Amazing!

The other cool thing about this lens is that it features AF-S which is Silent Wave Auto Focus. The AF on this lens operates through pulsating waves generated by the camera that moves the optical elements. In contrast to the motor-driven autofocus, AFS is vitually silent.

Gee, now I gotta look for things to shoot....oh wait. I've got a Psych Final at 7. Darn it!


Welcome to the family....

The EECS 452 Theme Song...

I'm currently in the EECS computing site printing out stuff for my review session tonight. I just saw something interesting on the white board. It seems to be a short song that someone wrote just to relive stress, which I find really amusing. Just a little something to give you a taste of how engineering students fare over here. Here it goes...

EECS 452 Theme Song (unedited)
"Insane in the Brain"

EECS 452 has ruined my life,
It causes me pain, causes me strife,
All my friends in LS&A,
Call me up and ask if I can come out and play (PLAY!!!)
I say Nay! Nay! :( (NAY!)

- The EECS 452 student

LS&A = College of Literature Science and Arts. Basically where all the party-artsy-fartys students are.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year...?

It’s supposed to be the “Most Wonderful Time of the Year”, but sadly I’m not really feeling it. Haha…I know I can’t stop complaining about the exam period. I really pity those people who have finals about 2 days before Christmas. It’s almost as if there’s not even enough time to get into the Christmas spirit. You’re totally bummed because you bombed the last paper, then suddenly it’s Christmas! Oh joy!

I’m in the process of making my cheat sheets. For those of you who don’t know what a cheat sheet is, it’s basically that piece of paper which has your formulae that you can bring into the exam hall for reference. Really, it’s like a floatation device….a lifesaver. And like every floatation device, it better be in perfect working condition. Miss a formula or copy one down incorrectly, you’re as good as not having the sheet at all. I’ve been there before, and it’s not pretty.

Back to the festive season, I guess the only time I feel really festive is when I walk into a shopping mall or the grocery store. You’ve got Ella Fitzgerald belting out Silent Night over the in-house sound system, people selling pine trees in the parking lot and all the wonderful lights and color combinations of green with red are everywhere. I head home and it’s back to the same ol’ same ol’.

Christmas time is also a great time to do your shopping. It’s the time when America spends most of its money buying gifts. Vendors know it, that’s why they slash prices like crazy and offer really great bargains.

I guess the craziest bargain out there to date is the price drop that Nikon imposed on the Nikon D2H digital SLR. Just a few days ago, it was going for $3200 brand new. Now, it can be taken home at a cool $1999.95. That’s a $1200 price drop! I guess it’s a marketing tactic to boost the sales of the new Nikon D2X which will ship sometime next year. But at that price, I’m already thinking of selling off my D100 and trading up to the D2H. It’s a sweet sweet camera.

Ah, Nikon Acquisition Syndrome (NAS) has hit me once again. I’ve got to say that photography is a really expensive hobby. Especially if you’re a techie freak like me who wants to have the newest technology your disposal. I truly believe that you can take outstanding photos with a cheap disposable camera. But really, there’s only so many kinds of photos you can take with that piece of cheap plastic. Good photography requires some degree of control over your equipment, but that kind of control comes with a (hefty) price tag.



In a Steve Irwin accent : Ain't she a beeeaaauty!!

Intelligence...

Who said psychology is boring? My lecturer brought up this quote which I found rather interesting. It's by a guy called William James who was trying to define intelligence by comparing humans to inanimate objects.


....If we pass from such actions as these to those living things, we notice a striking difference. Romeo wants Juliet as the filings want the magnet; and if no obstacles intervene he moves toward her by as straight a line as they. But Romeo and Juliet, if a wall be built between them, do not remain idiotically pressing their faces against its opposite sides like the magnet and the filings with the card.

Romeo soon finds a circuitous way, by scaling the wall or otherwise, of touching Juliet's lips directly. With the filings, the path is fixed; whether it reaches the end depends on accidents. With the lover it is the end which is fixed, and the path may be modified indefinitely.

-William James (1890)

Exam Feevaaah!!

The last day of classes for our university is tomorrow. Of all the classes to end the semester with, I have a 9am math class. Knowing the professor, he’s going to take up the whole one-and-a-half hours of lecture time with his dry math. It’s not unusual to have professors scurrying to finish up the syllabus. So much for a pleasant farewell.

"... and the abscissas to use when using Newton's Method are..., Happy Holidays!"

This semester’s the worst for me in terms of exam schedules. My exams in previous semesters were pretty evenly spread out so I didn’t have to worry about being in the right mindset for each paper. This semester, I have one final on Friday, then two papers next Monday and one more a day after that. It’s like everything’s been squished over that five-day period, with only the weekend for some respite.

The worst kind of final examinations are the cumulative ones. You’ve already had two midterms which you’ve studied for. Now you have to take this third exam which covers everything you’ve studied from day one. Is there anything new? No, you still have your old homework to look through, same notes and textbook. I don’t know about you but that bores the crap out of me.

I know you students of the glorified British system are cursing us in the American camp. I am well aware that you guys have it a lot worse than we do. But hey, you know since the American system was set up such that it was like you chuck away material every four months, why don’t they go the extra mile and make us chuck out material every one to two months by setting exams which cover material from the last exam onwards? It wouldn’t make much of a difference now would it? (And all the students in the States give me a “Hey Ya!”)

The point I’m knocking on here is that I’m really bored to death of having to dig up my old homework and look through all the old material from the early part of the semester. I’ll readily admit that I forgot most of what I’ve done, but revision is such a pain. It’s like re-reading a comic strip. The jokes are all old and stale. It isn’t funny anymore. It’s like regurgitating your dinner, and chewing on it again. Doesn’t taste as good. Oh, well… but a student’s got to do what a student’s got to do.

And not to rub it in, but……good luck ya ol’ Brits! *wink!

Friday Night Exploits...

Tonight was quite an eventful night. I had a really good time at a church meeting. Friday night meetings are called Access. It's where the church members get together like a normal church service and then have intercessory prayer at the end.

After that, I decided to get Adli and Afzan out for supper. Hadnt seen them in a while. Every outing with them is just so memorable. They're quite a bunch. I actually learned a new malay word today. It's a word I've come across before but never knew the meaning to it.

GEDIK :
Being "gedik" refers to a girl who trys too hard to appear cute. Irritatingly cute. She doesnt only act like that with guys but also with her girlfriends too.
Eg. Perempuan itu gedik macam sial.

Another interesting thing is this incident that Adli was telling me. He was at the airport after a long flight from Malaysia. Came here to see his girlfriend. At the immigration counter....

OFFICER: Hi there.
ADLI: Hello.
OFFICER: So, tell me why are you here in the USA?
(usually here, your options are either "business" or "leisure")
ADLI: Errr....Pleasure.....I'm here to visit my girlfriend.

He made an honest mistake. It took me a while to convince him that it was actually "leisure" and not "pleasure". Hahhaha..

The weather is rather wierd right now. It's sort of raining, but it's flakes of snow coming down. I guess it's sleet then. It's wet, cold and miserable out here. I'm just going to get into my cozy bed and watch The Manchurian Candidate.

Great Things Come in Small Packages...

What a great day it was yesterday when I came home to a nice little brown package sitting on my doorstep. It was about time it arrived. Nicely wrapped in brown paper, with the infamous green “Examined by US Customs” tape around it was my care package from home. More about their exploits later.

Inside was some good old Brahim’s spices, some Chinese herbs and some other pastes. The package came at a really good time as I was really running low on supplies. Also inside the package was a nice Christmas card from Mom, Dad and Gabe, which really warmed my heart. A tad early, but who cares!

Finally, there was a big batik cloth that my brother got for me. Hahha, and you thought I had enough in my apartment already. Cant get enough of that ethnic, island in the sun feel. Hey, I’m from Penang, so that makes sense doesn’t it? But seriously, my place looks like a holiday resort. More fish motifs. Yeah I know a few of you out there who are rolling your eyes right now.

Now, about the US Customs….they seem to have this fascination with Brahim’s All-In-One Beef and Potatoes. It’s basically the stuff in a vacuum sealed pack which is stored in a cardboard carton. The last time Dad sent quite a load of those. None of them made it. Incidentally it was the mad cow disease season. Totally understandable. This time round, both packets that Dad sent did get through, but only one was safe for consumption.

Those wonderful fellars slit one of the cardboard cartons with a really sharp knife without a care in the world, cutting the vacuum pack inside in the process. As a result, oil from the curry leaked out of the package. After doing God knows what scientific experiments on the stuff, they rather carelessly sealed it back with the good ol’ green “Examined by US Customs” tape and chucked it back together with the other contents. Fortunately, the leak didn’t get to the batik cloth or mess up the whole package. Without giving it a second thought, I threw the desecrated package of Brahims Beef and Potatoes into the can.

Got beef?

Lame Joke (Pls bear with me)

I was watching TV and came across this really clever joke...
Hahaha...

What do you call your really, really old auntie?

AUNT-TIQUE

What do you call her really, really old sister?

AUNT-CESTOR

Sorry, I just thought it was worth sharing....:P

Matters of the Heart

I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting upon hearing some really happy yet emotionally disturbing news on Monday night. Well, it was part of the reason why I couldn’t sleep, apart from the caffeine. Quite an oxymoron, isn’t it? Wonderful yet emotionally distressing news.

Having such mixed feelings got me pondering upon the functional dichotomy of the heart and the mind. I wasn’t really going to talk about it, but I came across some relevant material in John Eldredge’s book Waking Up the Dead today, and that was a sign that this was something worth sharing about.

The mind is analytical. It’s where we get our rational thoughts from. It feeds on facts and processes it, giving us answers based on its input. On the other hand, the heart is where emotions are evaluated. It also takes in facts, but processes it in a different way. The heart is what makes us human. It gives us traits like mercy, compassion, anger and hope.

When faced with a situation where decisions are involved, it’s always important to utilize not only our brains but also to evaluate our heart as well. Acting solely on the hard facts causes us to lose our faith, stop believing or become really mean people. On the other hand, it isn’t the best idea to react solely on the prompting of your heart. That would be being too emotional and reckless.

Proof that the combination of both influences is pertinent can be found in the Bible. When asked what he wanted from God, King Solomon asked for a wise and discerning heart (1 Kings 3:9). He went on to be the wisest and richest king in history.

Intelligence is using your head. Wisdom on the other hand is using of both your heart and your mind.

Fun With Electromagnetics

Our project is finally done! All we need to do now is finish up our powerpoint slides and we should be all good for our presentation on Thursday. Here are some pics of us having fun in the labs. The 15 hours or so spent were well worth it :)


Homemade Dielectric Aperture (made it myself).


Aaron and Nick adjust the polarization angles.


Bouncing AM Signals off metal sheets.


Ranging setup.

Coffee, Tea or Zzzz??

I learnt a very tiring lesson last night about my caffeine tolerance. I had a nice cup of iced caramel latte at about 7pm yesterday before working on my EECS project. Next thing I know, I was up all night trying to get some shut eye. My mind was just as if it were on steroids. I guess this doesn’t really count as a case of insomnia because it is drug induced.

I am actually aware of my low tolerance towards caffeine. Usually drinking teh ping late at night at the mamak's will result in me greeting my mom at 5am in the morning when she wakes up for school. But I thought it wouldnt be so bad since I took my latte at 7pm.

Amazingly, I stayed up until my alarm rang at 8.30am and I actually made it to class on time. Staying awake for one and a half hours of dry math isn’t a walk in the park but I did it. Once I got home, I plunked myself into my comfy bed and dozed for three hours.

My system is really messed up now, because of the alterations in my biological clock. I’m semi-lethargic now and it’s about 3.45pm. I just hope I can stay awake for some revision tonight. Dinner will consist of fish curry, veggies and a fried egg.

My parents made it safely home from their vacation in China/Hong Kong. They were nice enough to email me some pictures from the trip. Always nice to get a piece of something from back home.

Yahoo Expands Mailbox Size!

Yay, I got a heads up from my brother and logged in to verify. It's finally been implemented! Now I've got 250MBs for my Yahoo Mail inbox. Sweet. I also went back to check my hotmail account and BOO.....still at a miserable 2MB. I think some people actually have 6MBs. But hey, dont you think it's time to switch to the highest rated web-based email service (TIME Magazine) out there?

Do you Yahoo?

Bachelor Tau Eu Bak (Not for the weak)

When I was at Adli and Afzan’s for dinner last Sunday, I really liked Adli’s very own daging kicap. Reminded me of the tau eu bak that I used to have with my economy rice in Penang. That sort of sparked the idea of me trying it out for myself. Of course the one they made was with halal beef. But a few improvements were needed….namely the addition of mushrooms and PORK! Oink oink!

My first attempt at it happened when I was preparing lunch today. I think it turned out pretty well and I’m rather proud of it. So I’ll tell you guys how I made it. :)

Ingredients:

1. Kicap Manis Sedang
2. Pork ribs/meat
3. Chinese mushrooms
4. Onions
5. Soy Sauce
6. Salt

Instructions:

1.Fill pot to with about 1/2 an inch of water and leave to boil over maximum flame.

2.When water starts to boil, or if you’re impatient, when you see little bubbles start to form in the water, dump in some sliced onions and mushrooms.

3.When you feel like the pork pieces are getting bored, dump them in too and leave the whole mess to boil.

4.Once you start thinking about how black your sauce should be, start pouring in the kicap manis. Be generous because it takes a lot to make that sauce deliciously dark.

5.The moment you feel that you probably should have a taste of it, dump some light soy sauce in it and then taste it.

6.Hmmm, it’s probably really sweet but not salty enough. If that’s not the case, add more kicap manis because it’s not sweet enough. Am I making sense?

7.If it gets too sweet, add some table salt in or you can add more soy sauce. I’d prefer salt because I believe it makes the soup thicken a little faster.

8.Leave the dark matter to boil for a while, keeping an eye on it once in a while.

9.Once you think that the pork is cooked, or you cant wait anymore, serve piping hot. Best eaten with white rice. Enjoy!


Yummy!! Slurpp slurpp....

Infernal Internal Affairs

Now listening to: U2- How to Dismantle an Atom Bomb (so-so only lah)

Ah, finally some progress. With 4 days to our deadline, my group has finally succeeded in transmitting sound through airwaves! Yep, we even tried bouncing the AM waves off some metal sheets and even through some glass. Boy, were we having a field day. Even the GSI joined in the fun experimenting with our AM waves. Spending 5 hours in that lab was no joke man. There’ll be another 5 hours tomorrow when we conduct our experiments with our equipment.

I just finished watching the three part series of Infernal Affairs. Yeah, I’m sure a lot of you are surprised thinking that you’d never catch me dead watching a Cantonese Movie. Well, I don’t like a lot of them but there are exceptions. So IA is about some cop recruits who double double cross here and there. Eventually everyone dies and that’s the end of the story. So unfortunate. Infernal Affairs is actually coming to theaters in the US really soon. I actually saw the trailer in the cinema a few weeks back.

House of Flying Daggers will be opening here this month. I also saw on TV that the DVD for Hero is out. They opened with “Quentin Terrantino Presents…” What a load of crap. I don’t think he had any hand in the production. Probably stole the tape from China and came up with the idea of marketing it here. What an opportunist.

Apparently the digital camera market has severely affected the film camera industry. I’ve read that in some places, photo labs that don’t have digital services had to close shop because nobody develops prints anymore. I’m also directly affected because I’ve been trying to sell my Nikon F5 for a reasonable price. But it’s depreciated so much now because everyone wants to go digital that every interested party is lowballing me. It’s the second most advanced film SLR that Nikon has ever produced and now its price in the second hand market is plummeting like crazy. I may decide to just keep it instead.

News has it that Nikon’s profit for the second quarter of 2004 came out to be triple of what was predicted. Thanks to the introduction of the amateur digital SLR, the Nikon D70. Frankly, I think that camera is really child’s play, because of its lack of expandability. It’s got a few improvements over my trusty D100 but I’m not about to let my D100 go just yet. Anyway, congrats Nikon! You ROCK!

SnapFish Review

Ah, my Snapfish prints finally arrived so now I can give my 2 cents about this really cool online photo company. There’s this website that you can go to for prints from your digital camera. I think the regular price is about 19 cents per print, which is decent, until you add shipping.

There’s this promotion going on right now where if you stumble into their website at www.snapfish.com you may have the chance of getting 50 free prints. Apparently when you access the site at different times you’ll get a different number of free prints. So get to the site and keep reopening your browser until you see “Get 50 Free Prints” at the website. I decided to be reasonable and went for the 30 free prints.

So I signed up and uploaded a couple of pictures from my Ohio trip. There’s this active X applet that you have to download to aid the upload process. Should be pretty safe. No spyware and all that. So I ordered about 8 prints just to test them out. They were free alright, but I had to pay about $1.50 in shipping. That’s about 19 cents a print! UGH. But it could have been more expensive. Actually, I should have ordered more prints.

So the pictures arrived today. They turned out pretty well. But somehow you can just tell when a picture has been taken with a digital camera or not. There was some evidence of pixelation and color fringing that weren’t seen when the pics were in the computer. IMHO, they were decent. I liked the glossy 4X5 prints. Now I’ve got 22 more prints to go. Just hope that their shipping cost wont kill the deal.

I Live in the Ghetto

You can tell that the semester is going to be a really interesting one when all three of your neighbors, across, above and diagonally above from your unit are all African Americans. Not that I have anything against them or anything, but some issue in the form of cultural differences is bound to come up. I’ve had the privilege of meeting with two of my neighbors, unfortunately due to some unfortunate circumstances.

Scene 1:
I’m hanging out in my room, when the doorbell rings. It’s the FedEx guy and he asks me to sign for the guy diagonally above from my unit. He wants me to hold on to my neighbor’s package since he isn’t around. The FedEx guy left a note on my neighbor’s door telling him to come get the package from me.
Later that day, I came back from dinner to find a note slipped under my door. In barely legible handwriting, there’s a message accusing me of taking a package that doesn’t belong to me. The one who wrote the note demanded that I call his cellphone and return the package promptly.
So I call this guy up and tell him to pick up his package from my room. He comes down and with some really street attitude, just takes the package from me and leaves. Not a word of thanks, not a sign of appreciation. Fantastic.

Scene 2:
I learn how thin my ceiling is. After a really long day of classes, I retire to my bedroom for a short nap, and boy did I get a short one. Just 5 minutes into my journey to dreamland, I was rudely awakened by rhythmic thumping coming from upstairs. It’s Boy’s To Men & Mariah Carey’s One Sweet Day in full blast. This is the umpteenth time this joker has disrupted my beauty sleep so I decide to finally go up and talk to him. I ring the doorbell and tell him about the problem and he’s like, “Aiight man.”
I head back to my room and wait. 1 minute, 2 minutes pass and no difference. The low frequency bass continues to vibrate through my ceiling. Too lazy to go up again, I turn on a little Nora Jones to sing me to sleep. Nora Jones doesn’t help much with the cause (no offence to her).
I give up taking a nap and decide to take a shower and check my email. 20 minutes later, I’m wide awake and our dear neighbor has decided to stop playing his music. Finally when I can get some peace and quiet, my hair is wet and I’m as bright as a light. SWEET IRONY!!!!!

I’m not attributing their race to whatever happened. Correlation does not mean causality. It’s mere coincidence, but really, I would appreciate having a neighbor that cooks nice Chinese dishes or someone that I can yum cha with a whole lot better.