Houston Hot Air Balloon Festival

The event is boring and I don't think I would come back next year. If you want to try the suffering make sure you get a hold on the schedule and come out 30 minutes just before the balloons lift off.

Enter The Dragon

Justin just has some crazy idea that we all just go to Riveroak theater tomorrow and watch Enter the Dragon around 12AM. Why 12Am? Apparently this movie is older than most of us and almost no one (including me) even remembers that we ever watched it or not. Justin is an exception though, he's probably the most asianized white dude I've seen.

I still recall Bruce Lee movies were still very popular when I was 6 or 7. My dad took me to watch all of his movies whenever they came out. He even bought a poster of Bruce and hung it in the living room, not for idollizing him but to wish someday I could be like him. Didn't every Chinese parent have that kind of dream?

I'm not a huge Bruce Lee fan. That would disappoint my dad and his asian pride. Bruce movies are OK in term of martial art performance, but not so great in content. One thing I don't like watching Bruce movies is that he seemed to scream too much during the fights, any kind of fight, even with some no-name, dimwitted moron. I admit that Kiai (we call screaming) is a important factor in martial art. Most of Japanese martial arts emphasize kiai as an essential skill. For example in Kendo, you can't score without a proper kiai even though you could literally cut your opponent's head in half. Bruce Lee martial art as I can see, was influenced a lot by Japanese's'. But Bruce used his kiai all the time instead of doing so just right before he threw an elbow or a kick to finish up his opponent.

But anyway, I've not seen Bruce for ages and I hope this movie could bring me back in time when I was a little kid. I'm sure you can find Enter the Dragon at the clearance section at Fry's for less than 5 bucks. But watching it on a big screen and surround sound is so much interesting unless they decide to show Enter The Fat Dragon, a parody otherwise.

Gaim - MSN Protocol Crashes

Last couple of days I was having some major PC issues... corrupted USB hub for my laptop, failing peripherals of my desktop, and then to top it all off - Gaim started crashing immediately after it started the login process.. I was about to resort to a clean installation of Gaim and the two days of my life that I would lose while reinstalling and configuring all my apps.

Looks like a working patch is available, HOWEVER it is not an Official patch from the winGaim team. Therefore, I would advise that you DO NOT install it as it has not been validated by the team - so it could have been trojanned or any number of other bad things. Let just wait for the OFFICIAL fix. I first tried uninstalling and then reinstalling various versions of Gaim and GTK+... but to no avail. I was able to narrow the issue down to Gaim connecting to the MSN Messenger network. Aha! then the main issue is still related to Microsoft as always.

As a last ditch effort I thought I'd check the Gaim site to see if a new version was available... worth a shot, right?

Update: Gaim has officially released the newest RC with the patch for MSN protocol. Check out this site if you are in need of running MSN with Gaim.

Nha Trang Logo

Which of the followings should be the logo for Nha Trang company? Any change needed to be made? Your opinion counts!!!



Thanks

Barcelona US Tour

Couple of weeks ago, Barcelona really created a fever in America when 90,000 soccer fans came to witness the friendly match between Champions League winner with Chivas of Mexico. And last week 70,550 people attended the game between Barca and Club America.

It's obvious that the appearance of Ronaldinho and Barca's reputation for being a champion is the main reason attracting people coming to the games. When the best soccer player in the world - Ronaldinho, appeared in the second half, the atmosphere of the game became extremely heated.

The first game (Houston Dynamo and LA galaxy) was only filled with 12,000 seats. And the game sucked by the way. I was thinking at that time that Barcelona players would probably felt embarrassed playing with a very low number of attendance. But entering the second half of the Dynamo game, people started coming for the Barcelona game thus filling completely the entire stadium!

Dynamo game: 12,000

Barcelona game: 70,550

Seeing Ronaldinho play: priceless!


Getting back to the park garage with crazy soccer fans (using the light rail)

Albert Einstein's Letters to Various People

The Late show of David Letterman on Tuesday featured a funny session in which Dave read out loud Albert Einstein [fake] letters. Albert Einstein is not only famous for his theory in relativity but also for his hilarious, often eccentric personality reflected via numerous letters from his own account. I am pretty surprised that those [fake] letters actually carry the somewhat similar intelligently humorous tone of the real Albert!

-Dear Ethel, My Forbidden Love,
The only thing expanding faster than the fabric of time and space is the fabric of my pants.
Yours, Albert

-Dear President Truman,
Glad you liked the atomic bomb. I've got an idea for another superweapon, a full rocket full of bees. I'll keep you posted.
Best regards,
Albert Einstein.

-Kraft Foods
Dear Sirs:
After much research, I've finally perfected a formula for aerosol cheese. Please reply if interested.
Sincerely, A. Einstein

-My Dear Mrs. Roosevelt,
Are you sure you don't want to become mistress number 4. According to my calculations, it's just what you need. Call me.
Passionately, Al Einstein.

-Ingvar Kamprad, Founder and President of IKEA
Sir:
I've wasted an entire weekend trying to assemble this stupid coffee table! Give me a refund or I'll sue your nuts off.
A.Einstein.

-Dear Mr. George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush:
In response to your question, I was indeed a slow learner as a child. Just be patient and I'm sure your son will catch up.
Best wishes, Albert Einstein

-Johnson & Johnson
Dear Sirs:
You conditioner does not work at all. My hair is still an unruly, flyaway mess. Please refund my purchase price of 25 cents.
Sincerely, Albert Einstein

-Editor In Chief, Journal of Advanced Physics
Dear Sir:
Did my manuscript already go to the printer? I just discovered a typo. It should read E=MC3.
Yours truly, Albert Einstein.

-Hershey Chocolate Company
Dear sir:
After sampling your new Milk Duds, I can honestly say, YOU are the genius, my friend.
Sincerely, Albert.

Wikimapia

Wikimapia is a new map website borrowing Google mapping technology. Wikimapia revolutionary goes beyond Google by allowing users to collaboratively define their own comments to places they know to the global map.

I have tried to defined a lot of known places for my hometown Nha Trang, Vietnam here.



Some of the comments I read for Nha Trang are hilarious. Like this one is concerning the 4 Seasons Coffee shop: "4 Seasons Coffee shop: expensive, bad taste, don't go there".
And there are even some pretty close to profanity like "Yen Phi Park: has more whores than people"

I'm sure it does have detail map for places like Hongkong and Taiwan too.