Wednesday, June 01, 2011

AutoCAD for Mac is a keeper


i finally got to download the free trial version of AutoCAD for Mac and was impressed by it.  used to be that i kept an extra windows-operated machine just so i can use AutoCAD, but now I can finally say bye bye to the stupid thing.


XXX

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

micachu and the shapes



while searching for podcasts about san francisco, i came across this npr's sxsw podcast of micachu (from 2 years ago! how did i miss this? she's adorable) and ended up downloading everything micachu from itunes and watching everything micachu on youtube. i'm hooked.

if you go to her rough trade records website there's free download of her songs.

XXX

Saturday, May 28, 2011

hello mr. dinner

spiny lobster

first this pretty thingy trashed my kitchen by doing the flipping thing of his tail, splashing water all over the place.  then we had a staring contest (i lost).  then i gave him a bath of hot oil with minced garlic and ginger and rosemary.  then he was dinner.  yum.

XXX

btw, his hot tub was a brand-new le creuset cast iron pot.  how i spoil my crustaceans.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

cooking something

fish market in central, hong kong


passing by the fresh fish market on the way to and from work everyday, it's taken much restraint on my part to not binge on home-cooked seafood.  my apartment is so small that the whole place would smell of cooked food if i did any cooking here.   now that i'm only gonna be here half a year tho,  i've given in.  i don't care about the smell anymore,  i'm gonna try every single thing that the fish market has to offer.  starting tonight.  :)


XXX

Sunday, May 22, 2011

I'm nervous.

 

i always am when making big decisions.  in about half a year, my job commitment here in hong kong will be over.  when that time comes, i've decided i'm moving to san francisco.

it's scary.  yet another start.  i don't know how many i've had.  i'm tired - of moving, of starting over, of being nervous.  it's scary because i've ran out of the thoughtless bravado of my younger days that made me plunge head-on to "adventures" like this, and fantasies that i'd hoped such move would make real. it's scary because i can still remember how rough it was the first time i moved to the bay area, at the height of the dot-com bust, and i can't imagine the current economic situation to be any better than it was at that time. it's scary because i feel too old to be starting again, even though i've wrestled with this terror when i left berlin two years ago.  it's scary because i don't think i can do another move if this doesn't work out.


XXX

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Sunday, April 10, 2011

otamatone - my latest must-have useless toy






i don't even know how it works really,  most of the instructions that came with it are in japanese. i just pressed buttons and squeezed the mouth and it made a sound.  maybe it's pre-programmed.  maybe i'm just a musical genius. of course it's preprogrammed with tunes.  but really, some enterprising young hongkongers saw a prime shop location and decided to rent it for a couple of weeks to sell something done cheaply at a premium price. in any case it's a waste of money - therefore, fun. otamatone. revival.






anyhoo. i bought one in blue because the pink one is just too obscene.

XXX

Saturday, April 09, 2011

Vanishing Point: How to disappear in America without a trace



weirdness!  i was walking down hollywood road trying to digest my lunch when i came across this  exhibition space called "experimenta".  among the exhibits is a map showing locations of usb drives embedded on walls throughout china where supposedly, one can upload or download info (supposedly to hide from the censors) from the usb drives. very spy-like and too gimmicky.  the person manning the space, a susanne burner, then explained the other things on display, images downloaded from the internet and reinterpreted, and spliced together videos from youtube.  my first question of course, was, "is that legal?" either she was really clueless or she just didn't care.  she then showed me this pamphlet (photo, above) that she was selling, which she says she downloaded from the internet and reprinted to sell, and isn't worried about copyright issues because she says even the original author doesn't identify himself. i haven't read it but from skimming through the pages it looks like it's a how-to manual on how to disappear a la jon krakauer.  i'd have preferred if, instead, it's a how to on disappearing from the radar of the numerous websites making money selling personal information of people without consent. the scums.

XXX

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