The Hsu Farm

What a busy day

2005-05-01T22:11:00.000-07:00

Today was a fairly busy day. First was trying to combine a chocolate torte recipe with a chocolate mousse recipe. That definitely was a deadly combination. I'm not sure what you're supposed to expect when you combine super-rich with super-rich, but I think people have definitely learned that I make super-rich desserts.

Then there was the (un)natural disaster of dropping the bowl with the not-quite-finished mousse. If you can imagine a large sploosh that starts at the base of the refrigerator (where I dropped the bowl) and continues to spatter throughout the kitchen, in the direction of the sink, I think you get the idea of the extent of the disaster. The fortunate thing was that only half the mousse escaped the bowl, so there was still more than enough to combine with the cake.

Other highlights of the day included an hour at the beach and spending most of the rest of the day at Erica's so that the Kung-Fu gang could shower us with baby stuff. Overall this shower part was pretty fun as there was a lot of good banter about different books (the theme of the party), when the baby will start Kung-Fu, and croshitting. For the last, we got that captured on videotape as others gladly made witty remarks while the speaker of the last word backtracked very quickly about his slip of the tongue. As usual, there was much talk, much food, movies, beach, and at the end of the day, exhaustion. This state did not escape Erica's dog as he definitely likes his resting spot.

BBQ Season

2005-04-24T22:51:00.000-07:00

It's definitely starting to be BBQ season. Too bad I won't have a whole lot of time to enjoy it since a lot of other things will be grabbing my attention. Too many things to do in the short term. Too little time.

Go Ho

2005-04-21T21:39:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, it's easier to catch a disc (frisbee for all you non-ultimate types) when you're laying out. That's the technical term for doing a forward dive onto the (hopefully) grass such that your body becomes parallel with the ground. This is an example of why. Let this be a lesson to you recreational ultimate players. The feeling you get when you do lay out and catch a disc for the first time is amazing. It only takes a hellalot of energy to throw your body around and land hitting the ground with the whole of your body.

Swat 'em and Squash 'em

2005-04-21T21:07:00.000-07:00

Looks like flickr has fixed a bit of its troubles after tonight's one hour maintenance window. The picture metadata definitely looks like its propagating well to all parts of the flickr web app now.

Bugs are a-flyin'

2005-04-20T21:36:00.000-07:00

I just started using flickr this month. Now that someone was nice enough to give me a pro account (thanks mj), I'm starting to upload my pictures to flickr. I will say that flickr seems great when it works, which is more than 90% of the time. But I'm probably using it harder than it was designed to be used right now. The flickr uploadr breaks every once in a while. Their organizr applet doesn't play nicely with groups all of the time. There are data transactional issues happening in the back end. Sometimes I see my updates, sometimes I don't, but eventually everything gets updated to what flickr thinks I want.

All that said, flickr is still a very nice interface for sharing photos on the web. And that's saying something because interface design isn't as easy as it looks.

The Gym Shoe

2005-04-18T21:33:00.000-07:00

Here's my nephew. My brother just happened to name him James, which is okay for pretty much 99% of the last names in the world. Unfortunately for him, his last name rhymes with nephew. No wonder he's wearing that facial expression.

Sunrise

2005-04-18T20:26:00.000-07:00

Getting up early is a pain most of the time. You're groggy when you get to work, there's no one else to talk to, and if you do try to talk to someone else, they probably just got up even though you've been up for hours already. Getting up early does have some advantages, however, and I think this is one of them.

What is a Blog?

2005-04-17T19:51:00.000-07:00

I'm not quite sure what a blog is. I just figure a blog can serve the purpose of a public diary. I'm just using this as random thoughts for random people. I hope these random musings are entertaining to someone.

Death to Retail

2005-04-16T21:38:00.000-07:00

What does it take to find a MiniDV tape at a retail store? You'd think Good Guys and Ritz Camera should have plenty of stock. All I wanted was one tape at a reasonable price. But no, Good Guys had zero stock of anything MiniDV, and Ritz Camera had exactly two packages, one single and a two-pack for about twice the going rate at any other regular store. I wonder how Ritz Camera stays in business, since from what I saw, the camcorder that Heather just bought me is 50% more expensive there. Ouch.

A New Toy

2005-04-14T22:01:00.000-07:00

I have a decent idea how to work a digital camera. I usually don't do any post-processing because I'm usually too lazy to do that stuff. But now I have a new toy to eat up disk space even faster. I have now joined the ranks of digicam owners. I can't say that I can do anything with it yet since I don't even have a tape. A tape? What are those ancient things still existing in this age of optical disks and flash memory? Apparently a whole lot. I guess I'll have to find a space to host video logs pretty soon.

Good ol' Supernews

2005-04-13T22:00:00.000-07:00

I used to work for a startup. Like in most startups, the people who helped to build the startup worked long hours. Also like most startups in the silicon valley, we also tended to hang out at work a lot, often going home just to sleep or to take a shower. An interesting thing happened. A lot of the initial people got to know each other really well and became like a family.

The feeling of a work family is something I miss. Most of my coworkers have moved on to at least a job or two. We no longer live at work or work those insane hours. We get a life, find a significant other, get married, buy a house. We also get together every once in a while for dinner or brunch and eat, catch up on old and new news, talk about where other coworkers have gone. Tonight was one of those nights, and it definitely good to see my old work family. I have found that many people have found a family at work in the silicon valley, for whatever reason, and that I have not been able to find or am not willing to risk finding that level of camraderie any more.

How sad.

Introverts and Extroverts

2005-04-10T22:34:00.000-07:00

I had a really interesting lunchtime conversation on Friday. Part of the conversation was about introverts and extroverts. I'd considered myself an introvert throughout high school and college, so I was somewhat surprised that one of the people at the table said I was definitely an extrovert. The more I think about this, the more I wonder how can one really tell? With some descriptions of the differences between the two, I still find myself more aligned with the introversion side of things.

There was talk about confort zones, about not being embarassed, about personal growth, about fear. But I'm not really sure how all that relates to this introvert/extrovert thing. Are you an introvert if you prefer to read? Are you an extrovert if you prefer to play team sports? How much introspection must you do before you're considered an introvert? Which are you if you prefer to communicate via computer games? It's all very confusing. I haven't done much looking, but I still haven't read a description of the differences between the two that I find compelling.

Gettin' Back in Shape

2005-04-08T22:25:00.000-07:00

I finally feel like I'm on the path to get back in shape. I feel pretty tired physically this week from two classes of Kung-Fu and two days of lunchtime ultimate. I figure in another month or so, my body will be pretty well conditioned so that I can start pushing my body a lot more. Just takin' it slow for now.

Five Deadly Venoms

2005-04-07T20:43:00.000-07:00

Anyone I've met who's actually seen Five Deadly Venoms remembers it. I wish there as a decent version of it out on DVD. Oh well.

Anyway, I was spending a lot of tonight looking for DVD's that I might like to have and found that the only version out there is a crappy VHS redub.

How non-religious are you?

2005-04-05T07:12:00.000-07:00

About 8 years back, I had a conversation about beliefs in religion. I knew of a couple terms but they don't quite fit the bill:

atheist: one who believes that there is no deity

agnostic: one who believes one cannot know whether or not a god exists

I'm more in the camp of "It doesn't matter to me whether or not a god exists." That's when I coined the term apathist. Now that I'm searching around for pre-existing information about that term, I find that the word exists and it pretty much means what I think it means. Only it's spelled like this: apatheist. I don't know when that word first came into being, but unless told otherwise, I'm sayin' that I invented it, it's just that the combination is obvious enough that other great minds will be able to come up with the same word.

I'm just sayin'.

Sin City Timeline

2005-04-04T19:45:00.000-07:00

After watching the movie, Sin City, I was wondering what was the order of the stories. That Yellow Bastard has to be first, but it's hard to tell if Marv's story is before, after or concurrent with Dwight's story. I do like the little details that the filmmakers put into the visuals. Too bad it's the first time I've seen any of the Sin City enterprise, or I probably would have appreciated a lot more of the little details that Frank Miller and company put into the movie.

Daylight Saving Time

2005-04-04T19:19:00.000-07:00

End Daylight Saving Time

Now I'm not necessarily against one time or another, but I think it would be nice if we didn't shift the time twice a year. The losing sleep part of thing has gotta be one of the most preventable sources of stress. Geez.

Sin City

2005-04-03T16:53:00.000-07:00

I went out to see Sin City today. Very much fun, especially if you don't take things too seriously.

Alien UFO

2005-04-02T21:18:00.000-08:00

What is this creature. And where did it come from?

First Post

2005-04-02T21:05:00.000-08:00

Just testing out this blogging stuff. This should be an interesting experience.