For a lazy bum like me who just hates to do laundry, let alone fold the clothes, this instructional movie is one hell of a godsend! It is so darn cool! And it really works! Try for yourselves!

I had a nightmare last night. I dreamt that I became blind. It was terrifying! Strangely, I seemed to be able to see myself getting blind (pretty much like watching a movie). Yeah sometimes dreams manifest themselves from a third-person perspective.

This dream reminded me of a question I used to ask myself and some of my friends:

If you were to choose, would you rather be blind or deaf?

First of all, obviously we would never face such a situation. Such a choice is a luxury in cool hard reality. When reality hits, it usually does so with such speed and surprise that it renders us helpless, let alone giving us the option to choose.

That aside, I think I would choose to be blind. I get alot of emotional stimuli through the aural senses. Sometimes listening to a song or parts of a soundtrack triggers immense memories. Somehow to me, the sense of sight isn’t as rich as the power of hearing. Also, the auditory system is omnidirectional; that is, unlike the visuals, we can sense audio signals no matter how we are oriented. That’s empowerment.

Most importantly, I cannot give up music. I’ll take a good ol’ catchy riff over a famous painting anytime.

What would you choose?

Sorry wasn’t good enough
A song without meter and rhyme
A long forgotten promise I recalled I made to you
A candle flame dies in the wind
It looks like it’s about to rain, about to rain

Spirals from your cigarette
Your sweet perfume on my pillow
Messages you left me still sing like some lullaby
Pretty pictures on the wall
Hopes in us will rise & fall, rise & fall

And in the rain
In summer days too
When the willow tree weeps too
Under the street light so bright
I’ll remember you everyday

The plane leaves in an hour’s time
Hold me till our last goodbye
Silence is the only sound
No words can speak it through
I’ll breathe your breath for one last time
You’ll be strong and so will I, so will I

And in the rain
In summer days too
When the willow tree weeps too
Under the street light so bright
I’ll remember you
I’ll remember you
I’ll remember you
Everyday

As we are presented with some of the most amazing effects and CG in the movies, do we actually know which objects in the movies are real and which are just one of the most realistic CG ever?

I just tried this ‘Fake or Foto’ challenge quiz and failed miserably! See if you can discern reality from CG better than me!

Take quiz round 1. And then round 2.

Yesterday at 6:36pm, when Mingyang and I were walking back from our meeting, I commented how ridiculously beautiful the sky was then. It was drizzling at sunset. And then there was this huge rainbow. I sprinted up to my room to snap this shot. The window ledge became my interim tripod.

This rainbow made me won mahjong that night.

Department of Philosophy - Symbolic Lab @ 3:24pm

• Your brain is really like a muscle. The less you use it, the less it can function as well as you like it to be. It degenerates and suffers from memory loss. Gosh- two days ago I tried doing this geometry problem participating in the Department of Mathematics Competition. It was torturous to think in sines and cosines again. It was painfully slow to do maths. Angles… Equations… Ugh… I need to start using my brain again!!!
• I am so glad I took up the Tennis class. Even if the instructor doesn’t teach us much, it’s good regular training practice. It’s amazing how my forehand strokes are starting to improve with just a few pointers from my instructors. Bent knees, changed grip, use left hand to guide… Now I need to work on my backhand and serves.
• It all started with getting a Canon S80 p&s camera to take better pictures. Now I’m getting into the whole realm of digital photography. It’s so interesting and so much to learn. Been reading forums and photography tutorials and articles. Given my bad memory, photography is one good way to capture my memories! Taking good pictures is strangely self-satisficing, like drugs. I gotta resist getting a DSLR for now. Shopping for a decent tripod now… KIVing this.
• I really have to decide my final project for my Maya animation class. A person doing a perfect golf-swing… The story of a hiccup girl… Modeling my dream car… I need inspiration!!! Shane Acker really gave me quite an inspiration. Maybe I should just do a feature film for the heck of it.
• The latest topic in my Investment class deals with options, something that sounds so foreign before that day. It’s actually possible to reduce your risk of owning stocks by doing a whole bunch of different strategies. Straddle, collar, covered call, protective put… Essentially you get other people to insure your own stocks, aka cover your own ass. In this trading world, when one person wins, one person has to lose. My hope is to be the former, as much as possible.
• Pending work to be done: Finish up my Maya 3D animation of the man walking up the stairs and opening the doors… I need to learn how to change from IK to FK. Maybe if I have time, I will animate him fall down the stairs!!
• Pending movies (lying in my HDD) to watch: Brokeback Mountain, Capote, 神雕侠侣, King Kong…
• Pending stuff to learn: Options trading, FX trading, Maya Effects…

In my security class about 2 years back, my professor mentioned about using visual passwords and visual hashes to help in user authentication and stuff (the details of which I totally gave back to him). I thought it was really cool to be able to convert strings to formula which generates a picture or ‘abstract art’ I call it. Now I stumbled upon this site which allows us to create all sorts of Random Art, simply by typing in anything you want. Essentially, the program takes your string of words and create a mathematical formula to define all those pixels. Then it spews it out as a square picture, unique to your string.

Its possible contribution to the security world aside, I’m pretty amazed and impressed by some of the random art created by the program. Some of my favorites pieces by this digital Picasso:

Of course I couldn’t resist making some of my own masterpieces. Can’t believe I can’t even match a computer!!

After tasting the Cheesecake Factory’s Original Cheesecake, I was really amazed such a simple plain cheesecake could be so yummy. This time I decided to experiment making a cheesecake with one of my favorite liqueur, the Grand Marnier. Something tells me the tinge of orange essense may go very well with the cheese. It wasn’t bad at all!

Ingredients:

• 10″ ready-made Graham Pie Crust
• 8 ounce cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
• 5/8 cup white sugar
• 1 tbl cornstarch
• 2 tbl Grand Marnier liqueur
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 eggs

Making:

1. Bring all the ingredients to room temperature. Pre-heat the oven at 325F.
2. In a large bowl, beat cream cheese and butter until smooth.
3. Mix in the sugar, cornstarch, sour cream and whipping cream. Mix them thoroughly.
4. Add the Grand Marnier and the vanilla extract.
5. Stir in the eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly between each addition.
6. Pour the mixture into the Graham Pie Crust.
7. Bake in the oven for 50 minutes at 325F.
8. Turn off the oven and allow to cool with the oven door open for one hour. Then chill the cake for at least 3 hours before serving.

Finally got round to sorting and publishing the photos we took at Vancouver last week. This time, Aperture really helped me out with the workflow and quick processing. Love the program pictures here!

And yes!! I look like “celebrities” like Jet Li, Dalai Lama and Wen Jiabao.

MyHeritage put the face-recognition technology to the most creative use - trying to match your face to the well-known people around the world. It’s strangely addictive uploading your photos and seeing who you actually may get mistaken for. The higher the percentage, the higher the match obviously. I literally burst out laughing when I saw those matches. It’s funny most of my matches are non-asians, more to the likes of Eminem, Chester Bennington, Bill Gates (ouch!) and Robert Downey Jr.