the klog

A couple of pictures from my phone (which is why they're so blurry):

We saw this out on Clement. It's a whole bunch of CDs strung up, spinning around, with colorful lights and a curved mirror behind them. Why? I have no idea.

And those, I just found creepy. From Forever 21, I think.

Have you guys seen this rather shameless Seiko commercial?

Images of various people on desert plateaus, with fluffy, fluttering clothing, in slow motion. They say:

"It's not your clothes."
"It's not your music."
"It's not your favorite color."
"It's not your neighborhood."
"It's your watch."
"It's your watch."

Narrator: "It's your watch that tells the most about who you are."

They're not pussy-footing around, are they?

Apparently, Chinese Checkers isn't Chinese at all. In the 1880s, Americans and British came up with something much like it on a square board, called Halma. Then the Germans came up with the star-shaped board in 1892 and called it, Stern-Halma (Star-Halma). In 1928, it was brought to the US under the name "Hop Ching Checkers", to sound more exotic. They soon came up with "Chinese Checkers" after that.

It's kinda sad, in a way, because I remember taking a little pride in the fact that I was playing "our" checkers. Little did I know that the name actually stems from racism! :P

Similarly, Chinese water torture isn't Chinese at all, either. It was invented by an Italian in the 16th Century. Houdini had an unrelated trick called the Chinese Water Torture Cell, in which he was suspended upside down in a tank of water, and someone probably mixed the two to come up with the name.

I think I should legally change my name to "Hop Ching Lu".

* * *

In other, vaguely related news, CHESS BOXING! It's real! Here's an article. Here's an article with more pictures.

And here's a video highlight reel of an actual Chess Boxing match!

They play chess for 4 minutes, then box for 2 minutes, then a minute of rest and back to chess. 6 rounds of chess, 5 rounds of boxing, 12 minutes on each chess clock. Oh, the nuttiness. You've really gotta check out the video.

Not sure how to describe this.. I guess it's a Power Rangers spoof to some degree, but I dunno... It's just really freaking weird: Rolling Bomber Special [Google Video]

P.S.: I'm sure you all remember my favoritest Internet meme of all, Peanut Butter Jelly Time. (That link is directly from the creator's page.) Anyway, I was amused that Family Guy has paid homage to it. :)

Update: Whoa. Watch a little girl fire a fully-automatic machine gun and blow up real cars with it. God Bless America!

Update Nov-21: Unfortunately, this strip did not come true. I don't have laryngitis this time, but rather some other kind of viral infection. Maybe bronchitis or something. Still sick and miserable. :(

* * *

My very first diary comic, untitled. Don't expect too much. :P

OMGWTF.... Star Wars Transformers! STAR WARS TRANSFORMERS!

I mean.. I mean.. STAR WARS TRANSFORMERS!

Dude, you know what those are? They're Star Wars Transformers!

This is probably the best thing since Snakes on a Plane.

Apparently, Ebert and Oprah are old friends. (Interesting how one is known by his last name, and the other by her first.) He gave Oprah the advice 20 years ago to go into syndication instead of a network, and she announced this recently on her show. Here's his take.

How hard would it have been to just have a cute little giant panda as the 2008 Olympic mascot? Why did they have to decide on five mascots? And they look so... lame, too. *sigh*

Then again, if you scroll to the bottom of that page, you'll see that most of the mascots haven't been that great. 1980 through 1992 had pretty good ones, but I think Atlanta's "Izzy" permanently destroyed the Olympic mascot mojo. :P

Oo oo.. this bit on page two is priceless:

In terms of the artistic form of mascots, before the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games, most Olympic mascots were created based on the animals unique to the host countries and they were normally of one species. Since 1992, human or totally invented figures have appeared and changes have also taken place in the number of mascots. The 1998 Nagano Winter Olympic Games had four mascots; the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games had three and the 2004 Athens Olympic Games has two.

Now I've got it! They've got five mascots because that means they're better than a Schick Quattro! :D Oh, and Japan. There's no way they could let a Japanese record stand!

Whoa.. on second thought, maybe I shouldn't complain, after looking at the first Olympic mascot. Yikes!

Unrelated: Whoa.. I wish I could take hand-held night-time photos that look this good.

So I hate the junkmail that says "IMPORTANT FEDERAL LOAN NOTICE", especially ones that get printed on those envelopes where you tear off the perforated sides so they look more official. Why do these people not get prosecuted for deceptive advertising? *sigh*

This envelope from the WWF (no longer confused with the WWE) amused me, though:

[Bright red circles added.]

I mean, doesn't that bit at the right undermine the seriousness of their "EMERGENCY" banner? Just a little? :P

• German engineering at its best: a 918-meter long concrete bridge filled with water. You've simply got to see this picture.

• A knitted digestive system.

• A fan-made music video "Programmed in Applesoft II on a 1979 Apple ][+ with 48K of RAM." SWEET! The Apple ][+ was my first computer! I wish I still had it... :\

• These WWII-era fortresses on the Thames remind me of War of the Worlds.

• The 1937 Detroit, Michigan driver handbook. :) Index here.

• Intrepid MIT students use $250,000 equipment to test the theory of tinfoil hats. They discover that not only do they not shield you from radio signals, they actually amplify them! Clearly, they conclude, "It requires no stretch of the imagination to conclude that the current helmet craze is likely to have been propagated by the Government, possibly with the involvement of the FCC." :)

So when I was a kid, we'd often burn "gold ingots" made of paper for the ancestors. The idea is that anything you burn goes down to the Netherworld. We don't do it much any more.

My dad recently visited my grandfather's grave in China. These were the offerings: (Our relatives took these pictures.)

(No, you don't burn the food.)

Well, you see that box of Mahjongg tiles there? That's a complete set of paper Mahjongg tiles, meant for burning, so my grandfather can play Mahjongg in the afterlife! :) And you see that small red box in the upper-right corner? That's a box of paper "cigarettes", of my grandfather's favorite brand, so he can take a drag in the afterlife! (No, he didn't die of lung cancer. :P)

The Mahjongg tiles being delivered:

These are pictures from my trip to the Moss Beach tidepool area.

A colorful hermit crab:

Anyone have any idea what these are? They look like miniature palm trees to me:

Sea grass, bright pink algae, and an anemonemone:

Some kind of buoy? Also a seagull:

And here, a heron:

"Hi there. I am a rock."

This post is dedicated to the above rock, who started falling apart when I tried to take another picture of her.

You know what I saw tonight? I'll tell you want I saw tonight. I saw a stretch limo version of a sport utility truck.

Witness the 18-passenger Escalade EXT.

For all those occasions when you want to go clubbing with your stack of two-by-fours.

This is going to be one trippy movie.

(That is a man on a horse, a man in a Volvo, and a man with a tree in a space bubble!)

Update: While I'm at it, remember this Gozilla teaser? That was probably the highest trailer quality to movie quality ratio ever. :) And while I'm at that, here's a reminder that I host the awesome Spider-Man teaser featuring the World Trade Center that they had to pull after September 11.

P.S.: Isn't it crazy that Volvos actually look kinda cool now?

I just discovered a new criterion for my future house: I want to hear the rain. At my current apt on the second floor, I can't actually hear the rain, but instead I hear the creaking and clanging drainage pipe. Blech!

Check out these crazy pictures of a forbidden city in Cyprus that was evacuated 31 years ago due to the conflict between Turkey and Greece. The photographer had to run after the Turkish military spotted him taking pictures. :P

NASA has decided to cut all scientific research on the ISS until it's completed, which is projected to be in 2010-2012. I think we should cut our losses on the ISS as much as possible, and so since it's politically unfeasible to just dump it, this is the next best thing. I'm all for it. There's really not a whole lot of exciting research being done on it anyway.

I say we just leave the ISS to the Russians. They could probably keep it going with 5% of the budget. :)

From my trip to Vegas a few months ago:

That's a sushi restaurant in the MGM Grand.

Below to your left is a picture from the Aladdin. Below to your right is a picture I took years ago in San Francisco Chinatown, of a similar theme.

(Also from that trip: The Butter Knife of Damocles.)

I've been really enjoying Steven Spielberg's return to apolitical movies, but now he's going back to the Big Meaningful movies, and how! His next movie is called Munich, and it's about an Israeli assassin who goes after people his gov't tells him helped to plan the killing of the Israeli Olympic team. The assassin eventually begins to have doubts about the assassination policy. Trailer link.

I've never seen a Soyuz look so good.

The ship is the Balclutha, which used to sail 'round the tip of Cape Horn during the Gold Rush! My strongest memory of elementary school was the night we spent on the Balclutha as a class. We weren't allowed to bring modern things like digital watches on the ship, and we learned to tie various knots and such. We even split up into groups and had to complete various tasks under time pressure, like hauling ropes in from the dock.

Unfortunately, the galley crew was really bad at it, and they kept having to redo it. We ended up having dinner at 1am! That was unheard of back in elementary school. :) Luckily, I was voted 2nd mate, so I got to eat inside with the teachers instead of out in the cold like the commoners. :P

We didn't get to bed (sleeping bags in the ship's hold) until 3 in the morning, and then I had to wake up 5 to stand watch! I think I got another couple of hours of sleep before we left in the morning. I pretty much slept through the entire next day. :)

And now, seal fight at Fisherman's Wharf!

The seal on the right was knocked off into the water, but it just jumped back up for a sneak attack:

Oh, but to no avail. We have a winner!

* * *

Bonus picture:

"Items Found at a Friend's House"
mixed media
2005

* * *

Okay, to cleanse your mind of that, here's another bonus picture, from nearly a year ago (November 18, 2004, apparently), behind the old Motorola building: