Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Ooooo...2 Entries Within a Week?!
Basically this entry can be thought of as a continuation of my last post, since I got sidetracked by the NBA game.
First I'll go on a rant about the NBA I guess...
I don't know why, but it's true that most people, myself included, view the Detroit Pistons as the underdogs in this year's NBA finals matchup, although they are the defending champions (heck, they were underdogs against Miami). Perhaps it's because the talent level in the NBA has been stagnant of late, there hasn't been many "good" players, let alone teams. Thus, when compared to the teams of the 90's, the current teams just don't match up.
I still firmly believe that the Pistons' defence is good, but not that good; nowhere NEAR Jordan's Bulls good. I think that if the Pistons had to face off against the '01 Shaq, they'd get totally destroyed for 40+ every game, with the Wallaces getting into foul trouble every game. In a way I think Detroit just happened to have good timing, to face off against a slumping Shaquille. This is why I think (perhaps other people as well) the Spurs, with their healthy Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili, stand to be the favourites of this year's Finals.
Ok, enough about basketball.
Mainly this update is just to highlight some interesting findings I've made while I've worked, of course, courtesy of the world wide web. Actually, these findings are really stuff that I hear off of 680 News on the drive to and from work that sparked my interest, and Google aided with my search.
I've been reading this site quite a bit as of late. (only read on the serial killers for now) Since Karla Homolka has hit the airwaves of late, I then realized that I've only heard and know of Paul Bernardo, but I don't really know what he did. All I knew was that he raped and murdered some women, and that he had tapes of his crimes. So out of curiosity I Googled Bernardo's name, and came upon this very informative website. This site has details on many of the notorious killers, after reading up on Bernardo and Homolka (speaking of which, Karla's plea bargain was indeed the "deal with the devil", she should have gotten life as well), I've follwed it up with Jack the Ripper, Ted Bundy, and currently the Boston Strangler. Pretty interesting, although very disturbing, stuff. If you enjoy stuff like CSI or mystery stories in general and you don't know too much about crime history then this site is a good place to start I think.
Also on the airwaves recently is the Michael Jackson trial. So right now the jury is in deliberations, deciding whether this pop superstar is a child molester. Frankly, I don't really care too much about this trial, for celebrity cases most people have made up their minds about the accused's innocence before any verdict is made anyway (think of the OJ trial, or Kobe Bryant's rape charges). What's interesting though, is this website that I found via Google. Pretty funny stuff if you ask me, I found the Nov 2002 section to be the funniest. Go there if you want a laugh. Well, I guess some might find it disturbing, but most already know Michael Jackson started out as a black man anyway.
Now, this site Jia directed me to today. Apparently Ray has it linked on his blog, but I've never noticed it. Anyway a pretty cynical but funny website on Chinese values and the stereotypical Asian male. I recommend reading the "Scientific facts" section, some interesting stuff there. Also check out the "ladder theory", it can be found in some subsection of the "Scientific fact".
I think that's about it for now...
First I'll go on a rant about the NBA I guess...
I don't know why, but it's true that most people, myself included, view the Detroit Pistons as the underdogs in this year's NBA finals matchup, although they are the defending champions (heck, they were underdogs against Miami). Perhaps it's because the talent level in the NBA has been stagnant of late, there hasn't been many "good" players, let alone teams. Thus, when compared to the teams of the 90's, the current teams just don't match up.
I still firmly believe that the Pistons' defence is good, but not that good; nowhere NEAR Jordan's Bulls good. I think that if the Pistons had to face off against the '01 Shaq, they'd get totally destroyed for 40+ every game, with the Wallaces getting into foul trouble every game. In a way I think Detroit just happened to have good timing, to face off against a slumping Shaquille. This is why I think (perhaps other people as well) the Spurs, with their healthy Duncan, Parker, and Ginobili, stand to be the favourites of this year's Finals.
Ok, enough about basketball.
Mainly this update is just to highlight some interesting findings I've made while I've worked, of course, courtesy of the world wide web. Actually, these findings are really stuff that I hear off of 680 News on the drive to and from work that sparked my interest, and Google aided with my search.
I've been reading this site quite a bit as of late. (only read on the serial killers for now) Since Karla Homolka has hit the airwaves of late, I then realized that I've only heard and know of Paul Bernardo, but I don't really know what he did. All I knew was that he raped and murdered some women, and that he had tapes of his crimes. So out of curiosity I Googled Bernardo's name, and came upon this very informative website. This site has details on many of the notorious killers, after reading up on Bernardo and Homolka (speaking of which, Karla's plea bargain was indeed the "deal with the devil", she should have gotten life as well), I've follwed it up with Jack the Ripper, Ted Bundy, and currently the Boston Strangler. Pretty interesting, although very disturbing, stuff. If you enjoy stuff like CSI or mystery stories in general and you don't know too much about crime history then this site is a good place to start I think.
Also on the airwaves recently is the Michael Jackson trial. So right now the jury is in deliberations, deciding whether this pop superstar is a child molester. Frankly, I don't really care too much about this trial, for celebrity cases most people have made up their minds about the accused's innocence before any verdict is made anyway (think of the OJ trial, or Kobe Bryant's rape charges). What's interesting though, is this website that I found via Google. Pretty funny stuff if you ask me, I found the Nov 2002 section to be the funniest. Go there if you want a laugh. Well, I guess some might find it disturbing, but most already know Michael Jackson started out as a black man anyway.
Now, this site Jia directed me to today. Apparently Ray has it linked on his blog, but I've never noticed it. Anyway a pretty cynical but funny website on Chinese values and the stereotypical Asian male. I recommend reading the "Scientific facts" section, some interesting stuff there. Also check out the "ladder theory", it can be found in some subsection of the "Scientific fact".
I think that's about it for now...
Monday, June 06, 2005
An Update...Wahoo?!?!?!
It occurs to me that I haven't updated this blog thing-a-ma-jig since I left for HK, about 6 weeks ago.
Needless to say a lot has happened since then.
Here is my attempt to give out "good" reasons for readers of this blog (whomever that's left, really), for me not updating. Let's try a countdown method, but upwards, so starting with the number 1 reason, and at the end of the list we'll know how long the list spans.
Drumroll
Reason # 1 - Lazy
Reason # 2 - WoW
Reason # 3 - Jet lag for a week after coming back
Reason # 4 - Studying for SoA, exam was May 19
Reason # 5 - Too busy celebrating end of SoA exam (more on how I did later)
Reason # 6 - Others weren't updating much
Reason # 7 - Basketball
Reason # 8 - Not too much to talk about (more on why that is later)
Reason # 9 - I was fighting Darth Vader
Reason # 10 - All your posts are belong to us
Reason # 11 - Penny Arcade
Reason # 12 - Ctrl-Alt-Del
Reason # 13 - HK Comics I'm re-reading
Reason # 14 - Japanese Mangas I'm re-reading
Reason # 15 - See # 1
Reason # 16 - NBA Playoffs
Reason # 42 - See # 2
So there you have it, my Top 42 list of reasons why I didn't update.
Actually, if I'm truly lazy, I'd just tell you guys to go over those reasons once more and you'd know what I've been up to, but I guess I'll bore you all with some of the gritty details.
Let's see, chaotic order sounds like a plan:
Work
Came back from HK on May 6th or so, started work on May 9th. For the first week or so I was fighting jet lag and such, so I was tired during work, and by the time I got home, I was also tired and didn't get too much studying done. =P
Overall the work is pretty good. The people are quite nice and friendly, so I didn't have problems fitting in. The company is a small one, there's about 12 full-times and myself, and that already includes the P and VP of our office.
Workload itself has been pretty light, I haven't had much difficult stuff to do, mainly reconciling data and formulas in Excel. Today I had my first interesting task that required some formula writing in Excel. Nothing too difficult, but compared to what I had done the previous weeks this seemed a heck of a lot more interesting. Bad thing about this tedious work is it gets me sleepy (sleeping 5, 6 hrs the night before doesn't help), but I guess the good side is I get to rest during work??
HK
Actually, I only spent half my vacation time physically in Hong Kong. The rest of the times were split between 5 days in Japan (travelling from Nagoyo to Osaka) and 2 days in Macau.
The highlights of the trip is: lots of good food.
Well, I also bought some stuff here and there, like some Jordan apparel, got new glasses, bought some Tales of Symphonia stuff for Duy, candy and snacks to munch on (still got lots left), Gundam books for Paul and Jason, manga that I didn't quite finish reading in HK, etc.
Other highlights include me getting quite ill the second day we were in Japan, something didn't settle right in my stomach, threw up a few times. The trip did get better though =P
SoA
So I signed up for Course M (3rd exam), and planned to study during my vacation time and of course when I came back to start work.
That plan did not quite work out so well. I barely got any reading done at all during the vacation (I had planned to get all of it done), and didn't read fast enough in my first week back. Actually, they way things worked out was that I wasn't assigned much work in my first week, so I'd get some of my reading done at work, and by the time I get home, I'm tired and felt like I've already accomplished some studying, so I wasted quite a bit of time there.
Basically what ended up happening was that I had to cram study for the exam on my 3 study days that I got from work. Needless to say it wasn't the best idea, but by then I had no other choice, really.
The exam itself went decent at best. I managed to answer maybe 60% of the questions. I am expecting a fail, though I think I could pass with a bit of luck. Final verdict was that I didn't prepare hard enough.
Hopefully I didn't screw myself over in terms of co-op...but we'll see about that.
NBA Playoffs
Been watching a lot of the playoffs since I got back, and this was part of the reason why I didn't study as much as I should have for SoA. I'd come home from work, somewhat tired, felt like I accomplished some studying from the reading I did at work, then plop down and watch an NBA playoff game. By the time the game is over, it was about time to go to sleep so I can wake up for work =P
I must say that Steve Nash played an amazing season this year, and especially so in his series against Dallas. (I realize that there is probably at most one person who reads this blog will understand basketball, so I guess I won't go into as much detail as I can with this topic, sorry Chris =P)
Basically I wanted to see the Suns in the Finals, but San Antonio was too good of a team to beat when you don't play much defence and lost one of your starters for the first 2 crucial home games.
With the injuries to Shaq and D.Wade I think the Spurs will be the favourites going into the Finals (even if they play Detroit).
World of Warcraft
Yep, I'm playing this game now. Actually it didn't really start until a week ago or so, because prior to that I had to study for SoA (before the exam I think I played WoW once, and that was only to fish and stuff), and with Star Wars, and NBA playoffs and other stuff I didn't really start picking up the game until last week.
So I've been playing my rogue again, questing solo for exp and what not. I did the Deadmines instance with public parties, and I think my experience from these runs will lead me to want to do instances with friends exclusively (or at least in majority).
1st Deadmines run: happened to do the run with a fellow guild member, but the rest of the part was underleveled, as well as not playing well. (I myself was lvl 25, 26 by then, the guildie was a lvl 25 Druid) The remaining members consisted of 2 priests and a mage, all under lvl 21, and for sure one of the priest lvl 17. Problem with our party was that one priest is "healing", but would not assist with anything else until some party member is half dying; the other priest kept trying to pull stuff when the mage was pulling also; and the mage was also very slow at polymorphing adds. But since the druid and myself were somewhat high level, we managed to get to the last part of the instance, until the lvl 17 priest drew aggro from a boss and train wiped the party.
2nd Deadmines run: Party members consisted of a lvl 23 pally, a lvl 21 mage, a lvl 22/3 rogue, and a lvl 22 warlock (lvls are rough estimates from my memory, but they were definitely between 20 and 23). Our party played fairly well together, there were problems polying adds and such, but overall we had a pretty strong party, so we made up for those mistakes. We drew aggro from Greenskin again, but this time we were able to duck the aggro on the "cannon". However, things got ninjalicous once we got onto the main boat. A normal mob dropped a green + agi sword, and the mage rolled on it. The other rogue (a somewhat pushy group leader, well, pushy on drops at least) was angry and changed the looting to master looter. The mage got mad and left the party. So the 4 of us stayed there for awhile, trying to get another, but couldn't. So then we went ahead and killed Greenskin and then the final boss in Van Cleef. The rogue said before we hit VC that she wanted the Defias Armor or the Blue sword that VC drops, which were BoP, and that she'd pay us to not roll. (Come to think of it there were no confirmations or objections from any of us to that "demand") So we hit VC, started by me trying to sap him; unfortunately he was immune. Anyway, I basically died a few seconds before VC, and the other rogue was overzealous and looted VC's corpse while his guards still remained. The sword dropped, I think I passed as well as the warlock, but the pally rolled on it. The warlock died, and I think the rogue and the pally cowared back to the "cannon". The pally said he clicked on it by mistake during the fight, and then hearthstoned out of the instance =P The rogue was pissed, and left. I only wanted to get VC's head for the quest reward, and I managed to get back into the instance before the party disbanded (for some odd reason, the pally was making his way back from Lakeshire to res us or something of the sort).
Yeah...so out of the 2 instance runs it's been incompetance and ninja looting, which is why I think I'd rather play w/ guild members or friends for instances in the future.
Hmm...right now I'm distracted by Miami-Detroit game 7...maybe I'll post more on this stuff later.
Needless to say a lot has happened since then.
Here is my attempt to give out "good" reasons for readers of this blog (whomever that's left, really), for me not updating. Let's try a countdown method, but upwards, so starting with the number 1 reason, and at the end of the list we'll know how long the list spans.
Drumroll
Reason # 1 - Lazy
Reason # 2 - WoW
Reason # 3 - Jet lag for a week after coming back
Reason # 4 - Studying for SoA, exam was May 19
Reason # 5 - Too busy celebrating end of SoA exam (more on how I did later)
Reason # 6 - Others weren't updating much
Reason # 7 - Basketball
Reason # 8 - Not too much to talk about (more on why that is later)
Reason # 9 - I was fighting Darth Vader
Reason # 10 - All your posts are belong to us
Reason # 11 - Penny Arcade
Reason # 12 - Ctrl-Alt-Del
Reason # 13 - HK Comics I'm re-reading
Reason # 14 - Japanese Mangas I'm re-reading
Reason # 15 - See # 1
Reason # 16 - NBA Playoffs
Reason # 42 - See # 2
So there you have it, my Top 42 list of reasons why I didn't update.
Actually, if I'm truly lazy, I'd just tell you guys to go over those reasons once more and you'd know what I've been up to, but I guess I'll bore you all with some of the gritty details.
Let's see, chaotic order sounds like a plan:
Work
Came back from HK on May 6th or so, started work on May 9th. For the first week or so I was fighting jet lag and such, so I was tired during work, and by the time I got home, I was also tired and didn't get too much studying done. =P
Overall the work is pretty good. The people are quite nice and friendly, so I didn't have problems fitting in. The company is a small one, there's about 12 full-times and myself, and that already includes the P and VP of our office.
Workload itself has been pretty light, I haven't had much difficult stuff to do, mainly reconciling data and formulas in Excel. Today I had my first interesting task that required some formula writing in Excel. Nothing too difficult, but compared to what I had done the previous weeks this seemed a heck of a lot more interesting. Bad thing about this tedious work is it gets me sleepy (sleeping 5, 6 hrs the night before doesn't help), but I guess the good side is I get to rest during work??
HK
Actually, I only spent half my vacation time physically in Hong Kong. The rest of the times were split between 5 days in Japan (travelling from Nagoyo to Osaka) and 2 days in Macau.
The highlights of the trip is: lots of good food.
Well, I also bought some stuff here and there, like some Jordan apparel, got new glasses, bought some Tales of Symphonia stuff for Duy, candy and snacks to munch on (still got lots left), Gundam books for Paul and Jason, manga that I didn't quite finish reading in HK, etc.
Other highlights include me getting quite ill the second day we were in Japan, something didn't settle right in my stomach, threw up a few times. The trip did get better though =P
SoA
So I signed up for Course M (3rd exam), and planned to study during my vacation time and of course when I came back to start work.
That plan did not quite work out so well. I barely got any reading done at all during the vacation (I had planned to get all of it done), and didn't read fast enough in my first week back. Actually, they way things worked out was that I wasn't assigned much work in my first week, so I'd get some of my reading done at work, and by the time I get home, I'm tired and felt like I've already accomplished some studying, so I wasted quite a bit of time there.
Basically what ended up happening was that I had to cram study for the exam on my 3 study days that I got from work. Needless to say it wasn't the best idea, but by then I had no other choice, really.
The exam itself went decent at best. I managed to answer maybe 60% of the questions. I am expecting a fail, though I think I could pass with a bit of luck. Final verdict was that I didn't prepare hard enough.
Hopefully I didn't screw myself over in terms of co-op...but we'll see about that.
NBA Playoffs
Been watching a lot of the playoffs since I got back, and this was part of the reason why I didn't study as much as I should have for SoA. I'd come home from work, somewhat tired, felt like I accomplished some studying from the reading I did at work, then plop down and watch an NBA playoff game. By the time the game is over, it was about time to go to sleep so I can wake up for work =P
I must say that Steve Nash played an amazing season this year, and especially so in his series against Dallas. (I realize that there is probably at most one person who reads this blog will understand basketball, so I guess I won't go into as much detail as I can with this topic, sorry Chris =P)
Basically I wanted to see the Suns in the Finals, but San Antonio was too good of a team to beat when you don't play much defence and lost one of your starters for the first 2 crucial home games.
With the injuries to Shaq and D.Wade I think the Spurs will be the favourites going into the Finals (even if they play Detroit).
World of Warcraft
Yep, I'm playing this game now. Actually it didn't really start until a week ago or so, because prior to that I had to study for SoA (before the exam I think I played WoW once, and that was only to fish and stuff), and with Star Wars, and NBA playoffs and other stuff I didn't really start picking up the game until last week.
So I've been playing my rogue again, questing solo for exp and what not. I did the Deadmines instance with public parties, and I think my experience from these runs will lead me to want to do instances with friends exclusively (or at least in majority).
1st Deadmines run: happened to do the run with a fellow guild member, but the rest of the part was underleveled, as well as not playing well. (I myself was lvl 25, 26 by then, the guildie was a lvl 25 Druid) The remaining members consisted of 2 priests and a mage, all under lvl 21, and for sure one of the priest lvl 17. Problem with our party was that one priest is "healing", but would not assist with anything else until some party member is half dying; the other priest kept trying to pull stuff when the mage was pulling also; and the mage was also very slow at polymorphing adds. But since the druid and myself were somewhat high level, we managed to get to the last part of the instance, until the lvl 17 priest drew aggro from a boss and train wiped the party.
2nd Deadmines run: Party members consisted of a lvl 23 pally, a lvl 21 mage, a lvl 22/3 rogue, and a lvl 22 warlock (lvls are rough estimates from my memory, but they were definitely between 20 and 23). Our party played fairly well together, there were problems polying adds and such, but overall we had a pretty strong party, so we made up for those mistakes. We drew aggro from Greenskin again, but this time we were able to duck the aggro on the "cannon". However, things got ninjalicous once we got onto the main boat. A normal mob dropped a green + agi sword, and the mage rolled on it. The other rogue (a somewhat pushy group leader, well, pushy on drops at least) was angry and changed the looting to master looter. The mage got mad and left the party. So the 4 of us stayed there for awhile, trying to get another, but couldn't. So then we went ahead and killed Greenskin and then the final boss in Van Cleef. The rogue said before we hit VC that she wanted the Defias Armor or the Blue sword that VC drops, which were BoP, and that she'd pay us to not roll. (Come to think of it there were no confirmations or objections from any of us to that "demand") So we hit VC, started by me trying to sap him; unfortunately he was immune. Anyway, I basically died a few seconds before VC, and the other rogue was overzealous and looted VC's corpse while his guards still remained. The sword dropped, I think I passed as well as the warlock, but the pally rolled on it. The warlock died, and I think the rogue and the pally cowared back to the "cannon". The pally said he clicked on it by mistake during the fight, and then hearthstoned out of the instance =P The rogue was pissed, and left. I only wanted to get VC's head for the quest reward, and I managed to get back into the instance before the party disbanded (for some odd reason, the pally was making his way back from Lakeshire to res us or something of the sort).
Yeah...so out of the 2 instance runs it's been incompetance and ninja looting, which is why I think I'd rather play w/ guild members or friends for instances in the future.
Hmm...right now I'm distracted by Miami-Detroit game 7...maybe I'll post more on this stuff later.
