Apparently my aunt's new place has awesome internet so yay for me. I have arrived safe and sound in ChangZhou after about 20 hours of sitting in airplanes. On second thought, perhaps my flight plan wasn't the best of ideas. My original plan was to go
Seattle-> LA->Guangzhou->Shanghai _train-> to Changzhou
this way it ensures i get into shanghai in the morning so i can have a leisurely train ride to ChangZhou. but really according to the actual route travelled by the airplane, this is what actually went down:
seattle->LA -> Seattle->Seoul->Beijing->shanghai->Guangzhou --> Shanghai ->train-> to changzhou.
what a waste of time LOL not only that, stupid China Southern (despite of being perfectly cordial and polite) lost my luggage somewhere between LA and Shanghai! so now i am sitting at home with nothing to wear. Thank goodness nothing too important was in my luggage except all the nice clothing i have ever own. *cries* So hopefully I will get a call in the next couple of days with good news.
Other observations: LAX international terminal is a serious dump, they don't even have a terminal. THey bus you to the plane. GuangZhou airport is really nice and new and shiny. The food at Shanghai train station is very good but hella expensive. well, at least it was good haha.
oh, I also got one of those fancy asian haircuts last night that took 3 hours. I almost fell asleep during it. But now I look like every other Chinese girl here hahah.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Off I Go!
I am about to leave for China in about 4 hours. Will be there til Nov 8th. The plan is basically to beat Velius in the amount of banquet pictures in my blog posts during that time. I will do my best on daily updates but my aunt's place doesn't really have good internet connection so we shall have to see. So until then, everyone enjoy Halloween!! :D
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
a close call at trivia
I wish all the veggies were here for today's trivia. Because Guitar Hero/RockBand finally became a bonus round category today! We were given song snippets from the games and we had to name the title and the singer! Now I know the Veggies would have rocked this !
For the second week in a row, we had user requested cateogories for trivia. I guess the guy got tired of coming up with categories. We were suppose to nominate categories on our answer sheet a few weeks ago and turn them in. As a result, we got some really weird categories lol. For example, Classic Pornography was a category last week (eyeroll). Did you know Peter O'Tool (Lawrence of Arabia) was in Caligula? Last week we weren't able to take advantage of this because none of our categories got chosen. This week, it was a totally different story. We had a cateogry on Video Games that were made into Movies, sooo easy. and to Snoopy's extreme happiness, Peanuts the Comic Strip! She nailed that one effortlessly! Unfortunately, to balance out 2 categories in our expertise, we also had an cateogry on Rocky Horror Picture Show @_@!!!
All in all, we tied for third place with 56 points! This means the tie breaker of doom!! I am sorry to say I totally lose this game for the team :( The question was which planet is comparable to Earth in size and mass. I suggested Mars, while apparently everybody tried to tell me Venus. I answered Mars anyway, but of course every one else was right. So we were 4th place once again .. Cries!!!
For the second week in a row, we had user requested cateogories for trivia. I guess the guy got tired of coming up with categories. We were suppose to nominate categories on our answer sheet a few weeks ago and turn them in. As a result, we got some really weird categories lol. For example, Classic Pornography was a category last week (eyeroll). Did you know Peter O'Tool (Lawrence of Arabia) was in Caligula? Last week we weren't able to take advantage of this because none of our categories got chosen. This week, it was a totally different story. We had a cateogry on Video Games that were made into Movies, sooo easy. and to Snoopy's extreme happiness, Peanuts the Comic Strip! She nailed that one effortlessly! Unfortunately, to balance out 2 categories in our expertise, we also had an cateogry on Rocky Horror Picture Show @_@!!!
All in all, we tied for third place with 56 points! This means the tie breaker of doom!! I am sorry to say I totally lose this game for the team :( The question was which planet is comparable to Earth in size and mass. I suggested Mars, while apparently everybody tried to tell me Venus. I answered Mars anyway, but of course every one else was right. So we were 4th place once again .. Cries!!!
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
House pains
Anybody watch the House season premiere last night? House was his usual grumpy self. Although his frustration is enhanced by Wilson's wanting to leave. I thought the patient's story is very poignant. I like how House always put in a dose of reality into the lukewarm pool of "you can do anythingness". It also enhances House's theory that people don't change (except for Amber). The saddest moment of the show for me was when Wilson was about to walk out and he said "we are not friends House, I don't even think we ever were". How can he say such a thing after all they have gone through!!! Yes House is kind of an ass but if there is one person he always yields for in the end, it is Wilson. Now all those years of friendship and comraderies is wiped out in one heartless thought!! I feel sad for the duo :(
(although, one part of me can't help but think this would make an awesome slash storyline hahaha, must not ship... must not ship)
We had a House watching party at a friend's house. He had HD LCD TV with DVR. It is the ultimate tv watching experience!! You can skip all the commercials, rewind if we missed a section due to exciting chatter, and watch 13's eyes sparkle and glisten in full HD glory!
After the show, we decided to sample JJ Abrams' new show "Fringe" which is billed as a modern day X-files. The show has a leading girl who is an FBI agent with a dark past of betrayal, a bum genius guy (percy from Dawson's Creek) and his crazy Einstein dad who was in mental hospital for 17 years. The trio solve weird phenomenons that is part of some global conspiracy pattern thingy. The show looks ok so far, the crazy dad is definitely the most interesting person. They have this weird graphic device to introduce different places by putting the caption in giant and i mean GIANT CGI LETTERS right next the building as if it is a statue that just happen to be there. I am not sure if I like it or not. The show also has some really crazy "Science" that makes me blink in disbelief. Example: They can read the last thing a dead person sees by using a "Electrical pulse camera". NOrmally when the person dies, all the image goes away, but since this person had a muscle relaxant before she died, somehow the image was frozen in the neurons... riiightt...
(although, one part of me can't help but think this would make an awesome slash storyline hahaha, must not ship... must not ship)
We had a House watching party at a friend's house. He had HD LCD TV with DVR. It is the ultimate tv watching experience!! You can skip all the commercials, rewind if we missed a section due to exciting chatter, and watch 13's eyes sparkle and glisten in full HD glory!
After the show, we decided to sample JJ Abrams' new show "Fringe" which is billed as a modern day X-files. The show has a leading girl who is an FBI agent with a dark past of betrayal, a bum genius guy (percy from Dawson's Creek) and his crazy Einstein dad who was in mental hospital for 17 years. The trio solve weird phenomenons that is part of some global conspiracy pattern thingy. The show looks ok so far, the crazy dad is definitely the most interesting person. They have this weird graphic device to introduce different places by putting the caption in giant and i mean GIANT CGI LETTERS right next the building as if it is a statue that just happen to be there. I am not sure if I like it or not. The show also has some really crazy "Science" that makes me blink in disbelief. Example: They can read the last thing a dead person sees by using a "Electrical pulse camera". NOrmally when the person dies, all the image goes away, but since this person had a muscle relaxant before she died, somehow the image was frozen in the neurons... riiightt...
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Leap of Faith
This saturday, Snoopy and I went to a team building ropes course with a bunch of other friends. The course is in a park about an hour away from the city. It consist of platforms connected by ropes and wooden beams high up among the trees about 4 stories off the ground. They attach you to a safety rope and make you climb up there and explore. It was really strenuous work because you are basically rope walking the whole time while using your arms to keep your body up right. my arms are really sore now. It is funny in that you know you are perfectly safe the whole time, but it is still very scary to walk in midair and trying not to fall. Even a tiny little gap between two platforms becomes a deep chasm that is just waiting to swallow you. Even though i am not afraid of heights it is still a challenge to overcome the instinct of wanting to be on flat ground haha.
Later in the day, the most challenging part of the course came to us. It is this 36 feet tall wooden poll where you have to climb up and stand on top. the top is barely big enough for a pair of feet. Then they slide this trapeze over to you just out of your reach. You are then forced to jump for it. You can see how I did in the video above. I reached the bar but wasn't able to hold on. I think my hands are just too weak. It doesn't look like very far from the bottom, but when you are standing on top of the pole, alone up there, the trapeze might as well be across the forest. I almost hyperventilated up there trying to work up the nerve to jump lol. I totally respect sky divers now lol.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Olympic Thoughts
I have been watching Olympics nonstop this past week, on NBC, CBC and live on the website. This resulted in a severe lack of sleep. There are of course some incredible moments in this Olympics, starting with the beautiful opening ceremony that is just full of class, elegance and awe - inspiring choreography. Zhang Yi Mou, even though I hated your movies, you did good this time! Of course we also had Michael Phelps getting 8 Gold Medals, Liu Xiang's injury (oh I was heart broken over that. Feel so bad for him!). But those moments were talked about well enough by many many other people. This post is about some of the more obscure and weird stuff I saw this week.
1. Intimidation at the Fencing Strip: Now despite have taken fencing class at school. I Have never really watched any competition on TV. And really no tv station would ever play this. So I was totally surprised to learn that when you think you scored a point in the fencing game, you have to basically scream, grunt and act victorious to the judge even though you may have completely missed.Apparently this is a tradition left over from more simple times when there is no electronic scoring. When the points are too fast for a judge to decide, it is dependent upon the fencer's confidence and aggressiveness in declaring victory to score points. Some of the women fencers are quite scary when they proclaim their awesomeness. Women Fencing Clip
2. Creative writing at 10k Open Water Swim: Now I just saw this today online. This is the marathon of swimming. A new event in the Olympics. There is no lanes in water like the shorter swimming events, basically everyone swim in this river and they all bunch up together jostling for the front spot. It looks terribly exhausting actually. But what I found funny is that since there are no lanes, there is no way to tell who is who very clearly in the water. You can't put a number on their swimsuit because the body is submerged under water. So in order for the cameras and the commentators to be able to distinguish between the athletes, all the swimmers have their number written on their arms and shoulder blades with a black marker lol. So when the camera looks vertically down at the swimmers. all you see is two shoulder blades with a giant black number on it!! How clever ;) The Women's 1-k Swim
3. Going nowhere at Track Cycling: This is actually the first cycling event I saw. I thought it was pretty weird that this sport is done in a indoor cycling track. The track looks like a racing track except it is made of wood and about the size of 2 basketball courts. The cyclist starts at the very top of the rim, slowly goes in a circle around the rim until a bell rings, in which case they zoom down to the very bottom of the track and run furiously in a circle til they cross the finish line. I suppose doing it in a slope eliminates the need of having to push off. But still kinda of a funny event if you ask me. Women's individual Sprint
4. Steeplechase: pretending to be a horse: This is the first time I saw this event in track and field. I fail to see the point of this at all. It is a race with giant unbreakable hurdles and a water puddle you have to jump through. Trusty Wikipedia says that this is derived from the Steeplechase in the Equestrian events. So something that makes perfect sense for a horse just looks kind of silly with humans haha. 3k Men's Steeplechase
5. Sailing: Ok, there is nothing really weird about this sport. I am just cruelly excited about the fact that weather has been horrible in the sailing arena the last couple of days. It was raining furiously and producing waves of 2-4 feet. So the most common occurences during the competitions is sending out the sailors to sea, while they sit in chilling rain, completely soaked waiting for the waves to quiet so they can start. And then 2 hours later, they are called back because the event has to be delayed due to bad weather hahaha. I know, I am mean :D Havoc at Sailing
Anyways, despite my amusements at some of the sports, I think this Olympics has been awesome so far. I am really proud of China for hosting it and making it such a great success and I admire all the athletes that strive for the best they can be.
1. Intimidation at the Fencing Strip: Now despite have taken fencing class at school. I Have never really watched any competition on TV. And really no tv station would ever play this. So I was totally surprised to learn that when you think you scored a point in the fencing game, you have to basically scream, grunt and act victorious to the judge even though you may have completely missed.Apparently this is a tradition left over from more simple times when there is no electronic scoring. When the points are too fast for a judge to decide, it is dependent upon the fencer's confidence and aggressiveness in declaring victory to score points. Some of the women fencers are quite scary when they proclaim their awesomeness. Women Fencing Clip
2. Creative writing at 10k Open Water Swim: Now I just saw this today online. This is the marathon of swimming. A new event in the Olympics. There is no lanes in water like the shorter swimming events, basically everyone swim in this river and they all bunch up together jostling for the front spot. It looks terribly exhausting actually. But what I found funny is that since there are no lanes, there is no way to tell who is who very clearly in the water. You can't put a number on their swimsuit because the body is submerged under water. So in order for the cameras and the commentators to be able to distinguish between the athletes, all the swimmers have their number written on their arms and shoulder blades with a black marker lol. So when the camera looks vertically down at the swimmers. all you see is two shoulder blades with a giant black number on it!! How clever ;) The Women's 1-k Swim
3. Going nowhere at Track Cycling: This is actually the first cycling event I saw. I thought it was pretty weird that this sport is done in a indoor cycling track. The track looks like a racing track except it is made of wood and about the size of 2 basketball courts. The cyclist starts at the very top of the rim, slowly goes in a circle around the rim until a bell rings, in which case they zoom down to the very bottom of the track and run furiously in a circle til they cross the finish line. I suppose doing it in a slope eliminates the need of having to push off. But still kinda of a funny event if you ask me. Women's individual Sprint
4. Steeplechase: pretending to be a horse: This is the first time I saw this event in track and field. I fail to see the point of this at all. It is a race with giant unbreakable hurdles and a water puddle you have to jump through. Trusty Wikipedia says that this is derived from the Steeplechase in the Equestrian events. So something that makes perfect sense for a horse just looks kind of silly with humans haha. 3k Men's Steeplechase
5. Sailing: Ok, there is nothing really weird about this sport. I am just cruelly excited about the fact that weather has been horrible in the sailing arena the last couple of days. It was raining furiously and producing waves of 2-4 feet. So the most common occurences during the competitions is sending out the sailors to sea, while they sit in chilling rain, completely soaked waiting for the waves to quiet so they can start. And then 2 hours later, they are called back because the event has to be delayed due to bad weather hahaha. I know, I am mean :D Havoc at Sailing
Anyways, despite my amusements at some of the sports, I think this Olympics has been awesome so far. I am really proud of China for hosting it and making it such a great success and I admire all the athletes that strive for the best they can be.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Hiking Mount Rainier
Last weekend is the last weekend that M's best friend Sun and her hubby from Houston is here with us. I decided they simply must go hike Mount Rainier before they go since the last time Sun was here, we went to Rainier but it was completely covered in clouds so we didn't get to see anything. So I took them to the Skyline Trail in Paradise after the weather reports sunny weather in the afternoon. Last time I went to Skyline Trail with Snoopy and friend and I really enjoyed it. You can see it in my previous album. It has spectacular views as it wounds around the base of Mount Rainier. When we were at visitor center, i made sure that the trail was open. The guide said that there are some place that are still covered with snow but it is totally walkable. So we proceeded with the hike even though I despair of actually seeing the mountain that day since it was still completely cloudy when we were walking up. It turned out to be a really strange and interesting hike since we were basically hiking inside the cloud cover. Too bad we didn't get to see Rainier at all. And we had to turn back half way up as the trail was covered by this "Mountain" of snow that one is suppose to hike up and over to get to the other side. M and Sun decided it is not worth breaking a leg over. As we were driving home tho, the weather finally favored us with some sunshine and the clouds moved away and we were able to see Mount Rainier in its true glory !! M was super excited about it hehe.
Rainier Album
Rainier Album
Friday, July 25, 2008
soo envious!
Snoopy found this gem on youtube. It is this guy matt that made a video of him doing very geeky dance all around the world. I think he first just started doing it and then some company sponsored him. The video is so cute and the music is perfect.
It gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling, you should see some of the outtakes too. Some of them are hilarious.
It gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling, you should see some of the outtakes too. Some of them are hilarious.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Los Angeles Trip
I went to visit my friend Kirason in her hometown LA this past weekend. I really had a great time there especially since I haven't been there since I was like 10 years old. Kirason's parents fed me ridiculous amount of food and showed me around some of the spots that LA is famous for.
Above are some of my pictures. They are actually in backwards chronological order. As the first night I went to check out Hollywood Boulevard. I was somehow extremely surprised at the humougous Scientology sign on the boulevard much to Kirason's amusement. We went to visit Chinese Theatre the Kodak theatre and read through all the stars on the sidewalk. It was pretty touristy even at night, choked full of people taking pictures, street performers with loud speakers trying to attract some attention, weird people dressed as comic characters (including one extremely well done Joker, I was too afraid to ask for a picture) and many hot dog stand that smelled super good. Kirason and I ended the night with some Italian Yogurt (whatever that is).
The next day I went to visit Universal City Walk. It is this really fun walking shopping center outside of Universal Studios which I didn't go. The entire place is full of vibrant colors and interesting novelty shops.
Last day I did a quick tour of Rodeo drive. The place where rich people shop. ALthough I suspect now a days it is more of a tourist attraction then an place to star watch. They build this small walking street on the corner that resembles an European Alleyway, complete with an outdoor cafe. But of course it is really just an pale imitation. I am mostly interested because of the movie Pretty Woman haha.
Then I visited my favorite place yet. The Getty Museum. It is this magnificent building composed of marble and steel that is situated on top of a hill overlooking the greater Los Angeles area. There is only one way up and down by tram. The museum itself is quite good, filled with valuable paintings and sculptures. I was only able to make through one wing out of four before we ran out of time. But the most beautiful thing about this museum is the architecture. There is an incredible view around every corner and framed by every gateway. The grounds are surrounded by beautiful gardens. I can totally just spend an afternoon there lounging on the grass.
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| Los Angeles 2008_07_20 |
Above are some of my pictures. They are actually in backwards chronological order. As the first night I went to check out Hollywood Boulevard. I was somehow extremely surprised at the humougous Scientology sign on the boulevard much to Kirason's amusement. We went to visit Chinese Theatre the Kodak theatre and read through all the stars on the sidewalk. It was pretty touristy even at night, choked full of people taking pictures, street performers with loud speakers trying to attract some attention, weird people dressed as comic characters (including one extremely well done Joker, I was too afraid to ask for a picture) and many hot dog stand that smelled super good. Kirason and I ended the night with some Italian Yogurt (whatever that is).
The next day I went to visit Universal City Walk. It is this really fun walking shopping center outside of Universal Studios which I didn't go. The entire place is full of vibrant colors and interesting novelty shops.
Last day I did a quick tour of Rodeo drive. The place where rich people shop. ALthough I suspect now a days it is more of a tourist attraction then an place to star watch. They build this small walking street on the corner that resembles an European Alleyway, complete with an outdoor cafe. But of course it is really just an pale imitation. I am mostly interested because of the movie Pretty Woman haha.
Then I visited my favorite place yet. The Getty Museum. It is this magnificent building composed of marble and steel that is situated on top of a hill overlooking the greater Los Angeles area. There is only one way up and down by tram. The museum itself is quite good, filled with valuable paintings and sculptures. I was only able to make through one wing out of four before we ran out of time. But the most beautiful thing about this museum is the architecture. There is an incredible view around every corner and framed by every gateway. The grounds are surrounded by beautiful gardens. I can totally just spend an afternoon there lounging on the grass.
Monday, July 14, 2008
our E3 press conference
I watched our E3 press conference this morning. It is mostly 2 hours of self congratulatory rhetoric accompanied by carefully manipulated sales data. But some of the previews for games are pretty cool. We also got to see our VPs doing some silly things on stage like acting in B movie in that new movies game so that is always fun. So here are some interesting notes:
1: The BIGGEST NEWS of ALL of course: Final Fantasy 13 is going to be released on Xbox360. This is a huge coup for Xbox since FF is basically PlayStation's bread and butter. This also means there is no need to buy a PS3 ever muhahah.
2: Resident Evil 5 is going to be online coop- I think it is only going to be 2 player. But killing of Zombies in teams is better than alone!
3: Fable 2 is also going to have online coop. Or rather it is more like MMO, where you can just randomly invite another friend in his/her own single player game in the same area and then quest together :)
4: The Last Remnant, Square Enix's FF clone (imho) is going to be released for PC. hmm maybe I should get it just test out my PC ;)
5: The battle for the ultimate Drum Kit set is starting to get ridiculous. $300 for the new Rockband 2 that has like 7 pads on it. I might as well buy a real drum set humph. Oh and it was also really funny and awkward to see Guitar Hero III guy and Rockband 2 guy taking the same stage one after the other and all very "excitingly" announcing their own proprietary artist release. This is gonna get ugly real soon folks.
6: for the portal fans, they are releasing Portal : Still Alive for the Xbox Arcade. They had GlaDos announce the news. Oh GlaDos, how I missed you.
1: The BIGGEST NEWS of ALL of course: Final Fantasy 13 is going to be released on Xbox360. This is a huge coup for Xbox since FF is basically PlayStation's bread and butter. This also means there is no need to buy a PS3 ever muhahah.
2: Resident Evil 5 is going to be online coop- I think it is only going to be 2 player. But killing of Zombies in teams is better than alone!
3: Fable 2 is also going to have online coop. Or rather it is more like MMO, where you can just randomly invite another friend in his/her own single player game in the same area and then quest together :)
4: The Last Remnant, Square Enix's FF clone (imho) is going to be released for PC. hmm maybe I should get it just test out my PC ;)
5: The battle for the ultimate Drum Kit set is starting to get ridiculous. $300 for the new Rockband 2 that has like 7 pads on it. I might as well buy a real drum set humph. Oh and it was also really funny and awkward to see Guitar Hero III guy and Rockband 2 guy taking the same stage one after the other and all very "excitingly" announcing their own proprietary artist release. This is gonna get ugly real soon folks.
6: for the portal fans, they are releasing Portal : Still Alive for the Xbox Arcade. They had GlaDos announce the news. Oh GlaDos, how I missed you.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
some real Lightning
You have seen my sad attempt at capturing the lightning storm last week. Now for you to get the full effect, look at my friend's album. He took these pictures at about the same time.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
computer woes: the conclusion!
I am now up and running again! It is good to be among the land of the living! As you probably have guessed, I finally assembled my uber machine after nights of anguish and tribulations. As Velius will attest since he listens to me whine all through it. Despite having everything already chosen for me, making this pc work proved to be surprisingly difficult! It is Murphy's Law at work. Basically everything that could go wrong went wrong and I am still shocked at all the crap I had to go through to make this uber machine load BF2142 in 2 seconds.
The actual physical assembly went relatively smoothly, especially after I figured out the front panel can be opened like a door so I can insert my harddrive in it. But then everything just fell apart from there.
Chapter 1: Hardware difficulties
So with much anticipation, I plugged in everything and pushed the power button. The light came on, there is power, the fans are on. Everything is going great. Then the Asus splash screen where it says "press Delete to enter Setup" came up and then nothing... It didn't accept input, it didn't go through hardware check. NOO! SO I had to call up Velius to whine. Fortunately, Velius is much calmer person and told me to check all the connection. That is when I realized that the CPU fan is not working. The 12volt Power plug goes directly next to it (bad design if you ask me) and it is obstructing the fan. After much assurance from Velius that my CPU did not just die from overheating. I was able to tie the power chord somewhere else. Then Power... Nothing.... noooo!!! This time, Velius suggested I remove one of the memory. Power... YES!! moved passed splash screen, did hardware check. Then I realized it is still not accepting keyboard input. Call up Velius again and ask him if I needed ps/2 keyboards. Velius informed me yes. NOOO!! I think I threw my last one away!! But after much searching, I realized i did have an extra one in the closet. So got passed that part. Next in line is XP install.
Chapter 2: XP madness
Now I have an authentic XP OS disk with an authentic key. You would think it would go super smoothly. But of course not. As soon as it got passed the partition part, it was completely stuck at Loading Windows screen pretty much frozen. You just see that annoying progress bar goes back and forth forever. NOOO!! This is right before I left for Vegas. So imagine my frustration knowing I won't be able to debug it until I come back. Velius was again the bearer of all my whining lol. So continuing after the weekend. After I perused a million online threads. I narrowed down the problem to missing SATA drivers. Since I am using the old XP disk it doesn't support SATA. Now ordinarily the solution would be to make a driver floppy and install it before Windows. Unfortunately, my PC didn't come with floppy drives!! So next solution in line is to slipstream it into my disk using Nlite. Since I am doing that anyway, I decided I might as well slipstream in Service Pack 2 as well. Nlite is actually remarkable easy to use. It is an awesome tool. So the sequence of events following is pretty much:
disk 1: burned using simple ISO burner, burn failed.. Trash!!
disk 2: success, would not boot in DVD drive, Trash!!
disk 3: burned using Nero with specific boot settings, STILL would not boot, Trash!!
Then, an epiphany occurred. I have an DVD drive and a CD drive in my PC with my DVD drive as master. I bet the DVD drive doesn't like CD-r boot disks!! ok. back into Bios, switch it all around, picks out disk #2 from trash and Voila boots!! Ok. continuing to install XP. Got passed the progress bar screen in no time. OMG so excited. Then.. failed during actual install. Error says non authenticated something or another. NOOO!! I wondered if maybe it doesn't like boot discs? But people online did it all the time. Then I think maybe I was messing too much with Nlite unattended settings and it somehow fails install.
disk 4: burned using ISO burner with no setting changes. SUCCESS!!
Finally was able to install XP SP2. Then I spent the next 2 hours installing drivers. Asus, graphics card. Oh and I put the second memory stick back in and it still worked!
Chapter 3: USB fail!
So now that Window is installed and nothing can ever ruin my day. I realized that my USB ports didn't work. Neither the ones in the front nor the back except for ONE. God, now I am thinking I have motherboard failure. I can't go on using the PC with only one usb ports! I am gonna have to use ps/2 keyboard forever! After much anguish, ( refrained from whining to Velius cause it was like 3 am in the morning). I found out that when the Asus CD says it has installed all drivers, it didn't mean the SMBus driver. I had to go to Nvidia website and install the latest driver pack for the motherboard that actually made USB work. Thanks ASUS!!
Chapter 4: Microphone setting is where!!??
Now that computer is actually working. The first thing to do is of course to install BF2142. See I got my priorities straight. After you install BF2142 for the first time, it pops up a settings dialog asking to test out the voice chat for the multiplayer. So I break out my Barracuda headphones that I won at WCG last year. It is so fancy, it can simulate 5.1 channel. The plug resembles a DVI plug it's ridiculous. Then to my horror, I realized that my microphone is not working. Now, I have done this enough with M to quickly realize it's probably driver issue. So I went to download the newest Realtek HD audio driver and installed it. It totally didn't help at all. So after another 50 pages of Internet research later, I found the answer. Apparently, even though the Realtek HD audio gives you two sets of volume controls: Playback and Recording (normal so far). Everything is actually in the Playback setting including Microphone volume! WHAT!!?? So even though there is two sets of volumes. The Recording is all grayed out and unusable. How is that even logical? So I searched out the microphone control in the playback section, and sure enough it is muted. Unmute and everything is fine again.
So in the process of creating this PC, all kinds of random problems happened but fortunately I was able to find answers somehow. Now I feel very close to it *pets PC* So I am thankful to the Internet and to Velius for listening to me whine patiently hehehe. I spelled checked this post just for you!
The actual physical assembly went relatively smoothly, especially after I figured out the front panel can be opened like a door so I can insert my harddrive in it. But then everything just fell apart from there.
Chapter 1: Hardware difficulties
So with much anticipation, I plugged in everything and pushed the power button. The light came on, there is power, the fans are on. Everything is going great. Then the Asus splash screen where it says "press Delete to enter Setup" came up and then nothing... It didn't accept input, it didn't go through hardware check. NOO! SO I had to call up Velius to whine. Fortunately, Velius is much calmer person and told me to check all the connection. That is when I realized that the CPU fan is not working. The 12volt Power plug goes directly next to it (bad design if you ask me) and it is obstructing the fan. After much assurance from Velius that my CPU did not just die from overheating. I was able to tie the power chord somewhere else. Then Power... Nothing.... noooo!!! This time, Velius suggested I remove one of the memory. Power... YES!! moved passed splash screen, did hardware check. Then I realized it is still not accepting keyboard input. Call up Velius again and ask him if I needed ps/2 keyboards. Velius informed me yes. NOOO!! I think I threw my last one away!! But after much searching, I realized i did have an extra one in the closet. So got passed that part. Next in line is XP install.
Chapter 2: XP madness
Now I have an authentic XP OS disk with an authentic key. You would think it would go super smoothly. But of course not. As soon as it got passed the partition part, it was completely stuck at Loading Windows screen pretty much frozen. You just see that annoying progress bar goes back and forth forever. NOOO!! This is right before I left for Vegas. So imagine my frustration knowing I won't be able to debug it until I come back. Velius was again the bearer of all my whining lol. So continuing after the weekend. After I perused a million online threads. I narrowed down the problem to missing SATA drivers. Since I am using the old XP disk it doesn't support SATA. Now ordinarily the solution would be to make a driver floppy and install it before Windows. Unfortunately, my PC didn't come with floppy drives!! So next solution in line is to slipstream it into my disk using Nlite. Since I am doing that anyway, I decided I might as well slipstream in Service Pack 2 as well. Nlite is actually remarkable easy to use. It is an awesome tool. So the sequence of events following is pretty much:
disk 1: burned using simple ISO burner, burn failed.. Trash!!
disk 2: success, would not boot in DVD drive, Trash!!
disk 3: burned using Nero with specific boot settings, STILL would not boot, Trash!!
Then, an epiphany occurred. I have an DVD drive and a CD drive in my PC with my DVD drive as master. I bet the DVD drive doesn't like CD-r boot disks!! ok. back into Bios, switch it all around, picks out disk #2 from trash and Voila boots!! Ok. continuing to install XP. Got passed the progress bar screen in no time. OMG so excited. Then.. failed during actual install. Error says non authenticated something or another. NOOO!! I wondered if maybe it doesn't like boot discs? But people online did it all the time. Then I think maybe I was messing too much with Nlite unattended settings and it somehow fails install.
disk 4: burned using ISO burner with no setting changes. SUCCESS!!
Finally was able to install XP SP2. Then I spent the next 2 hours installing drivers. Asus, graphics card. Oh and I put the second memory stick back in and it still worked!
Chapter 3: USB fail!
So now that Window is installed and nothing can ever ruin my day. I realized that my USB ports didn't work. Neither the ones in the front nor the back except for ONE. God, now I am thinking I have motherboard failure. I can't go on using the PC with only one usb ports! I am gonna have to use ps/2 keyboard forever! After much anguish, ( refrained from whining to Velius cause it was like 3 am in the morning). I found out that when the Asus CD says it has installed all drivers, it didn't mean the SMBus driver. I had to go to Nvidia website and install the latest driver pack for the motherboard that actually made USB work. Thanks ASUS!!
Chapter 4: Microphone setting is where!!??
Now that computer is actually working. The first thing to do is of course to install BF2142. See I got my priorities straight. After you install BF2142 for the first time, it pops up a settings dialog asking to test out the voice chat for the multiplayer. So I break out my Barracuda headphones that I won at WCG last year. It is so fancy, it can simulate 5.1 channel. The plug resembles a DVI plug it's ridiculous. Then to my horror, I realized that my microphone is not working. Now, I have done this enough with M to quickly realize it's probably driver issue. So I went to download the newest Realtek HD audio driver and installed it. It totally didn't help at all. So after another 50 pages of Internet research later, I found the answer. Apparently, even though the Realtek HD audio gives you two sets of volume controls: Playback and Recording (normal so far). Everything is actually in the Playback setting including Microphone volume! WHAT!!?? So even though there is two sets of volumes. The Recording is all grayed out and unusable. How is that even logical? So I searched out the microphone control in the playback section, and sure enough it is muted. Unmute and everything is fine again.
So in the process of creating this PC, all kinds of random problems happened but fortunately I was able to find answers somehow. Now I feel very close to it *pets PC* So I am thankful to the Internet and to Velius for listening to me whine patiently hehehe. I spelled checked this post just for you!
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
camera fail!
There was a humongous lightning storm tonight. This is super rare in Seattle since despite our rainy reputation, we almost never get anything bigger than a drizzle. When I was on my way home from work, I saw these giant lightning bolts flashing right on top of our Highlands mountain. It was so bright it lit up the entire sky even though it was so far away i couldn't even hear the thunder. I had this whim to try to capture it on my camera. Now a SD 700 IS is really not the right camera for this job I think. Tochicam would be much much better. I was not really sure what settings to use so I kinda fooled around with it. I think I set exposure to +2 so it will capture the maximum light. Then I set ISO to 80 because there is this street lamp right outside my house and I didn't want to be blinded. Although It took me a while to figure out if smaller number is better. Then I set it on continuous shot until I ran out of batteries. the first picture I took above was on ISO 800 so it didn't look that great :( The second is on ISO 80 but the timing wasn't perfect and I only got the end of the it. so really I only got this one pic that came out ok. But it really failed to capture the majesty of it all. Next time I will be ready!
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Epic Biking Adventure
It all started with me buying a $60 bike from Target in high school. I always felt it is my obligation as a Chinese to be insanely awesome at biking. But needless to say, like my many other dreams, this one didn't really pan out. I kinda rode it around my neighborhood in NC, finding that even small gentle hills are beyond my weak wobbly grasp and I put it away for 5 years. The poor bike was moved across country and sat in my garage all this time until a month ago when suddenly I had this whim that I should fix it and ride it around when it's summer. (these whims never turn out well..hmm..). Anyway, so I spent 30 bucks and got my rear tire replaced. In the words of the technician, "this kind of bending only happens when a car hits your bike" I said "hmm.. I am pretty sure nothing like that happened to me..." I know this because i have never ridden it outside my neighborhood haha. Anyway, so I rode my old/new bike around the park for a couple of days until I can stop without panicking and toppling over. All is going well until last week when Kirason said "soo.. now you have a bike, I want to rollerblade from Redmond to Seattle, want to come?"
me:" .... how far is that?"
Kirason: "oh about 20 miles"
me:"...sure"
Ahh, the courage of the ignorant. kirason assured me that since she is on rollerblades, I wouldn't have to go very fast and can totally make it.
So the original plan is that we go one way, and drive back. However, the third person decided he really wanted to do the round trip. So I was like. sure whatever having absolutely no concept of what that is like.
So the much anticipated day comes, it is the hottest day of the year, 90 degrees outside. beautiful sky absolutely no cloud. We rode on the Burke-Gilman trail which is this really nice and long trail that goes around the entire Seattle area. You can bike on the entire paved trail. Kirason assured me that the entire route we picked is actually quite flat with only very small hills. The first third of our route runs along the Sammamish River, passing farmlands, trees and small neighborhood with parks. It is quite nice since we started at 11 am so there is still shade from the tall trees. I kept my pace nice and slow to conserve energy. So slow that even Kirason was ahead of me on roller blade -__-!! . We rested at a park about 6 miles in and drank some water. The day is getting really hot now but there is still a nice breeze going. The middle part of the trail goes into the city of Kenmore along some busy streets, and then winds around the edge of Lake Washington on top of the waterfront properties. We saw some really fancy houses along the water. Even though the trail was surrounded by greenery, the Noon sun didn't really give us any shade at all. We rested again at the 12 miles. It is a good thing that all the park has drinking fountains to fill our water bottle. Both of my companions had gatorades but I just had water. I think it was fine tho. The last third of the trail is this enormous gently climbing hill to Gas Works Park along the water edge, passing through the university district. That was quite trying for me as I don't have any strength for hill climbing. After climbing the hill for an hour I was quite sick of it and my legs are getting really tired and I can feel them starting to cramp. But they never really did. I was really running out of energy when we arrived after 25 miles at Gas Works, we rested for about half an hour for a lunch sandwich and then it's time to come back! As soon as I started the trip back, I noticed that my legs and knees are hurting really bad. I pushed on but it was kind of distracting. I complained to Kirason that I never got my seat adjusted so I can't extend my leg all the way and that is probably why it hurts.. She suggested that when we past that bike shop on the way I should see if I can get it adjusted. That turned out to be a brilliant idea. The very nice guy at the bike shop took one look at my bike and was like, this seat needs to be much higher. He had to raise it 4 inches to the properly position for me, all free of charge. Before I left, he also said "your tires are only 1/3 full, if you fill them up outside, it will make it much easier" OMG he is the nicest, most helpful guy ever!! So I biked 25 miles on a seat too low for me and on tires with no air. Now that I fixed everything, the next 25 should be a breeze!!
Turned out the adjustments worked wonders. My legs didn't hurt again in the next 25 miles. But now that the seat is 4 inches higher, I completely cannot get on and off the bike again. Everytime I have to get on, I end up falling over and the same when I try to get off. Now there is an incentive to just keep peddling lol. Now it is about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and the sun is in full fury and all the breeze died down. So it is 3 hours of burning hotness back home. We rested at the same places we did the first time. At this time, I am significanly slower now. Kirason and the other guy have far outstripped me by 15 minutes. They have stopped periodically to wait for me but I told them not to bother since I will just be slow again. The exhaustion, the heat and endless trail finally got to me around 1.5 miles from the end. I keep telling myself just 5 minutes more, but at mile marker 3, I completely lost concentration and my legs couldn't move like I told them to. Actually I think my legs still had strength left, it is just my mind is so exhausted and I couldn't focus. It is kind of sad as I am sooo close to the end. I had to stop and walk with my bike for 10 minutes until the heat is just too much and I have to keep biking to keep cool lol, and I finally made back to the parking lot at 6:45 with Kirason already sitting in the car. She was pretty exhausted at the end too. I am so in awe of her for roller blading the entire 50 miles. Not only that, she was faster than me biking!!!
So that was my adventure, biking 50 miles in a day after barely learning how to bike. This was the hardest sporting thing I have ever done. I am so glad I did it tho. Apparently I can really do some crazy stuff if I really tried lol.
ETA: I almost forgot to mention, my bike fell in a ditch while I was still on it. Fortunately, it was a grass lined ditch so I was not hurt except for bruised ego from all the passerbys laughing at me and a big splinter in my thumb that I had to pick out with a needle. Good times!
me:" .... how far is that?"
Kirason: "oh about 20 miles"
me:"...sure"
Ahh, the courage of the ignorant. kirason assured me that since she is on rollerblades, I wouldn't have to go very fast and can totally make it.
So the original plan is that we go one way, and drive back. However, the third person decided he really wanted to do the round trip. So I was like. sure whatever having absolutely no concept of what that is like.
So the much anticipated day comes, it is the hottest day of the year, 90 degrees outside. beautiful sky absolutely no cloud. We rode on the Burke-Gilman trail which is this really nice and long trail that goes around the entire Seattle area. You can bike on the entire paved trail. Kirason assured me that the entire route we picked is actually quite flat with only very small hills. The first third of our route runs along the Sammamish River, passing farmlands, trees and small neighborhood with parks. It is quite nice since we started at 11 am so there is still shade from the tall trees. I kept my pace nice and slow to conserve energy. So slow that even Kirason was ahead of me on roller blade -__-!! . We rested at a park about 6 miles in and drank some water. The day is getting really hot now but there is still a nice breeze going. The middle part of the trail goes into the city of Kenmore along some busy streets, and then winds around the edge of Lake Washington on top of the waterfront properties. We saw some really fancy houses along the water. Even though the trail was surrounded by greenery, the Noon sun didn't really give us any shade at all. We rested again at the 12 miles. It is a good thing that all the park has drinking fountains to fill our water bottle. Both of my companions had gatorades but I just had water. I think it was fine tho. The last third of the trail is this enormous gently climbing hill to Gas Works Park along the water edge, passing through the university district. That was quite trying for me as I don't have any strength for hill climbing. After climbing the hill for an hour I was quite sick of it and my legs are getting really tired and I can feel them starting to cramp. But they never really did. I was really running out of energy when we arrived after 25 miles at Gas Works, we rested for about half an hour for a lunch sandwich and then it's time to come back! As soon as I started the trip back, I noticed that my legs and knees are hurting really bad. I pushed on but it was kind of distracting. I complained to Kirason that I never got my seat adjusted so I can't extend my leg all the way and that is probably why it hurts.. She suggested that when we past that bike shop on the way I should see if I can get it adjusted. That turned out to be a brilliant idea. The very nice guy at the bike shop took one look at my bike and was like, this seat needs to be much higher. He had to raise it 4 inches to the properly position for me, all free of charge. Before I left, he also said "your tires are only 1/3 full, if you fill them up outside, it will make it much easier" OMG he is the nicest, most helpful guy ever!! So I biked 25 miles on a seat too low for me and on tires with no air. Now that I fixed everything, the next 25 should be a breeze!!
Turned out the adjustments worked wonders. My legs didn't hurt again in the next 25 miles. But now that the seat is 4 inches higher, I completely cannot get on and off the bike again. Everytime I have to get on, I end up falling over and the same when I try to get off. Now there is an incentive to just keep peddling lol. Now it is about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and the sun is in full fury and all the breeze died down. So it is 3 hours of burning hotness back home. We rested at the same places we did the first time. At this time, I am significanly slower now. Kirason and the other guy have far outstripped me by 15 minutes. They have stopped periodically to wait for me but I told them not to bother since I will just be slow again. The exhaustion, the heat and endless trail finally got to me around 1.5 miles from the end. I keep telling myself just 5 minutes more, but at mile marker 3, I completely lost concentration and my legs couldn't move like I told them to. Actually I think my legs still had strength left, it is just my mind is so exhausted and I couldn't focus. It is kind of sad as I am sooo close to the end. I had to stop and walk with my bike for 10 minutes until the heat is just too much and I have to keep biking to keep cool lol, and I finally made back to the parking lot at 6:45 with Kirason already sitting in the car. She was pretty exhausted at the end too. I am so in awe of her for roller blading the entire 50 miles. Not only that, she was faster than me biking!!!
So that was my adventure, biking 50 miles in a day after barely learning how to bike. This was the hardest sporting thing I have ever done. I am so glad I did it tho. Apparently I can really do some crazy stuff if I really tried lol.
ETA: I almost forgot to mention, my bike fell in a ditch while I was still on it. Fortunately, it was a grass lined ditch so I was not hurt except for bruised ego from all the passerbys laughing at me and a big splinter in my thumb that I had to pick out with a needle. Good times!
Thursday, June 26, 2008
treasure off Youtube
so actually I have no idea how I got around to these videos. But suffice to say by some strange twist of fate (clicks?) I managed to find these really entertaining cover songs done by some really talented people. I am always amazed how much talented singers are out there on Youtube. I especially liked the Apologize cover, that just looked like so much fuN!
One Republic - Apologize w/AJ Rafael, Chris Cendana, and Der
Lucky - Jason Mraz and Colbie Callait cover
I am Yours - Jason Mraz cover (I really like this guy's voice)
One Republic - Apologize w/AJ Rafael, Chris Cendana, and Der
Lucky - Jason Mraz and Colbie Callait cover
I am Yours - Jason Mraz cover (I really like this guy's voice)
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
new Computer on the way
I finally made the decision yesterday and ordered from newegg. Thanks to Velius for basically choosing everything for me and therefore spare me the effort of having to think :D BF2142 on All high settings, here I come!
Antec Three Hundred Black ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail - $69.95
1 Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor Model BX80562Q6600 - Retail
$209.99
1 G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ - Retail $84.99
1 ASUS P5N-D LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail $149.99
2 EVGA 640-P2-N829-AR GeForce 8800GTS SSC 640MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail $399.98
($199.99 ea)
1 CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply - Retail $109.99
total $1,024.89
Antec Three Hundred Black ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Retail - $69.95
1 Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield 2.4GHz LGA 775 Quad-Core Processor Model BX80562Q6600 - Retail
$209.99
1 G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ - Retail $84.99
1 ASUS P5N-D LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i SLI ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail $149.99
2 EVGA 640-P2-N829-AR GeForce 8800GTS SSC 640MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Retail $399.98
($199.99 ea)
1 CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply - Retail $109.99
total $1,024.89
Monday, June 23, 2008
trivia!
I haven't updated trivia in a couple of weeks mostly because I have been missing it. So time for an update! Today it was the old guy doing the questions and immediately we know we were in trouble. Because he is known for "Jeopardy scoring" and obscure ancient trivia which he likes to taunt the young'uns with. But Velius would be happy to know that "Night of the Iguana" made an an appearance today. We had an category called "where am I " where we had to name fictional places that movies have taken place. The question was in which city was "Night of the Iguana" filmed. We randomly guessed Rio De Janeiro but it turned out to be Porta Vallarta which made sense I suppose. Pretty soon we would know everything there is to know about this movie without actually seen it haha. Other questions in the category were:
Which hotel was The Shining taken place in (the fictional name)
The hotel that housed Pretty Women (Darn, I almost got this one, and I really should since I have seen this movie 50 times at least)
The town of Jaws
The beach that can see HayStack Rock (this is in Oregon apparently)
We also did kinda bad in First Songs of Musicals (who has even heard of The Fantastics???), and the first bonus category: Dead Or Alive. I think we thought all the alive people were dead and all the dead people were alive. That was pretty sad hahah. We faired pretty well in an cateogry about Eddie Murphy (God he was in so many bad movies) and we did our usual best in the News category. But despite beating the last place team by 20 points, we still came in 2nd to last with 57 points. On an even sadder note, the one man team of super awesomeness won again....
Which hotel was The Shining taken place in (the fictional name)
The hotel that housed Pretty Women (Darn, I almost got this one, and I really should since I have seen this movie 50 times at least)
The town of Jaws
The beach that can see HayStack Rock (this is in Oregon apparently)
We also did kinda bad in First Songs of Musicals (who has even heard of The Fantastics???), and the first bonus category: Dead Or Alive. I think we thought all the alive people were dead and all the dead people were alive. That was pretty sad hahah. We faired pretty well in an cateogry about Eddie Murphy (God he was in so many bad movies) and we did our usual best in the News category. But despite beating the last place team by 20 points, we still came in 2nd to last with 57 points. On an even sadder note, the one man team of super awesomeness won again....
Thursday, June 19, 2008
computer woes!
I have had a string of bad luck in the home computer area the last couple of weeks. First, M's computer refused to boot, throwing a "corrupt config/system" error randomly after rebooting one day. Microsoft suggested that it is an registry error but I suspected HD error instead. Before I even gotten around to take a look, my own machine also threw the same error a few days later. This is after I came back from like a 4 day vacation and turning it on. On the surface, it seems like they are related but I really dont' see how. I dont' know any virus that would kill the HD like that. Anyway, in frustration, I decided to forego computer use for a couple of weeks. It was strangely liberating not to be tied to the Internet all day long. I actually got a large amount of GTA done. You never know how much time you are using up until you can't surf the web anymore!
Anyway, lack of computers has gotten M very antsy after a week or so. She even went so far to suggest that we buy a laptop so she can keep online!! I have created a monster! I told her that buying a laptop is NOT the solution to our problems and resigned to start to fix her problem. I used a seagate diagnostic tool to scan the HD which threw a few read errors but generally the file system seem to be intact although XP Recovery Console refused to recognize that there is a OS installed. I thought the best way to go is to boot from a linux disk (Knoppix) which runs an operating system from memory and get all her stuff off to her external drive which I just bought her a couple weeks ago and then format the HD. That went reasonably well. I copied all her docs and favorites and stuff to the external HD. Then I bought her a new bigger HD plus memory upgrades (you can never just buy one thing on Newegg!). So reinstalled windows etc etc. everything runs beautifully. XP boots up in 5 seconds. M started using it with happiness and then we realized something horrible, the linux OS apparently doesn't recognize file named in Chinese!! none of them got copied over. So we lost all her music, videos and favorites that she named in Chinese!!! Now that I put a new HD in, I can't go back to the HD because her stupid Dell machine only allows one SATA HD to be installed (they removed all the extra plugs). booo!! So I had to convince M that naming stuff in chinese is a bad idea. I think she was suspicious but she went with it. Incidentally, I am never buying a cheap Dell computer again! It is a piece of crap. After I bought it, I had to buy M a new HD, a new sound card, new memory, a switch to go with the new soundcard, new microphones to go with the new sound card and a external harddrive since she ran out of room in her original. for all that I could have built her a better one already humph!!!
Now having done all that relatively painlessly, I decided it is time to tackle my own computer since I found that I am fighting M over computer time now that we have one. (-_-!! its evil!!). now my HD is organized into three partitions, OS, data and data2 which is filled with Clay stuff (no laughing!!). I figure I could still get the data out of it and just wipe it clean. however, this is much much worse. Seagate diagnostic started throwing out read errors for basically huge chunks of file segments. chkdsk would fail at 10% without fail. basically i think the entire middle chunk of the drive is busted (why!!! why!!!). which means that I lost pretty much all of my data partition, filled with my pictures, my mp3s, basically everything I ever owned in cyberspace. however, all my Clay stuff is all still there ( great that really helps since I can redownload everything from the web anyway). So I plugged in my IDE HD into M's machine as a slave and started looking at data recovery tools online that can read a corrupted NTFS system and salvage whatever is left. I got GetDataBack which seems to be pretty good. I had to download from a Chinese website (cough cough) and for a while it seemed to going really well. It can read file segments and skip the bad ones and salvage whatever is left. So I started it up and told it to read through the data partitions which is about 200G. It said it will take 15 hours so I went to bed. When I woke up in the morning, the entire computer is frozen. no mouse, no keyboard, no display. What can I do, I had to reboot. As soon as it restarted, my HD started making the whirl and clicking noise really loudly when it was accessed. I knew righ then I am doomed. After the computer came back, it couldn't even recognize that I have a second HD installed. my HD just clicks like a old man on his death bed coughing his lungs out. So all that work is for nothing. this drive is just a pretty brick now. or as Velius puts it, a sophisticated brick.
Velius has now convinced me that I should just buy a new computer. He was nice enough to even list out all the components for me lol. So I guess I am upgrading!
Anyway, lack of computers has gotten M very antsy after a week or so. She even went so far to suggest that we buy a laptop so she can keep online!! I have created a monster! I told her that buying a laptop is NOT the solution to our problems and resigned to start to fix her problem. I used a seagate diagnostic tool to scan the HD which threw a few read errors but generally the file system seem to be intact although XP Recovery Console refused to recognize that there is a OS installed. I thought the best way to go is to boot from a linux disk (Knoppix) which runs an operating system from memory and get all her stuff off to her external drive which I just bought her a couple weeks ago and then format the HD. That went reasonably well. I copied all her docs and favorites and stuff to the external HD. Then I bought her a new bigger HD plus memory upgrades (you can never just buy one thing on Newegg!). So reinstalled windows etc etc. everything runs beautifully. XP boots up in 5 seconds. M started using it with happiness and then we realized something horrible, the linux OS apparently doesn't recognize file named in Chinese!! none of them got copied over. So we lost all her music, videos and favorites that she named in Chinese!!! Now that I put a new HD in, I can't go back to the HD because her stupid Dell machine only allows one SATA HD to be installed (they removed all the extra plugs). booo!! So I had to convince M that naming stuff in chinese is a bad idea. I think she was suspicious but she went with it. Incidentally, I am never buying a cheap Dell computer again! It is a piece of crap. After I bought it, I had to buy M a new HD, a new sound card, new memory, a switch to go with the new soundcard, new microphones to go with the new sound card and a external harddrive since she ran out of room in her original. for all that I could have built her a better one already humph!!!
Now having done all that relatively painlessly, I decided it is time to tackle my own computer since I found that I am fighting M over computer time now that we have one. (-_-!! its evil!!). now my HD is organized into three partitions, OS, data and data2 which is filled with Clay stuff (no laughing!!). I figure I could still get the data out of it and just wipe it clean. however, this is much much worse. Seagate diagnostic started throwing out read errors for basically huge chunks of file segments. chkdsk would fail at 10% without fail. basically i think the entire middle chunk of the drive is busted (why!!! why!!!). which means that I lost pretty much all of my data partition, filled with my pictures, my mp3s, basically everything I ever owned in cyberspace. however, all my Clay stuff is all still there ( great that really helps since I can redownload everything from the web anyway). So I plugged in my IDE HD into M's machine as a slave and started looking at data recovery tools online that can read a corrupted NTFS system and salvage whatever is left. I got GetDataBack which seems to be pretty good. I had to download from a Chinese website (cough cough) and for a while it seemed to going really well. It can read file segments and skip the bad ones and salvage whatever is left. So I started it up and told it to read through the data partitions which is about 200G. It said it will take 15 hours so I went to bed. When I woke up in the morning, the entire computer is frozen. no mouse, no keyboard, no display. What can I do, I had to reboot. As soon as it restarted, my HD started making the whirl and clicking noise really loudly when it was accessed. I knew righ then I am doomed. After the computer came back, it couldn't even recognize that I have a second HD installed. my HD just clicks like a old man on his death bed coughing his lungs out. So all that work is for nothing. this drive is just a pretty brick now. or as Velius puts it, a sophisticated brick.
Velius has now convinced me that I should just buy a new computer. He was nice enough to even list out all the components for me lol. So I guess I am upgrading!
Monday, June 09, 2008
midyear review
So, I have been neglecting this blog for a while now. Tochi, you are a BAD influence. well also facebook is a very bad influence. But anyway, I thought I should come back to it and try to keep it up and what better way to restart than to do a midyear review of my New Year "commitments".
Moonfleck's 2008 New Years Resolution Update:
1. Go to the gym at least once a week- I have been doing pretty well with this because my officemate is keeping me on my toes. I have been playing Badminton twice a week for the first couple months and then I lost my partner. So now I am doing cardio kickboxing once a week plus wallyball. I was reading my old ski posts and I think I need to strength my knee muscles before I can go ski again.
2. Read one book a month - well, I am a little behind here but I have read at least 4 books. I have read The KiteRunner, The Assault on Reason, Meisner's On Acting, and now I am reading A History of Iran. It is hard to choose what books to read since I want to read nonfiction but usually they are so boring I fall asleep after 3 pages. :(
3. Continue piano lessons - Total fail here. Haven't even tried.
4. Learn ONE song on guitar - Total fail here too. But I still have half a year I guess.
5. Do not lose touch with all the friends I am in touch with - Doing ok here. I saw the Veggies last months. Facebook is also making everything easier. :) Still working on this.
6. Redecorate my room - TOTAL SUCCESS!! I have sold all my old furniture, bought new ones fro Ikea, including all new sheets and pillows and mattress. I even threw in a new mattress for my mom. I was also able to donate tons of old stuff to good will. As GlaDos would say "HUGE SUCCESS!"
7. Learn to cook 3 new dishes - hmm.. haven't been able to yet although I might learn how to make cookies this week. I think that would count. My plan is to make the roasted duck that we saw on Yan Can Cook at Kungs haha.
Moonfleck's 2008 New Years Resolution Update:
1. Go to the gym at least once a week- I have been doing pretty well with this because my officemate is keeping me on my toes. I have been playing Badminton twice a week for the first couple months and then I lost my partner. So now I am doing cardio kickboxing once a week plus wallyball. I was reading my old ski posts and I think I need to strength my knee muscles before I can go ski again.
2. Read one book a month - well, I am a little behind here but I have read at least 4 books. I have read The KiteRunner, The Assault on Reason, Meisner's On Acting, and now I am reading A History of Iran. It is hard to choose what books to read since I want to read nonfiction but usually they are so boring I fall asleep after 3 pages. :(
3. Continue piano lessons - Total fail here. Haven't even tried.
4. Learn ONE song on guitar - Total fail here too. But I still have half a year I guess.
5. Do not lose touch with all the friends I am in touch with - Doing ok here. I saw the Veggies last months. Facebook is also making everything easier. :) Still working on this.
6. Redecorate my room - TOTAL SUCCESS!! I have sold all my old furniture, bought new ones fro Ikea, including all new sheets and pillows and mattress. I even threw in a new mattress for my mom. I was also able to donate tons of old stuff to good will. As GlaDos would say "HUGE SUCCESS!"
7. Learn to cook 3 new dishes - hmm.. haven't been able to yet although I might learn how to make cookies this week. I think that would count. My plan is to make the roasted duck that we saw on Yan Can Cook at Kungs haha.
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