linterry's blogger

Can't use DVI
Can't use DVI
Can't use DVI

Why the hell am I so obsessed with this. Truthfully, unless I scan the screen meticulously on non-Clear-typed fonts, there really is no appreciable difference between DVI and analog. I mean, when the digital died on me a few days ago, it took me several reboots before I even suspected that I had been switched back to analog.

If somebody refunded me 3000NT (the typical difference between an analog and a DVI-capable LCD), i could rest at ease. But no.. I paid that extra 3000NT, so I believe that i should *have* DVI, even though having it means nothing more than satisfying a geek impulse.

I can't concentrate on my work. Every half an hour I get upset that I'm staring at an analog generated screen that I paid digital for, and I instinctively pop back onto Google Groups for more information. It's kinda like when I had bad acne in univeristy, every half an hour I would scour the newsgroups for any new information about acne. I would just zone out and get into a "information-digest mode" and hours would pass before I even noticed it.

Well, I filled out the repair form online, so somebody should pick up the Samsung and send it off to repair. But with my luck, I bet they'll tell me the DVI input is fine, and I'd have wasted 3 days of PC downtime for nothing.

On closer examination of my my activity patterns at home, I've realized that everytime I'm sitting at home with nothing better to do, I plop my ass in front of my computer. Like a moth to a flame, it is so instinctive and I can only stop myself through self-scolding (eg "Terry, don't go back to the computer!")

Computers are really are too addictive. The sheer amount of control and freedom a person like me experiences with a PC is so different in scale from interacting with reality. Actually, today I had a lot of fun assembling 3 pieces of IKEA furniture. But that only happens once in a blue moon. I have no interest in commonly repeatable hobbies such as reading, playing cards, watching TV. They don't provide the same level of mental stimulation that a computer does. Actually, that's not entirely true... I DO have an interest in such hobbies, but ONLY when a computer is not available. If a computer is available, the computer takes precedence over everything else. Trying new programs, watching new videos, tweaking the system, it's all so much fun! But also so pointless at the same time.

As I have been consumed by fixing this stupid DVI problem, I have come to the possibility that it's the monitor at fault. Apparently samsung monitors can get their DVI circuitry "fried" easily... hard to believe, but I just connected the DVI->Dsub dongle to the ATI's DVI output and lo and behold it still works.

Looks like Samsung isn't holding up their end of the bargain nowadays...although I can't be sure unless I had another DVI capable TFT...

For some inexplicable reason, after I tried downgrading the ATI Catalyst drivers, the DVI output on the Radeon has completely stopped responding. This problem has got me totally baffled. My goto method of solving computer problems (Google Groups + Web Forums) did not help at all... the closest I got was this post right here, but the asshole was too fucking lazy to write down his solution and his e-mail is already long gone.

Can you believe that dicking around with driver and software settings can actually affect the way a video card boots up? Shouldn't happen right? But now the DVI output is dead even during the POST. It never displays anything even before Windows starts up... but only 3 or 4 hours ago, it was totally fine. I never went back there and touched the connections... so how the FUCK could this affect the bootup process? I even re-seated the card, unplugged the power supply, but for some reason there's some stupid lingering setting in the EEPROM or something that prevents the DVI output from working. It's so fucking unbelievable and the only goddamn person who could possibly know why this is happening is some obscure driver engineer working at ATI who probably needs to go through the thousands of lines of code he wrote to find out why it's happening.

You know, I look at my life in the past week or so when I got my Internet back, the new Radeon and the new 17" LCD, and I can't say that I've been living well. I spend SO MUCH TIME on the computer nowadays it's disgusting. Tweaking color temperatures, tweaking video card settings... it's all such a goddamn waste of time. Not only that, but I've been constnatly frustrated and disappointed by so many little things. The worst part is all that this stuff I'm fussing over about is so fucking insignificant. Who the hell cares really if my monitor is a little too green on the low end on the grayscale. Does it really mean anything? And yet I can't stop myself.

A week before that, when I had no internet and I was still using the old 15" LCD and the aging Geforce3... even though I said life sucked back then... truthfully, it was better. Life is always better when it's simpler... and what can be simpler than reading books on the couch and watching TV. A computer can add so much unwanted complexity into your life it's scary. I used to pride myself in understanding the internals of a computer system ... back in the Windows 3.1 days... but gradually I've just given up. It's too tiring and even the smallest change can invalidate your knowledge.

Is there a Computer Addicts Anonymous around here? I really think I should attend.

My new sports hero: Arsenal FC's Thierry Henry. He's so much like Kobe... a flamboyant prodigy kid who's more about showing everybody how fucking good he is instead of playing team ball. His attitude on the pitch says it all... he just walks around casually like he doesn't even care, then when a real opportunity springs up, suddenly he gets fired up and wants to show us what he's got. He yells at his teammates when they don't create the plays he wants. He shurgs his shoulders in disbelief when they're not in position for his cross.

I love this guy.

Here are some good examples of how variable point of references can influence our perceptions

Example 1: Speeds

1. Coming onto the highway, you accelerate to 100km/h, and it feels pretty fast.
2. Driving between cities, you drive at 140km/h on average. Dad tells you to slow down to 100km/h, and it feels like you're driving 60km/h on a local road.

Same speed, different perception.

Example 2: Speeds Again

1. Playing Street Fighter II Champion Edition in the arcades when it first came out, never complained about the speed.
2. Played Street Fighter II Turbo and all the varaints afterwards for several years. Go back to Street Fighter II Champion Edition using emulators... WHY IS IT SO FUCKING SLOW!?!?

Same speed, different perception.


Example 3: Prices

3 years ago: Regular Price of Prego Spaghetti Sauce: $3.25/jar. But it was on sale yesterday for $2.95. Aw shucks, just missed the sale. I'll wait until the next sale and get some then when it's cheaper.

Today: Regular Price of Prego Spaghetti Sauce: $3.50/jar. But it's on sale for this week only, for $3.25! HEY, it's on sale! Pretty cheap, maybe I'll make pasta tonight.

Same $3.25 price, same item, totally different perceptions. By the way, if it weren't for the fact that discounts make people happy, I'd mock everyone who falls for this stupid "80% off!" joke. Nobody really knows anymore what anything is really worth, particularily when it comes to brand-value-added items such as clothing. If anyone puts an honest price tag on anything nowadays they should be awarded a medal for their honesty and then slapped on the head 10 times for their stupidity. All you need to do to sell things nowadays is set the initial price to be double of your "ethical" price, and then when you want to sell it, mark it down as half price and watch as all the ladies flock into your store, get an shopping orgasm over a 50% sale and brag to all their friends at how "cheap" they got this particular item of clothing, when in reality they have no clue as to what it's really worth.

I want to go back to that comment I made about upgrading PC's a couple of posts ago. It just dawned upon me that the semi-brand-new Samsung 17" LCD sitting on my desk is not as big as it was 1 week ago. While it hasn't physically shrunk, perceptually it's gotten smaller over the last week.

Staring at the screen, the feeling of awesome size and spaciousness has completely dissipated. I remember when I first powered it on, the first feeling I got was "HOLY SHIT, THIS IS SO FUCKING HUGE!" Now, that wonderful feeling is totally gone. While it is scientifically bigger than my old 15" LCD, emotionally it has become the same size and the older 15" LCD has strangely imploded into an abnormally tiny screen. In fact, the only way I can get my 17" LCD to feel "big" again is if I stare at the 15" LCD for 5 minutes and then go back to the 17" one. Doing this, I can maybe get 5 seconds of that "HOLY SHIT, THIS IS SO FUCKING HUGE!" feeling before my brain reminds me how things really are.

I find this to be amazing. Because it's proof of how easily our perceptions can be influenced by our own natural ability to adapt. It is also a reminder that there are no absolutes in this world. Is a 17" LCD "big"? Sure, if you've been using a 15" LCD for the last 2 years. But to someone who's been using a 23" Apple Cinema Display LCD, it's fucking tiny! So is it big or small? It depends on a lot more than it's actual size.

My theory is this: humans must base their opinions on a variable point of reference. The point of reference (no matter how crazy it may be) is always normalized perceptually, therefore if a human sees something that is approximately around that point of reference, they think it's "normal". Two weeks ago, a 15" LCD was my point of reference, and anything above that was considered "big", below that "small". But the power of adaptation can change that. Through prolonged use, the point of reference changes. In my case, the point of reference for display sizes has now changed into a 17" LCD. Anything above, "bigger", below, "small". The same can be applied to so many other things people put opinions on... house size, standard of living, even things you wouldn't even think about like COLOR TEMPERATURE. If your monitor supports it, try raising your GREEN setting by 10 notches. You'll think your display has gotten too green but after an hour or so , it slowly becomes normal. Take away the GREEN setting 10 notches, back the original, and you think the display is too purple. Well, was your display too PURPLE or is the new one too GREEN? It all depends on your point of reference.

This raises the question: did I really gain anything by buying a 17" LCD? Sure, the FACT is that it's a bigger display and gives me 33% more desktop space. But who the fuck cares if after a week, it ends up feeling the same as the old one? Don't give me bullshit at how increased desktop space increase productivity.. that may still hold true from 800x600->1024x768, but from 1024x768 onwards it's just a geek impulse. I don't see myself getting 33% increased productivity with Sonar.

Truthfully, all I really did get was 1 week of temporary geek euphoria. I don't think that was worth 17,000NT.

While most people probably already know what I just wrote... I think a lot of people forget about relativeness in their daily lives, and assume that their judgements are somehow absolute in nature. There actually are absolutes in nature, but usually they deal with pain/frustration thresholds, not happiness. I'll get into that some other time

The KFC bucket: the perfect symbol for American Excessiveness and "Gratification at the expense of Health".

Just now my internet connection slowed to a crawl. As I always suspect the worst (virus/trojan) before suspecting the obvious (net traffic), I run a netstat on my computer and I find all these weird ftp connections and shit to seemingly residential addresses. Fuck that... am I going to see gay porn on my desktop again? That happened 3 or 4 months ago, when I booted my PC, a slideshow of the grossest gay porn started playing... later I discovered that this virus would initiate ftp connections from my machine and download pics from a specific site, and when it accumulated enough, it would slideshow them on bootup.

I quickly run Norton Anti-Virus with their latest definitions. Nothing. By the way, I most certainly subscribe to the belief that anti-virus companies are indirectly supporting the virus creation community. As we have seen many times in the history of mankind, when we're talking stock prices and meeting quartery profit expectations, we can pretty much throw "ethics" out the window.

I login to my Internet Sharing Router. What the hell's this? Somebody out there has been messing with the port forwarding settings... because now I see a huge list of forwarded ports and I sure as hell didn't fill that in. I quickly wipe it out and change the default password of "admin" (note to myself: always change the default passwords on these routers first thing)...now all the weird connections are gone.

You know, people call me paranoid and accuse me of "thinking too much"... but quite honestly from my point of view the majority of people out there think too little and are way too gullible. For instance, for the last month I have received countless e-mail viruses which I can only assume are coming from other people's infected computers who have my name in their address book. How the fuck can you fall for something as stupid as an e-mail virus, ESPECIALLY when the From address is not somebody you know? I keep reminding my girlfriend not to open any attachments before my say-so because I know she is the kind of person who will fall for these kinds of ploys. I guess that's why she sleeps soundly at night when my mind is fraught with a million worries, half of which are "who's trying to fuck me over now..."

Quite honestly though, the people who should be destroyed are the people who write these silly viruses. My psyschological analysis: all these people are lonely, needing attention, and are desperately seeking any form of activity that will boost their ego and justify their existence. They have no job, receive a monthly check from one of Symantec's "affiliated" organizations, always wear t-shirts and jeans, and smell of their own sweat and oil all day long as they code virus after virus in their dark, solemn computer room.

Got this off some other guy's xanga. If you haven't seen this yet, damn is this ever funny.

Up to now, auction scamming was something I kept hearing about but never really believed. Of course, when I bought my Roland SC-8850 from Yahoo Auctions half a year ago, I was pretty damn nervous that the guy on the other end would fuck me over somehow... I mean really, if you send the guy money, and he doesn't send you anything, WHAT are you going to do? Hire a lawyer? Haha... like that's really going to happen. Sure you can slander him on ebay but you still end up being the loser.

Believe it or not, my cousin is apparently now the victim of an eBay Scam. He's a avid bass guitarist and purchased a Rickenbacker 4001 1974 model on the American eBay site. He wired US$1833 to a "M T Gagliano" living at "311 chisbueru close bratnell rg12 ots", and after 2 months, what did he get? 2 e-mails making excuses as to why he can't send the item out...

Also have a phone number... 44 1344 647389... it's a lady who claims she "just moved in" and never heard of a "Mr. Gagliano". LOL.

Really, what can we do. All we really do know about this guy, is that he has a HSBC bank account in England. Go to the bank and demand his personal information? I doubt the bank would give that out unless we had solid evidence that a fraud had been made.

Ever since I realized that I could adjust the color temperature of my monitor using the ATI Color Property Page, I have started on a pointless crusade to achieve a perfect sRGB color calibration (ie D6500 across the grayscale). It's history repeating itself all over again... back in high school, when I first purchased the Sony XBR, I must have spent over 50 hours spread across 2 or 3 years repeatedly adjusting the RGB gains in the service menu. Since the final picture looked like shit anyways, I must admit that I never got close.

Now however on the PC, I'm armed with grayscale patterns and using some subjective adjusting, I've discovered this startling fact: the human eye slowly adapts to whatever white point it's looking at, as long as it's close to white. So while the white you're looking at may technically be too "blue", but as long as you stare at it long enough, you'll no longer notice it.

Over the last 3 days I have endlessly tweaked the RGB sliders and everytime I think I've come up with the "final near-perfect" set... until the next day, something makes me want to try tweaking it again, and then I come up with a slightly different set of numbers, and the process repeats itself ad-infintum. In the last 3 days I have already created 15 profiles, 7 of which I have prefixed with "6500" to indicate that I felt it was close. Of course, the reality is that it's probably really far.

And it's out of control. I just spent the last 3 hours endlessly tweaking 6 sliders, checking grayscale patterns, looking at digital photos... trying to tweak it to some imaginary ideal state when in reality there's no way a human can perform color calibration without expensive equipment. But it's got my virgo side hooked and I can't stop myself...

You may be wondering... is there really something to be gained by achieving true 6500K (aka sRGB)? Well, supposedly if your display is truly 6500K across the entire grayscale, everything seems to "come to life"... photos and movies will be rendered in their trueest colors and everything looks fantastic. Actually, the Apple Cinema Dispaly 26" LCD's... I've noticed that everytime someone walks past one they not only remark at its size but also at how "comfortable" the picture is, in terms of color balance... it's warm and appealing. And some net-research will reveal that the Apple Cinema Displays were built from the ground up to strictly adhere to the sRGB standard (color calibration is a big deal in the Apple world, where graphic artists proliferate)... which means they are strictly calibrated to 6500K across the grayscale. I know that everytime I walk past one of those displays, I can't help but stare at it for the longest time, marveling at how inexpicably beautiful the image is... it's not the sharpness or the saturation... but more of how all the colors seem beautifully balanced in perfect harmony.

How fucked up am I? Not only have I spent the last 2 hours trying to pointlessly calibrate my LCD, but I've spent the last 10 minutes just TALKING about it. I need to get a grip on myself... grr....

My my my, I'm outta control. For some reason, when I see an unused DVI port, the techno geek in me can't sleep properly until the "issue" is resolved. So I purchased a brand new Samsung 172X 17" LCD which of course features a DVI connector. Cost me NT17,900 and it really goddamn hurt to put down so much money again after forking over NT100,000 on the new place.

Here's a prime example of how marketing likes to fuck around with customers. Below is the AD that was printed at a dedicated Samsung retailer at the NOVA Computer Shopping mall in Taipei.



If I may draw your attention to the red circle, it states that the 172X has a response rate of 12ms (twice as good as all the others) and a viewing angle of 170 degrees (just as good as all the others). On top of the "NEW" printed on top, and a general lack of understanding of the LCD technology market, what is the average consumer more likely going to believe:

1. there's some kind of improvement in Samsung's LCD technology that allows the 12ms response rate
2. okay, so it's probably not 12ms exactly, but still has be better than the others that quote 25ms
3. it's actually using an older type of LCD technology which has a faster response rate

I would imagine that 50% of your everyday "e-mail and web surfer" consumers believe #1, 40% of cynical scrupulous consumers believe #2, and the remaining 10% of cynical scrupulous consumers who use Google Groups everyday will find out that #3 is the truth.

There is no voodoo magic behind the 172X. It's just using an older type of LCD technology, the Twisted Nemanic (TN) type that is actually the same kind used in my *2* year old "budget model" 15" Samsung 151S LCD. Most LCD's sold nowadays use a different kind of technology.. the MVA/PVA type that has a slower response rate but a MUCH better viewing angle. All the other models next to the 172X that have a 25ms response time are based on the newer PVA types.

So, how is it that this ad quotes the 172X as having 12ms response time AND a PVA-ish 170 viewing angle (despite being a TN)? Because marketers are lying assholes who will go to hell, that's why. I'll tell you this right now... any TN-based LCD has a usable viewing angle of only 60 degrees at most... anything past that and all the colors go darker/lighter in weird areas. Of course, if you really want, you could still read text at the quoted maximum angle, but it would be really ugly. 60 degrees is a lot less than 170.

Another thing is that TN based LCD's do not have an average response time of 12ms. 12ms is the ideal scenario, but the average response time (depends on what colors are transitioning to what) is much higher than that. It's better than PVA, but not twice as good.

Anyhow, I still value my purchase, because at the end of the day, a TN LCD is still much better suited for games. It's too bad the 172X's gamma circuirty seems to be totally out of whack, because on startup all the colors are totally washed out. I had to turn down the gamma to 0.55 on the video card to produce a similiarly balanced picture to the 151S. And of course, like any consumer display product today, to whole picture has a blue tinge to it, but thankfully the Radeon has indepedent RGB color controls or I would go crazy looking at a 9000K white all day long.

Still, bugs me to see that they are pitching the 172X as something "new and improved" when in reality it's a "old but better in other ways" technology.

i'm getting this bad vibe that xpec doesn't really like me, at least not the guy that works with me steve... i guess that will happen when all i do is criticize the work they spent long hours on.

After jacking off with my ATI Radeon 9800 Pro for awhile, I have come to the conclusion that we are being taken for a perpetual ride by the PC industry... in the sense that everything must keep upgrading even though there is no legitimate reason to upgrade.

That's how it's always been right? Anything that's over 2 years old, you gotta replace. You buy something new, get that one day or two of techno geek euphoria where you sniff the manuals and protect even the packaging, but then for some reason over time you stop giving a shit, and in a year or two you can't wait to replace it (the manual is also long gone too, along with its original smell). From a human emotional context, the world of PC's is not one of constant improvement, but a cyclical one where the peaks are marked by new purchases and valleys are marked by frustrations with old hardware. There's no finality or permanence in anything. And since nearly all PC's have a limited lifetime, after which you have nothing left to show for the $300 you forked over 5 years ago, it makes more sense to say that you are "renting" hardware as opposed to "buying" it. Is there really a point in owning somethig that will become useless in 5 years? Somehow, this makes me feel like money itself is such an impermanent thing, when it seems to give the illusion of permanence.

Well, today was a really good day i have to say. First thing, I got my internet back, which is totally awesome... because life without internet SUCKED. Secondly, Jeffrey came by and brought two wonderful geek toys: 1. my old IBM keyboard (finally!!!) which also had several bent pins on the connector and I almost died of a heart attack when I thought one of them snapped... and 2. a brand new retail ATI Radeon 9800... this was a bit of a luxury purchase, but since Jeffrey works at ATI, it was half price. Did you know that this card actually needs to feed off a power supply connector to function correctly? That's scary. Anyways, we toured Shi-da and Nova and ShinKong Mitskuoshi together, it was really weird becuase I've only known Jeffrey in Toronto. But it was fun and now I get to play around with my new toy... awww yeah!

Just wanted to let my fan base know that I'm still alive and kicking, it took nearly 2 weeks for the piece of @#$@$!@$ chunghwa telecom to move my internet line to my new place. I also caved into a sales pitch and upgraded to the 2Mbit service plan (from the previous 512kbit), but so far average website latency seems to be just as bad and bandwidth has only increased by 10k/sec when downloading from very specific sites. In other words, there's no difference.

This pic is so goddamn hilarious

Just now I had this strange craving to look up online housing classifieds for the Taipei area.

I ask myself... why? I already picked a new house, I've already signed the contract and today I made it even more formal by signing a notarzied (legalized) version.

And yet when I saw an ad for a 19000/month rooftop studio in the same neighbourhood, described as "perfect for couples and SOHO, with abundant sunlight through all 4 sides", I wanted to see that place so badly. Everything about it sounds even more ideal than the place we picked, which is a more traditional 2 bedroom 1 living room style, something I thought was a little beyond our requirements.

Why? why? why why am I always unsatisfied about things that I care about. I guess I've always been like this. I remember back in the high school days, I went through a TV purchasing phase where I would scour the rec.video newsgroup everyday for information about televisions. That's where I learned about color decoding, color temperature, power regulation... all the lesser known characteristics of a television set that truly define its quality. Then when I got my first job at Bell Sygma and made some good cash, I bought my first Sony 27" TV for about 800 bucks. When I took it home, and realized that you couldn't adjust the color decoding parameters in the service menu, nor could you disable scanning velocity modulation (things that your normal consumer wouldn't give a shit about), I just HAD to exchange it for something else or I wouldn't be able to sleep. And then when people on the newsgroup told me that the only model that had adjustable color decoding parameters was the most expensive XBR version, I bought it, even though it cost a magnificnet 1500 bucks. Was I satisfied then? No. I kept going through the service menu, making minor tweaks here and there, never satisfied with the final picture. If you come to my house today and see my XBR, you'll find that it doesn't look any better than your average television set. It certainly wasn't worth 1500 bucks.

I call this "Destructive Perfectionism". Basically, I become so enamored with getting something "perfect", that I lose sight of what exactly I'm perfecting. Along the way, I feel continually stressed and dissatisfied over the smallest things.

I guess I feel the same way about my new house right now. It's a great house by anyone's standards... except, I can visualize something more ideal that wouldn't cost as much, and that's what bothers me to no end. The idea that perhaps, somewhere out there, I could have gotten a more likeable house for the same or less rent tortures me to no end. The problem is that when I first saw the house, it was so much better than anything we had seen so far that I had to take it the next day out of fear of losing it to somebody else. However, after spending a lot more time wakling around the inside, I feel that it's not the "perfect" house for 25000NT/month.

Did you know that when the landlord installed the lighting fixtures, I complained about the color of the lighting, and then I complained privately to my girlfriend how shitty the fixture actually looks, and vowed to replace them with better ones from IKEA. When the landlord installed the air conditioners, I complained about the placement of the exterior unit, and forced the technicians to relocate the unit to the roof. I also complained about the fact that one of the interior units was placed in a very strange location, but apparently that was due to a legitimate technical constraint (I actually got so pissed off about this small detail I ended up fighting with my girlfriend about why it was unacceptable). I'm going to bet anything that when the landlord installs the new curtains, I'll start whining about the color or how venetian blinds would be more suitable.

Why am I like this? Did my parents not raise me properly? Is it genetic? Or is it perhaps the fact that I'm a Virgo, and that's one of my trademark characteristics? I really don't know. What I DO know is that this stupid trait of mine keeps me awake late at night worrying about the most trivial of problems, when most other people (eg my girlfriend) around sound asleep without a care in the world.

I doubt I'll live past 50 without getting a couple of ulcers and losing all my hair.

By the way, if you remember how I said that Taiwan houses look like shitholes, I have a couple of "candid pics" of what you usually get when you look for houses in Taipei. The person who posted these ads deserves a medal for being so honest with describing how shitty his joints look along with the ridiuclous price.

Shithole 1
Shithole 2
Shithole 3

Here's a great site that kept me entertained for a good 30 minutes.

http://home.att.ne.jp/delta/hiroakabuchi/index.html

There's a distrubing pattern with web pages. Basically, any site with an overly customized design has shit information... and anything with a basic design has great information. Am I just subconciously prejuiced? Or maybe I'm right, because if you spend all that mental energy on those stupid-ass Flash animations and countless illogically segregated toolbar GIFs, there's not much left for content, is there. The same theory holds for girls too... how many times have you heard the next guy say "a girl's looks is inversely proportional to her personality/intelligence". It all goes back to the idea that we only have a constant amount of energy to expend, and if you allocate so much on one thing, there's only going to be so much left for the rest.

Flash sites with tons of animations are the goddamn worst. Not only is it a severe ergonomic hassle trying to cope with the pacing that the creator dictates, but seeing informational text as bitmapped graphics is just a complete turn-off. I really hope that "visionaries" who imagnie the future of the web as some kind of a 3D interactive expereince die of cancer or something. The web should be used as nothing more as a passive, non-invasive tool to access information. Anything that serves as an obstacle to accessibility should be eliminated. Subtle aesthetic and ergonmic enhacements such as rollover highlights are very welcome, but a complete re-interfacing is not.

Ever since I started my search for a new place to live, I've become increasingly interested in what's available in the real estate market, in Taipei, Tokyo, Toronto... it all interests me. I started my journey with the Tokyo real estate scene... La Tour Shiodome, found via http://arkios.co.jp





If I ever make it rich one day, that's the kind of place I would want to live in. What a view.

This part (regarding rental conditions) surprised me though:

- Rental Conditions
The typical Japanese apartment or house up for rent requires 1-2 months? rent "key" money (gift money to the landlord which is NOT refundable), 2-3 months? deposit (refundable at the end of the lease) in following with custom. Also a fee of 1 month痴 rent at the time of contract renewal is quite common.


Wow. And I thought a 1 month service fee was already outrageous. How about the rent price... whew... check this excerpt

- Price and Size
The typical Japanese rental property is anywhere between 17 sqm and 140 sqm., whereas expat housing is typically in the 50 to 300 sqm range. Due to the larger floor space, the price range for expats housing lies in a higher range, 350,000 to 2,000,000 yen and higher. The majority of Japanese people prefer to spend less than 400,000 yen for rent, because at anything higher than that, purchasing a home becomes a better deal.

350,000 is the base minimum? That's just unbeilevably crazy.

I have a wacked out theory about spring... that people get hornier during this time, and are more prone to suffering from "love attacks".

One thing I have found interesting is the startling number of people who are born in Janurary. Just surfing around random xanga sites it seems that we have one too many Capircorns around here. If you do the math, being born in January means there was some good fucking in March & April... which is, my my my, coincidentally the beginning of spring.

I have this weird term called the "Spring Afterglow Depression" (or S.A.D. for short). I used to call it the 2pm afternoon blues but I like S.A.D better. What is S.A.D? It's a kind of moment really, that encapsulates a whole smorgasboard of human emotions. Let's say there was this girl you've been keeping your eye out for all throughout cold snowy winter, but never had a chance to take it to next level. Now in spring, you just had a casual lunch with her, and drove her home, and in your mind you saw a glimpse of the romantic possibilities. But you are left all alone once again at 5 in the afternoon. You're driving home in your car... the sun still shining bright, the smell of human scent and sex in the air, the trees' newborn leaves bristling in the air... but you're alone again... and all you're left with is the "afterglow" of being with the girl... and once you get home... it's so fucking depressing. The quickest remedy is to quickly get on the computer do some online-chat, but the smell is still in the air, the soft sunilght infiltrates your room, and it's almost unbearable, but you can't find anything to legitimately complain about. Soon you're eating dinner, the sun still shining bright, and you can't get the girl out of your head. Bam, you're lovesick, all thanks to spring.

That's S.A.D. I think I've expereinced of a couple of these episdoes every year. Mostly in April or May. But with a girlfriend, things are different. She's like a drug that prevents these emotions from flooding in. Good or bad? Not really sure... the S.A.D. moment is most closely associated with depression but it also has a strong connection with hope and potential.

Whew, that was a pretty touchy feely post.

I just found this xanga site on the net. For christ sakes, an average of 100+ comments on each press release? Who the hell do those people think they're reaching out to? The actual Jay?

While I'm waiting for Simon to send me a rush job MIDI (due tomorrow at 10am, wow it feels like I'm back in university again with assignments), I googled for some old acquantainces on the net. Today, my catch was Michelle Tam from high school. It really sucks that she doesn't have an up to date xanga (or maybe she does, but I can't find it...), because fresh information is 1000 times more interesting, but it still brought back some pretty funny memories. Strong perfume, high heel boots, fluorescent clothing, the "Valley Girl" talk... she's basically a stastistical anomaly sitting on the fringe of the "Female Persona Bell Curve".

Since I'll probably never see her again, maybe I'll make life interesting for some of my readers by admitting that I had a small crush on her in high school. She used to come up to me over and over again and say weird things like "Hey Edwin.. no wait... let me guess... Terry right? You two look[cali talk] soooooo [/cali talk] alike." And then when that got old, she would come up to me and say "Terrylin... terrylin... wow your first and last name go together [cali talk]soooooooo[/cali talk] well.

Then in Algebra & Geometry class with Mr. Pierce, she would always get up from her desk for no reason, come sit by lonely ol' me, and start chatting about anything. Jason Ng once remarked "oh, there she goes again", which kind of got me thinking... hmm... that's not RIGHT... a girl wants to proactively talk to ME? That's why that moment is crystallized in my memories... that was the split-second moment where I believed it was possible that a girl could actually be interested in me.

I still remember that moment, coming home from school one day, going behind the Esso and opening the back door of my garden, I suddenly just thought of her in a romantic way. It's unfortunate that I was totally incapacitated in terms of socializing with girls, so the most communciation I had with her was a couple of totally meaningless e-mails, mostly about perfume... not like I really cared about perfume, but as someone who spent all his free time dicking around Linux and OS/2, there was nothing else in common I had with her. She kept talking about this dude "william" in the states with whom she seemed to have a quasi-boyfriend relationship with... because she couldn't stop talking about that totally kickass car he drove. I drove a really dull 3-speed automatic LeBaron GTS (I will not forget that time when Alex Tomic pushed my unlocked LeBaron a goddamn block away which nearly gave me a heart attack)... and I doubt she "digged my ride" as much as that other dude. Anyways, I did give her a ride once in my trust old LeBaron but I distinctly remember one moment on the 404 & 401 intersection, where I just ran out of things to say to her. Basically, I kept asking her quesitons and was in 100% empathize mode. That's when in the back of my mind, I thought... "I'm so goddamn hopeless", and I couldn't wait to drop her off, go back to my basement and dick around some more with Linux and OS/2.

Looking at her page now, I wonder... have I "improved" in the sense that if we meet again, I could actually hold her interest? I kinda doubt it. She's into bboy dancing and from her webpage it's obvious she still has a thing for fluorescent colors (I only wear black, beige and gray), so we'd still be worlds apart. But quiet honestly I think she's really attractive, reminds me of the famous actress Koyuki (in Last Samurai) and of course the lovely chynadoll18 who probably thinks I'm a creepy perverted stalker by now...

Damnit... when is that MIDI coming in... it's already 5:18AM.

Today I asked my girlfriend this question:

"A man is about to rape you. He gives you a choice: ass or pussy. If you don't choose, he'll do both. Which do you pick?"

My girlfriend's answer:

"[hmmmm...] I pick ass. A girl's pussy is a sacred place, where my future child will be born. If it's soiled, it's like my room or bed is soiled, and I can't stand that. However, the inside of my ass is so dirty to begin with, so all that crap will go out with next poop."

LOL.