Sunday, August 30, 2009

A perfect 10


It's official: Pixar can do no wrong. A perfect track record after 10 movies straight. Not a single dud. Amazing.
If ever there was a movie that you shouldn't miss the beginning of, this would be it. The narration of the first 20 minutes was better than some feature length movies I've seen.
Oh, and try see it with a date. There are definitely some hankie wetting moments in this movie.
(Disclaimer: I haven't seen "Cars" or "Ratatouille" yet, but from what I've read I won't be disappointed when I do).

Nothin' but air

Ha, I'm finally getting a feel for the Stand Tall manouver. My timing was all wrong in my previous attempts. The key is to crouch low as you approach the wake and then start standing up BEFORE you hit the crest of the wake. You the moment you enter the base of the wake is the moment you need to start standing up.




Oooh, nothing but air beneath my board










Even getting more height on my toesides and ollies












A little move I picked up watching others. Helps me to conserve arm strength while the boat is turning.







Even my wipeouts are looking more impressive. Instead of crash and burn, I glide to a stop. Ooooh.






The shots above were captured from my videos. Here are some nice action shots taken by my WB partner:




Monday, August 24, 2009

"Progress"

Went to the Computer Festival in Wan Chai today. Hadn't been to the Pumpernickel in the Art Center for ages, so I went there with my favorite lunchie.

Damn...what the hell happened? This is what the place looked like a few years ago. Really cool looking light railed stairs:



And here it is today. Yellow bars? Seriously? And streams of cheesy lights with waxed clothing hanging from them? What on Earth where they thinking?



Sigh...just goes to show, you gotta make every moment count. You never know when things might change for the worse.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Sun shine, surfs up

Finally some good weather on the weekend. Only means one thing: wakeboarding!!!

Lost at sea...


Ha, got all tensed up doing the jump. Look at my squint and my clenched jaws.

It wasn't until leaving time that I realized that we were so close to Stanley Prison. Seems kind of wicked to lock up an inmate in a prison with a view of people having fun in the ocean.




Friday, August 7, 2009

123456789

Where were you at 12:34:56 today?

Today is the 7th of August 09, meaning that at 12:34:56 the time/date was:

12:34:56 7/8/9

Neat.

See you again in 100 years.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Ramblings of a hopped up mind

Too much coffee during dinner coupled with 34C nighttime temperature = Restlessness.

So while I was lying there for hours staring up at the ceiling with unblinking eyes, my caffeine-charged mind started obsessing over the most bizarre things. It's funny how ideas that seemed so thought-consuming last night turned out to be so incredibly trivial in the morning.

Submitted for your approval, ideas to mull over the next time you're stuck in traffic, lying awake or just plain bored out of your skull:

Why is it that the numbers 1 to 10 are all monosyllabic except for "Seven"? Why not something short, like "Sev"?

What is so special about the number 12 that we need a unique naming system for the first 12 numbers? For example, all the 20's follow the same naming: twenty-one, twenty-two….twenty-nine. But for the 10's, we only start the "teen" naming convention with 13. There's "eleven" and "twelve" instead of "one-teen" and "two-teen". Why are humans so obsessed with the number 12 (e.g. twelve months) that it needs all 12 numbers to be unique?

Why is it "Thirteen"? That implies the "3rd teen", but in fact it's the first teen (Eleven and Twelve aren't considered teens). And why is it 'Thirteen" and "Fifteen" instead of "Threeteen" and "Fiveteen"? All the other teens are simply the integer + teen.

And while were on it, why "teen" at all? Look at all the later numbers: 20, 21 = twenty and twenty-one, 60, 61 = sixty and sixty-one. So why not "ten-one, ten-two…ten-nine, twenty"?

Here's a non-numerical quandary: what's the purpose of the letter "Q"? There's nothing "Q" spells that can't be spelled with "K" or "KW" (example: Irak, Kwestion"). If "Q" could act alone and make the "kw" sound then it could be considered an efficient character because you could use 4 letters to spell "qick" instead of 5 using "kwick". But the fact remains that "Q" invariable needs to be followed by a "U" for all "kw" sounds, so there's absolutely no difference between 5-letter "quick" and "kwick".

Speaking of efficiency, why do we use "Ge" in words that can be spelled simply with a "J"? Example: "George" -> "Jorj".

And the Grand Unification of all my thoughts: If you insist on keeping "Ge", then get rid of "J". Then, we can get rid of "Q" as well and have 24 letters in our alphabet, which is a multiple of the wonderful number Twelve. Ooooooo….