Sunday, May 31, 2009

[半開箱] Dyson Root 6 六分鐘短暫的強大吸力


咦,背包怎麼這附德興,肥成這樣...

還五花大綁?!

原來裡面塞了那麼大一盒東西,肥到背包關不起來還要綁繩子...... 這就是玩過童軍、單車社、單車露營旅行之後的人想從1.5英里外騎單車買家電回家的瘋子會做的事。Kids, don't try this at home!
只要有了繩結,沒有什麼背不回家的東西啊(咦?)

喔,出來了,Dyson最小隻的手持式吸塵器!

開箱!嘿,包裝還頗炫的

大品牌的包裝總是頗用心的
...
這時,我室友下樓過來火速的開了所有的包裝迫不及待要開始用了
...
所以沒開箱了XDD

外星人科技造型,好像可以發射什麼雷射光束之類的手持炮

可是,下面的圓形透明容器又好像咖啡壺,可以邊打仗邊煮咖啡嗎?

指揮挺組合!充電中...

剛拆開包裝一看,赫然發現一張吊牌「Charge 3 hours for 6 minutes of use」。靠,花大錢敗入最高級英國名牌Dyson的入門款,竟然每次充飽只能爽6分鐘?!附的是一顆我筆電的電池一樣大的鋰電池,沒錯,就是筆電用的那種電池。我的筆電用3小時,這傢伙6分鐘就吸乾乾了,可見這顆馬達超耗電的阿!原來超強吸力是用暴力法達成的orz

使用時三顆很亮的電力顯示LED使它更炫,更像外星人武器。同時,透明集塵筒中的毛屑、灰塵會集成一顆小球在裡面轉啊轉,展現Dyson當家的cyclone technology。

好,high完後,又要充電了orz

Friday, May 29, 2009

搬家...

搬家好累,多搬幾次就可以變肌肉男了吧orz

找了日本室友,家中漫畫變得很多很多XD

然後冰箱從第一天開始就塞了5大包「還滿大條的小魚乾」,到他舊房間去更是滿屋子的小魚乾味 orz 結果幫忙搬家時,每走進他房間我就忍不住一直念「さかな、さかな...♪」(魚的日文發音)。

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

胡思亂想的後果...

原來,人家胡思亂想只是心情煩躁

我胡思亂想會在市中心十字路口犁田...... 今天差點就給他出車禍解脫了orz

年初雪季時犁田在膝蓋留下的疤爆了漿,沾了一大片血的牛仔褲真不知道該怎麼洗了......

なるほど

ならいい。

Monday, May 25, 2009

老鼠......

[以下內容可能會造成噁心、不適,想看者請做好心裡準備然後反白以下空白部份]
剛搬進這個租屋時小強還不少,倒是用各種花樣殺蟑螂殺的頗開心......美國蟑螂比起台灣蟑螂好打多了。後來到了秋天蟑螂越來越少,想說見一隻殺一隻策略奏效了,結果原來是住進了一隻小老鼠。常常在廚房做一些悉悉蘇蘇的聲音,但從來不亂咬對我重要的東西(電話簿、洗碗精包裝、原本就爛爛的流理台......就隨牠吧)。

我是個喜歡小動物的人,又看牠長得跟實驗是小老鼠很像,不忍心用捕鼠器或毒藥殺牠,就採取被動措施,牆壁的小洞堵起來,食物、有氣味的東西管他能不能冰全部丟進冰箱,希望老鼠餓了自然會出去找有食物的新家。主動措施,在老鼠住的流理台底下撒些漂白水,希望臭味可以把老鼠趕走。結果老鼠都乖乖的住在那,不走但也不吵我。恩,好吧。

報告房東說有老鼠,房東比我更消極的買了一顆長得像小喇叭,「號稱會發出老鼠討厭的超音波噪音」的廉價趕鼠器叫我裝了。我說你原本已經裝兩顆了,明顯沒用。房東說裝了就是了,一副「我也不想管」的嘴臉。本來因為覺得住這邊不錯,找室友找新住處的計畫採取消極的態度,多了老鼠室友,變得更積極了。搬走,老鼠留給房東處理吧。

因為要搬家了,今天開始打掃出一些可以丟掉的東西,結果赫然在一個陰暗的角落發現了那隻老鼠......的屍骨。整個乾了,沒肉沒內臟,剩下一組僵硬的骨骼跟背部一點毛皮。顯然死了幾天了,但很神奇的一點氣味都沒有。用三層塑膠袋收了屍,然後噴了一堆漂白水跟70%酒精,再把黏在地上的毛皮擦掉。幸好明天會收垃圾,馬上拿出去丟。

幸好,我要搬走了,但那老鼠的頭骨還是烙印在我腦海中。走到流理台旁踢了踢,有點希望死的不是我熟悉的那隻老鼠,但果然沒有回應了。搬走前,可愛又惱人的小室友先走了。

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

The Alchemist By Paulo CoelhoThis book has been popular for quite a long time, and it sure has been lying around my apartment for several months before I got the time to read it. It is until this month that I've finished all the classes, exams, and slowed down on my paper reading a little to have a chance to give it a good read. It really is a nice book that I'd recommend reading. It's amusing, entertaining, simple, gets you thinking and fills you of courage to face the challenges in life; and it's short, I finished it in one afternoon, and then a morning.

The Alchemist is a story of a boy who goes on a journey to follow his "personal legend", in other words, the challenge his is born to face, the reason of living. All's colorful and straightforward like a child's story, yet it is full of lessons and insights. In this way it remind's me of Saint-Exupéry's Le Petit Prince(The Little Prince). There's event after event in a fast past that keeps you going on to the next page. There's no chapters, depriving readers of excuses to let go of the book for a rest. All in all, it keeps you flipping to the next page until you finished the whole book, satisfied, feeling full of wit.

But then the twist comes several hours after you finished and put down the book. You suddenly realized that the boy in the story had his life too easy to be true. The major moral of the story is "when you are following your personal legend, the whole universe conspires to help you." Yet, from experience, we know that even if you are full of enthusiasm, confidence and drive, you'll never have an easy life. Yes, several factors would add up in your favor, people would help you, but life always deals you with cruel failures, one after another, until you finally give up or stand through all of it till the goal. This story here feels like an RPG game where you've obtained the cheat code and entered "God Mode". Actually, in the story, god (I use lower case because the god in the story wasn't specifically from any existing religion) is directly helping the boy. (人家說「如有神助」,這還真有神助?!人家齊天大聖孫悟空都沒你偉大......) Everything went so smooth, god had someone point out the way when the boy is in doubt; god has someone help him when the boy needs it; god put omens in front of the boy that's too easy to spot. God has helped the boy through every single challenge so easily that it no longer is a challenge. Heck it's easier for the boy to survive bandit threats then you getting Verizon to honor your DSL modem warranty. It's easier for the boy to get a girlfriend then you to order a pizza from Pappa Johns'. Life without struggles is not real life. This is in stark contrast to The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, in which the main character is dealt with despair after despair, it is not until the final few pages that he found a little happiness in life that we are so fortunate to have taken for granted.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Saving up by making yourself believe you are poorer then you really are

Checking your credit card balance more often then your savings account balance kind of helps you focus on what you have spent, not what you saved; thus activating your feeling of guilt more often.

Funny yet effective.

Google's CEO Eric Schmidt: "Turn off your computers!"


There you have it, it's at 11:30 of the video. Google CEO Eric Schmidt talking at Penn's graduation commencement. "Turn off your computer, and discover all that is human around you."

Interesting that it's coming from him.

Quote note

實驗室的義大利朋友至理名言:
You might be winning when you think you are losing; you might be losing when you think you are winning.

HIV免疫學教授也說:
Things are not what they seem to be.

這世界越來越奇妙了:)

Is this the end of free Credit card rewards?

So Congress just passed a bill to limit credit card companies from charging ridiculously high interest rates on people who can't pay their credit card bills. So for the people who never got a clue on how credit cards works, these banks usually charge higher interest rates on people who don't pay their bills on time; if they didn't pay on time because they don't have enough money in the first place, this interest hike would get higher and higher as the days go by in a vicious circle driving people into bankruptcy, while the rich banks get richer at the expense of the poor. Now that's the view of sympathy with the poor; but from another view point, these people might just be irresponsible people who borrow money viewing it as free lunches. Either poor or irresponsible people, congress is moving in to protect them. As this takes away a huge chunk of revenue from the banks, they now turn to charge fees on people who pay their card bills on time. They say that people like us, who not only pay on time, but also happily earn cash back or bonuses, don't bring in revenue, and should pay up for service.

Well, here's my take. I use plastic to avoid coins and change, and like it that my spending record is done for me. I use a specific card just because of the cash back, from which I just got a notice for the cutting back of cash back. I liked it when there is cash back, but I can live with out it. Credit cards are a convenience, not a necessity for us penny pinchers. Charging fees from this group of consumers would be much harder then from irresponsible people or people who really need the credit to borrow money. Once you throw away the benefits and introduce charges, it's time to say good bye. It's a free market, we can always look for other credit card companies, use debit cards, for fall back to cash. It is until then, we will see who needs who more.

This is a country of greed, big greedy corporations trying to squeeze out whatever's left out of the middle class and the poor. In a twist, this economic crisis is a nice punishment to the greed.

Update: Here's the details:
NY Times | Dealing Consumers a New Hand in Credit Cards

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Evening workout ride

傍晚送走朋友們到研討會開幕晚會後,自己一個人心情雜亂的到河濱自行車道散散心。

傍晚的河濱公園總是有它獨特的美,配上涼爽的春天天氣,真的很舒服。

騎著車晃啊晃的騎了約兩英里後,看到了一隻獨自坐在河邊的大肥鵝。

「好大、好肥、好可愛啊」心裡想著,隨性的停下車,到路邊蹲著看牠(滿草地鵝屎,不敢坐下)。看牠呆呆的望著映著夕日餘暉、亮晶晶的河水,翅膀放鬆得微微張開擺兩邊,小小的頭往左晃晃,又往右晃晃,然後又抖抖翅膀,搖搖身體。

「好可愛啊~」心裡又想。

然後牠又抖抖尾巴、扭扭屁股,

接著冷不防的,屁股後面強勁而有力的噴出了一柱黑黑濃稠的迷之液體

此時口中反射性的罵了一聲國罵,心情瞬間變糟,一臉大便的騎著車離開現場...

Saturday, May 16, 2009

車社北橫老照片


橘白色蝴蝶
Originally uploaded by intellidryad
翻到了2006年的老照片,好懷念啊!這可是我當年得意作呢!


發卡orz
Originally uploaded by intellidryad

還有當年流行發好人卡XDD

Notes on life decisions

Do, not dream.

Proceed, don't chicken out.

--

可惡,胡思亂想時就要把自己之前熱血的文章往前頂...

Friday, May 15, 2009

"恁爸係台灣人"blog貼紙


牧梅哥blog上看到的,真是太威了,我也要貼!

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Plastic bags no longer free?!

Aw man, the days of free garbage bags are over? I don't mean that I don't support plastic bag reduction, I my self use reusable bags from time to time, but I also need to keep a healthy stock of bags to use as garbage bags. Buying bags exclusively for garbage use seems wasteful...

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

「華麗なる一族」日文教室

「華麗なる一族」真是精彩,那種勇於面對難題的行動力真的是值得學習的。

很喜歡鉄平說得幾句話:
(為了不懂日文的朋友,弄了點解析)

勝ってるがどうが、とにかく やって見る
ka t teruga douga、tonikaku ya t temiru
不管贏不贏得了 、 總之  試試 看
僕 は 僕 の 力  やって見ます
boku wa boku no chikara ya t te mimasu
我 呢 自己 的 力量    試試 看
(文法重整翻譯:我用自己的力量試試看)


另一方面呢,万俵兄弟的名字取得很有趣:
鉄平掌管鐵工廠
銀平當銀行高官
人如其名,一個管鐵,一個管銀

說到鉄平,木村拓哉主演,果然木村不管到哪都是那個招牌髮型啊XD Wiki查了一下忽然想到,木村拓哉所屬偶像團體SMAP裡好像還有之前酒醉裸奔事件男主角草彅剛嘛~「裸だったら何が悪い?」XDD (小譯:這是草彅剛對巡邏警察說的名言:「脫光了有什麼不對?」......好像扯遠了orz)

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

I saw this last friday, why writing about it this late? I'm kinda busy, kinda lazy, I guess...

I never liked the other X-men movies, they were much better in the TV cartoons as I remembered. But this one is all about Wolverine, my favorite character back in the time; and all my friends are going; and I don't have anything better to do that night, so why not?

Well, I'd say this. The previous X-men movies were boring, guys in funky tight suits discussing irrelevent stuff, I once saw it on a flight while channel surfing, watched for 10 minutes and decided it was so boring that I wanted to kill my self.

Now this Wolverine movie is light years better.
Action packed? You got it.
Entertaining? Definately.
Wanna see it again? No.

Will, yeah, you get flashy special effects, sound effects were kind of gimmicky, and Wolverine sure is popular. But wait, how about the story line? No, I am not going to spill the beans here 'cause there's not much to spill. The story is dead simple, kill, kill, kill, and save the princess. Yup, your typical boy's cartoon story plot formula.

About 20 minutes into the story I started to realize it was the conventional formula, so I started to look for something else to focus on. And as soon as the iron claws showed up, I got my eyes glued to it.

Wow. Just wow.

Wow...... looks like plastic claws with metallic paint, yup, just like that cheep silver colored electronic you get from Walmart 5 years ago. How did they made the "plastic claws" so life like? after deep contemplation, I decided it's because real iron ware would be so shiny that it'll show reflections of the surroundings. In the movie, the reflections were only specifically drown on there in close-up shots. Other then that, it's all shiny, in a fake, plasticky way. I am sure doing the reflections all the time would shoot up the animation cost at least double what it was, but I just can't help it, my brain was shouting "Plastic! Plastic!" through out the last 2/3rds of the movie.

So what's good about this movie? Well, it's nice if you really have nothing else to watch, or if you love plastic... Girls seemed to like the leading actor...... now what, it this a chick flick?

Whatever, not my cup of tea.

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

一青窈・栞


(影片畫質的確很差,找不到更好的,但一青窈一向主打歌唱實力與寫詞才華,臉看不清楚應該沒關係吧:P)
一青窈 上一張專輯「Key」中的第13首,整張專輯最喜歡的一首歌。從去年五月買了CD回來後,一直到現在百聽不膩,還越聽越有味。
單純聽就很好聽了;換上高級耳機,歌聲中的情感更加清楚;配一壺熱ほうじ茶(日式焙茶)別有一番風味;配上不同心情也有不同的感覺。

一青窈寫的歌詞總是如詩如畫,但正因為如此,總要拿著歌詞本跟著念個幾十遍才會懂。這情況下CD附贈的「僅供參考」中文翻譯很少有幫助的,甚至偶而有誤導作用。這首「栞」(書籤)跟唱了快一年,歌詞還是很多不懂的。主旋律中「栞はさんだ僕」直翻好像是「書籤 夾著 我」,主詞受詞怎麼配都感覺不對說orz

Sunday, May 03, 2009

Bike rentals in European cities

I've always thought I got to take advantage of the great public bike rental programs if I visit one of those bike friendly European cities, but as in this article, turns out those rentals wouldn't accept US credit cards. But I sure am happy to read that many hotels are providing bike rentals, a trend that's also popular in Taiwan. If I don't have my own bike with me when I get the chance to visit Europe, then I guess I should look for hotels that provide them.

Friday, May 01, 2009

[お笑い]造熱大陸


果然被轉載到Youtube去了,真是熱血到一整個經典啊,お米食べろう!

不過有ニコ帳號的還是看日本鄉民原版比較熱血吧!


背景說明:松崗修造是日本知名網球選手,後來改行當運動電視評論家,也拍些廣告,後來因為他太會搞笑,被日本鄉民拿來剪接無腦熱血搞笑影片,紅了起來XD

--不懂日文的朋友翻譯服務區--
「心裡跟身體都好冷喔~」
...這樣想著的你
有馬上熱起來的方法喔
跟你說,一直喊冷當然冷嚕
要喊熱~
好冷,其實好熱阿!(前奏演奏中)
好冷,其實好熱阿!
好冷,其實好熱阿!
好冷,其實好熱阿!
ㄍㄧㄚ、ㄍㄧㄚ、ㄍㄧㄚ、ㄍㄧㄚ、ㄍㄧㄚ
一定能達成目標的!
Good Luck!

更熱一點啊!!!!
為什麼為什麼那樣就放棄了,那邊的你?
是阿
事實上都是你自己的想像啊
別放棄啊
一定要說出來啊
做得到喔
機會絕對、一定會來的
你該不會只說要吃午餐吧
大家,吃米吧!!!
吃了米的話...
大家,請多多指教~ZU~RA
感謝!
海ㄞㄞㄞㄞㄞㄞ,咦?
關於我,來了!
Bamboo
這個看一下啊
你看吧!m9(^д^)
什麼啊?哈哈哈哈哈哈,什麼啊?
不行不行,絕對不能放棄啊
更熱一點啊!!!!
那邊,那邊
修~造造,修~造造,修~造造,修~造造,修~造造造,
啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊啊~
修~造造,修~造造,修~造造......
(有空再繼續翻譯XDD)

Express shirts

Express Men 的襯衫真的好棒,材質平順有光澤,觸感舒服不易皺;花紋簡單大方;領子不需要特別燙就已經很挺,而且領子的剪裁也很有sharp look的感覺;MX1 shirt系列還會多送一組鋁合金collar stay,可彎折來微調領子的角度;原價$50,只要換季拍賣時就可以用$16買到。

而且,重點是很容易買到Made in Taiwan喔(這年代我不知道哪裡還可以買到台灣製的衣服)。

去年特別喜歡香蕉共和國的襯衫,條紋設計有沉穩內斂的感覺,但比較難搭配,很容易皺(還很難燙回來),而且全部 Made in China。然後特價都還要$30,只有運氣好時找到真的賣不出去的清倉貨才會低於$20。(Made in China不是為了cost down嗎,還賣比較貴?)

所以我就換了愛用品牌啦!