busy busy busy!

whew~
test and other crap…
just didn’t have time to post…
I think I’ll be able to make a new lyrics post next week.
i hope……….

some thoughts…

wow!
this blog is growing faster than I’ve expected when I started.
It started with single digit clicks per month to now triple digits per month and still going up. I thought it was gonna stay at single clicks or no clicks at all… since I did not tell any of my friends about this blog, but still, it got known to many. And that is why I’m surprised.
Usually I’m lazy when it comes to updating new entries, but it seems now I’m more motivated (or obligied??) to write new stuff. Which means I’ll try to enter new stuff more often…
Anyway, thanks for people who came in and read my not-so-good translations and my meaningless bitching about lots of things. Moreover, I guess I’m now open to requests and comments, gimme your feedbacks, so I can do this better.

By the way, I’m planning on translating Bump of Chicken’s Supernova. It’s got really profound lyrics, and I want to make it known to many (although I’ve seen some translation already up in the web, but I believe I can do a better job.) And I’m also organizing my “Top Ten list of best one-hit-wonder songs.”
So stay tuned, I guess?

Tim

Perfect Guide on How To Survive New Year Countdown in Times Square

Three things you need to bring:
1. Chair
2. Oxygen Mask
3. Empty Bottle

Since you need to be there at least around 5p.m. (maybe earlier nowadays?) in order to get a good view of the crystal ball, it is better to get a chair so your legs will survive the long wait.
Unless you are 6 foot 10, you will probably have hard time breathing because of the crowd. In order to stay alive, it is wise to bring a oxygen max.
And you lose your spot if you run to the restroom, so you definitely need an empty bottle to…

I’ve been to the countdown twice, and had awful times there. I did get okay spots (can see the crystal ball, but cannot see performances.) It was so crowded that it felt like subway during rush hour except it was not underground. Fight broke out several times because people were pushing and pulling, but amazingly when everyone started screaming 321 happy new year, people immediately forgot about what happened in the previous year. It’s got to be the New Year’s miracle…

So you think it’s pretty…

My friends from west coast (and anywhere tropical) always say to me, “So you live in New York, it must be beautiful during the winter with all that snow.”

 …apparently, these people have no idea what it looks like when the city is covered in snow.
When the city is snowing, it is “probably” beautiful, and “occasionally” romantic, but when the snow stops, it gets ugly. Imagine things (dirts, dog crap, dog urine, trash, and everything dirty) you see on sidewalks all the time, but 10 times worse because these things stands out 10 times better with snow on the background. It is like a pure white canvas covered with feces, dirt, and urine. After few days, the snow absorbs the waste gas from cars and turn into dark chunks of snow bricks like something you would find in a coal mine. There is nothing pretty about it.

It’s ok to be hypocrites

It’s ok to be hypocrites…
I’m not trying to to be sarcastic about it.

    Couple days ago, in a quite serious discussion, someone in the crowd bursted out his negative opinions about gay people, and the rest of us all looked at him with the “you intolerant bastard!” look on our face. The discussion eventually ended badly (because of that obviously), but it got me thinking.
    Even though I always try to be open about it and say that I’m cool with gay people, I still have a part of me telling me not to accept it. The so-called “traditional” part of me that I got from my parents, my community, and my educations. Oh, lets deviate and go off track a bit: I was shocked when I watched the movie Alexander, because my 9th grade history book did not say anything about Alexander the Great being gay. If my 9th grade history teacher wasn’t homophobic and at least mention about it, I would not be so shocked about it. (by the way, that movie suckes)
    Anyway, go back to the topic. Under “normal” (<–although politically incorrect, I cannot find a better word) circumstances, I do not find myself as tolerant as I claim to be, or rather I really don’t care about it. So why do I, and most(I hope I’m not alone in this one) people pretend to care – because we do not want to be on the other side. We do not want to be labeled (sounds familiar?) 
    I believe everyone is entitled to their opinions. As a result, it is ok to be anti-gay or anti-whatever the hell you want. As long as these people do not go out and commit hate crime, they have their rights to say what they want and believe what they want to believe, just like the guy I mentioned in the beginning. Sadly, this is not how the society is set up to be nowadays. For instance, there are “anti-gay” people and “anti-anti-gay” people. There are no “pro-life” people, only anti-abortion people, because if they really are “pro-life”, they would not go around and assassinate abortion doctors (though I’m not suggesting everyone is like that, I’m just trying to make a point…)  
    As the society is being set up today, we are forced to pick a side, and whoever pick the “other side” will be labeled as “intolerant” or “homophobic”, and people who don’t care (like me) will also be labled as “ignorant.” In order to avoid being labeled, we pick the “good” sides, although there really is no such thing as good or bad. The good and bad we know of is always decided by the majority, and the good here may be bad on the other side of the globe. In the end, we all rush into conclusion and support something we really cannot connect, or something we really don’t know that well, just so that we do not get left alone with the so-called “bad” guys. In the end, we are without-doubt hypocrites (or at least I think I am.)

Cuteness vs. Cruelty Theory

Cuteness vs. Cruelty Theory:
Hypothesis: 
  cuter the creature is, people have less tolerance in animal cruelty regarding that animal; uglier the creature is, people have more tolerance in animal cruelty regarding that animal. 

Proof:
  Dolphins -> cute. 
  No tolerance for cruelty!!
  http://www.savejapandolphins.org/

  Cats -> cute. 
  No tolerance for cruelty!!
  http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/us/14cats.html?ref=us

  Now, if dolphins and cats look like cockroaches, will people still scream animal cruelty?
  I doubt it.

Conclusion:
    Lets face it, if you are ugly, do not expect any animal activist will ever speak up for you. No one considers smashing roaches with slippers is cruel. I know it does not sound fair, but the world is never fair in the first place. People would get really angry about someone posting photos of them torturing cats, but the same angry crowd would laugh at “10 ways to torture a captured cockroach (with photos).” The only thing you can do is to reincarnate into something cute in the next life.
    My point is – if these animal activists don’t want to be hypocrites and want to show that they really feel for those poor animals, they need to have a good reason. Personally, I cannot think of a reason “why not” to kill dolphins - the reason maybe because they are intelligent and friendly. If that is the case then I’m quoting Cartman from South Park: “intelligent and friendly on rye bread with some mayonnaise” Or maybe it is because they are endangered species, but look at the cat-shooter, he is trying to help endangered species and people are calling him a “murderous fascist” and a “diabolical monster.” He’s got a relatively good reason in his action, even though there are probably better ways to keep the cats away, like eletric fences (then he would probably be in court for negligence because of some kids who can’t read the sign died of electric shock.)
    I’m not promoting animal cruelty. I’m just trying to figure out what qualified as animal cruelty, so when people scream “animal cruelty” or “you ruthless killer”, they know where they are standing and not just going to turn around and chew on their slice of pork or steak. Since I’m a big time carnivore, I never considered myself being justified to speak for any animals (not even roaches, cuz I smash one when I see one.)
    However, it is not just animals have feelings, vegetables have feelings too (more or less because we do not speak the same language.) I remember someone told me that because she cannot bear the thought of animals being killed, she became a vegetarian. I did not say it right in front of her, but I thought, ”well, if vegetables can talk, they would probably scream STOP EATING ME!” 
   In fact, when people buy pets on impulses and ruthlessly dicard them when they find these animals are no longer cute, in my opinion, that’s the real animal cruelty.

The Prestige

For a great magic to be successful, distraction is essential.
When the audiences are distracted by the sexy assistance and flashy explosions, the magician escapes through the back door, and eventually shows up on the balcony. The audiences will applaud and cheer. They will go home and discuss about how amazing the underwater magic was, or how brilliantly the magician escaped that heavily locked box. They will scratch theirs heads and try to figure out the trick. However, they do not really want to know the truth.
The truth, or the trick to the magic, is not magical at all. It is usually a trap door, a mirror, a hidden space, or simply a fake lock that can be opened without a key. Like I said in the beginning, magic is all about distraction, and once your eyes are deviated from the truth, you pretend it’s not there. The magician only has to exit the stage with a boom, and you will be cheering and applauding as if something amazing just happened, but there is nothing amazing.
Politicians are somewhat like magicians - they do magics to entertain audiences. They go on stage; they chant their spells; and poof! they are gone. In the end, we are all happy and satisfied, but no one is going to ask, “What happened?” or “What did they do?” The magic is successful, because we are all distracted from what really happened.
So what happened? NOTHING. Nothing happened…but hey! as long as we are happy about it, who gives a damn about the truth.

When things ain’t simple anymore…

Ten years ago:
When a missing child was reported on TV news 10 years ago, I would pray for the safety of that child.
When a sexual harassment case was reported on TV news 10 years ago, I would immediately condemn the person who did it.
Now:
When a missing child is reported on TV news today, I immediately link the cause to the parents.
When a sexual harassment case is reported on TV today, I would say it has something to do with money.

10 years ago crime was much simpler, or at least we thought it was simple. When a murderer was convicted, we cheered for it. And when someone innocent was proven not guilty, we also cheered. During these times when forensic evidence and DNA was seldom heard of, the line between bad guys and good guys were clear (or at least that what we thought.) I would point at the TV screen and say, “that’s the bad guy,” or  “he’s got to be innocent.” But things have turned the other way around: now we become skeptical about what we sees on TV. We no longer can say for sure that parents do not kill their offspring (or the other way around.) We no longer can say for sure that the victim we see on TV is really the victim, and same for the suspect. I do not even remember the last time I saw a “sure” suspect, and I always tend to consider the worst case scenario.

Even so, crime was probably the same today as it was 10 years ago. But with limited sources of information we had no choice but to trust we what we saw on TV and newspaper. 10 years later now, internet changed everything: we now have more sources from different places and in different languages. However, we are nowhere near the truth. We probably would never know “for sure” about the OJ Simpson case (unless you’re OJ,) and we probably will never know what happened Madeleine (the little girl who “supposedly” was kidnapped in Portugal.)

After all, I think the saddest thing is when we all have our sources of information that we trust, we will never know the truth.

Know the face you’re wearing.

Couple days ago I saw someone wearing a Mao T-shirt.
At first I thought it was funny, but then I started to wonder if these people do know who’s face they’re wearing. And this problem does not concern on just Mao but also the ubiquitous Che Guevara image printed on countless merchandises (which I found ironic because Che believes in Communism.)
But I think the Cameron Diaz incident (the one which she wore a Mao hand-bag to Peru) has showed why people should at least know the name of the people they wear on their T-shirt — that people may be pissed.

Aside from T-shirts and communist, people have used, wore, or even tattooed (worst among all I think) foreign languages despite the fact they do not know what those words mean. The Chinese characters are popular among the Americans, on the other hand, Asians like to wear T-shirt that has English words. 9 out of 10 people put on those types of cloth because they think it’s cool, but believe me, when they learn the meaning, they will probably be embarrassed (big time). But probably won’t matter because most people in their community don’t even speak the language.

Summer Blockbuster Summary

This is the summer blockbuster summary: the “you must see”, the “just get the DVD”, and the “in between.”

Let’s start with the “you must see”:

1. The Transformers
Definitely a must see for those who watched transformers cartoon on TV back in the old days. Everything was great except the story has a weird turn (when the captain all the sudden wants to help.) I guess the only disappointment is that Megatron transforms into an jet fighter (or spaceship?) instead of a handgun.

2. 1408
A surprisingly good horror/suspense movie.  Instead of showing extensive blood and gore like other horror B-movies, 1408 is all about psychological terror. Also 1408 has a different ending from the book (a better one in my opinion.)

3. Live Free or Die Hard
Or simply Die Hard 4. Extensive action and up-to-date plot about cyber terror makes this movie one of the best action flick this summer.  Maybe it is hard to believe John McClane could still be that tough at such age, but this movie isn’t about reality, so enjoy the great action.

Now the “just get the DVD”:

1. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
Hmm….other than the story does not make sense at all, the goofy Captain Jack turns into pure dumbass.
But I did like the part when they have to turn the boat upside down to solve the riddle (the only part that was good.) So just get the DVD….

2. Spider-man 3
Yes, I’m serious.
The action is great, but the story is too much in one movie. And this movie is not worth waiting for 2 years.
Just get the DVD….

3. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
BOOOOOooooORING~~~~~~~~
(but the last 20 minutes fight was watchable…Just get the DVD)

4. Ocean’s Thirteen
Unexlpained plot. 
No exciting story.
No impressive heist.
If you really want to see the stars, just get the DVD….

At last the “in betweens”:

1. The Bourne Ultimatum
If you can bear the shaking camera….if not I suggest you stay out of this movie.

2. The Simpsons Movie
Just like what Homer says in the beginning, “why watch this movie when you can watch the samething on TV?”

3. T4XI (Taxi 4)
The fourth installment of the series. Funny, really funny, but no intense car chase like the previous 3. And it was short as hell, I want my money back!!!

Maybe I forgot to mention some, but if I can’t remember, it must be really really boring or really really unimpressive.