Lu, 妳怎麽樣？
Lu,
妳好！妳還看我的Blog嗎？我等inLove出新專輯。我給我的幾個朋友聼你們的專輯。 他們都很喜歡。你們會什麽時候出新專輯？ 請留言吧！
謝謝！
孫智謙 (Chris)
Archive for September, 2007
Wong Fu Productions gives the coolest wedding gift ever
| Etched-glass picture frames. Candle holders. Sample bottles of crappy cologne. Gift certificates to stores you’d never shop at or activities you’d never want to try…if you’ve ever gotten married, you know some of the lameness that you can get as wedding gifts (Get ready for round two, James). But sometimes people give awesome gifts, the kind that show that the person giving them put a lot of thought and effort into their gift. The people at Wong Fu Productions gave that kind of gift to their friends Justin and Jane; I can’t think of a cooler or more thoughtful wedding gift to give someone than this. Check out the video below: |
“Yellow Fever”
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| You know you’ve noticed it yourself. Couples of mixed Asian and white descent are 99-times-out-of-100 white guys with Asian girls. It’s a statistical “fact” (quotes because I just pulled the statistic out of my nose with no research whatsoever). But why? What’s the deal with that? Why don’t you see more Asian guys with white girls? It bothers a lot of people, and I’ve seen/heard Asian guys complain, “White guys are stealing our women. Leave our women alone.” The whole “our women” versus “your women” thing is asinine to me, but I do have to admit that I’ve noticed the dating disparity myself. It’s extremely rare that I see a white girl with an Asian guy. |
| Instead of just complaining about the situation and perpetuating racism, a few college students at UC San Diego decided to take an honest look at the situation and came up with a hilarious short film on the subject. It’s quite possibly one of the wittiest and most entertaining things I’ve seen in a long time. It’s definitely better than anything coming out of Hollywood these days. Check it out below. |
| Entertaining, no? If you don’t think so, you have no sense of humor. Their outtakes and bloopers video is below. |
| You can check out their other video offerings at their website, Wong Fu Productions. And if you’re curious about what Phil’s T-shirt says…it says 百人看不懂 (white people can’t read this), and you can buy one here. |
Asian teams are out of the World Cup
 Germany’s team celebrating a goal in their win against N. Korea |
| I’ve now lost all interest in this year’s World Cup since both North Korea and China have been eliminated from competition. North Korea was shut out 3-0 by Germany and China lost 1-0 to Norway this weekend. Bum deal. |
| But now that any teams I like are out of the competition, I can make my prediction for who’s going to win. I think it’ll be Germany and Brazil in the finals, and Brazil will win by one goal. What do I base this on? Absolutely nothing, but that’s my prediction. Miss Cleo gave it to me. |
Japanese man creates most pointless blog ever.
 Spot the differences… |
| Well, it may not be totally pointless; he’s done a good job of chronicling the small changes in a vending machine’s inventory day after day, for what it’s worth. According to Gizmodo, Ryuuichi Terada’s blog’s title translates to “I Take a Picture of the Same Vending Machine Every Day (or so). I’m Very Sorry.” And it’s a pretty accurate title; every day for the past 2 years, he’s taken pictures of the same vending machine and posted them for all to see. When he’s out of town for a few days, or doesn’t have time to do the picture-taking himself, his apparently-equally-OCD-ridden-wife picks up the slack. We can’t have people missing important updates, now can we? It’s simply riveting! |
| This blog is further proof that Japan as a whole needs an enema. |
Freaky Japanese face-mimicking robots
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| Those robot-obsessed Japanese scientists are at it again! Japan’s Takanishi Labs has developed a face-mimicking robot that can switch between 2 different faces in a matter of seconds. It works by using servos and microcontrollers to change the shape of a “face mask,” and it’s a strange mix of of impressive and scary. Watch the video below to see how it shape-shifts into 2 different faces: |
| OK, the basic robot itself is kind of cool, but when you see it with a human face projected over top of the robot, it becomes eerily realistic, like in the video below: |
| Freaky, eh? It’s only a matter of time before the technology becomes smaller and smaller to the point that it won’t need the giant box behind it to make those faces, which would make much more realistic applications possible. Amazing! Cheaper Chinese rip-off technology in 5…4…3…2… |
| If you’re a big enough geek to care, here’s more information on it. |
Worst escape attempt ever.
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| I’ve heard of some pretty lame attempts by people to smuggle themselves or others to different places, but this one has to be the worst. A 19-year-old guy (maybe that’s the problem right there) in Russia was recently caught trying to dig a tunnel from Belarus to Poland. That’s not so bad, right? You’re probably thinking, “Lots of people have done that kind of thing before.” Yeah, but this guy tried it using a metal cup. A metal cup to dig a 1 kilometer-long tunnel. Does this guy subsist on a diet of nothing but vodka? It’s obvious that it wasn’t something he just decided to try on the spur of the moment, because when he was caught, he also had army rations, camouflage, maps, and a textbook on survival. So he apparently put a lot of thought into the execution of this little plan…but the best digging device he could come up with was a metal cup?! Not a shovel or even a bucket? |
You…
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| Link to article |
Chinese Idiom: 鹬蚌相争 (yù bàng xiāng zhēng)
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| Here’s another Chinese idiom. The idiomatic English translation of 鹬蚌相争 (yù bàng xiāng zhēng) is “a snipe and a clam locked in combat”. Without hearing the story behind it, this seems to be ridiculously cryptic. But once you know the story, it makes perfect sense. The story goes… |
| One day, a clam was sitting on the beach and opened its shell to sun itself. Suddenly, a snipe stuck its beak in the clam to get a quick meal. The clam closed its shell immediately, trapping the snipe’s beak inside. They were quickly at an impasse: the clam refused to open its shell, and the snipe refused to remove its beak. Eventually, a fisherman happened upon them and caught them both. |
| The meaning of the idiom is that when two sides stubbornly contend, it’s a third party that benefits. |
Chinese women beasted…
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| Well, Brazil totally beasted (to beast = totally dominate) China 4-0 this weekend in World Cup soccer. I can’t say I’m surprised. Disappointed, yes. Surprised, no. Brazil is like a soccer dynasty. I don’t really have much else to say about this that would be said any better than the original article, so I’ll just link to it below so you can get more details if you want them. |
| On a side note, Japan lost to Argentina 1-0 on Friday, and North Korea beat Nigeria 2-0. |
| More in-depth coverage of China’s slaughter by Brazil |
The 2007 Women’s World Cup opens in China today
 The Chinese women’s team celebrates their victory over Denmark, ironically without a single player “making the V”. |
| I don’t know how I managed to miss it considering I love watching international soccer matches, but the Women’s World Cup is going on right now! And doubly-irritating is the fact that I managed not to know about China’s hosting it. I’m really slipping. |
| China was supposed to host the World Cup in 2003, but an outbreak of SARS (remember that?) messed things up for them. That year, captain Sun Wen and crew made a valiant effort but lost to Canada in the Quarterfinals and were eliminated. So how’s it going for China so far this year? They’re doing okay. They’ve only played one game, versus Denmark, and they managed to come away with a 3-2 win. Their next match is versus Brazil on September 15th, and they play again on September 19th versus New Zealand. |
| How are the rest of the Asian teams doing? As far as I can tell, only Japan and North Korea qualified for the Women’s World Cup this year, and both of those teams played their first games to a draw, Japan tying England and North Korea tying the USA. If you’re interested in keeping up with the standings, here’s the Wikipedia page for this year’s contest. |
| More in-depth coverage of China’s first match |