l'Heure d'Ete

I am sure this movie was shot pretty much at the same time as Red Balloon. Juliette Binoche is the leading acttress of both, however Summer Hours is so much better than Red Baloon, at least so much easier to understand (Is it more artistic to make movies hard to understand for the general public? I just don't understand.)

The story starts with grandmother celebrating her 75th birthday. She wants her oldest son to carry out her will. However she also knows that, with her second son working in China and her daughter living in US, the kids will definitely have to sell the old house.

The mother dies, the kids get together again to discuss what is happening in their life, what they'll do with the antiques (some to donate and some to sell), the house, talk what the house means to them (the secnod son and the daugher believe as they spend so much time in other countries, the house and even France will mean less and less to them), taking what they like with them.

At the end of the movie, the old is sold, but they are able to keep it for some more time. The kid gets permission to invite her friends to the house and have a party. Before the kids start the party, the movie shows a consistant feeling of calm, quietness, well, it is a story about old house, antique, artist anyway, so I was really confused why there is a loud party of teenagers trying to tear the house apart. But when the girl takes her boyfriend to the garden and tells him about the time she spent with her grandmother, and what her grandmother said, and the camera moves away, all of a sudden it gives a complicated feeling of a story with 3 generation, and generation by generation.

Why I Hate Vista Part 2

I was trying to save a file, and got no response from the computer. The hard drive ran on and on, and then, you know what? Blue scree of death! I did not retrieve my Mistress to take photo of the blue screen sooner enough, but after the computer dumping some data and rebooted, this is the screen that I got. It is very frustrating to see this at work. It just broke my good working mood.

Outlive

My first impression of ‘outlive’ was when I watched the movie ‘the Hours’. At the end of the movie, old Laura Brown visited Clarissa that evening when Clarissa wants to give a party to Richard, Laura’s son, but Richard jumps to his death earlier. She tells Clarissa that she has outlived her family, which gives her a sense of worthiness. She is a tough lady, and knows exactly what she wants. Because of this movie, outlive always gives me an impression of sadness.

Sad until I read Charlie’s blog that says Willie Nelson made a smart comment on his 75th birthday that he has outlived his dick. That just gave me a good laugh. Good job, Willie, Love ya.

Old Photo, Chung-shan Park

Same 'boat' as the background. It was my dad, my brother, and me on the old photo. When I went to Chung-shan park again last month, I happened to take photo of the same 'boat'. My dad was 37, had a wife, 3 kids, paying mortgage, trying all he could to feed the kids. I still vaguely remember that trip, although Chung-shan park was just 20 minutes' walk from where we used to live. Why was it special when we were all dressed up? Maybe we just bought our first camera? Maybe it was Chinese New Year? Maybe it was hard for the whole family to go out to something together. When I was this little, the dad I saw was always sleeping. He had to work as many shifts as he could to put food on the table. Now I am 37, have nothing, barely even dreams.

Why I Hate Vista

When Windows wants you to wait, you used to get an hourglass. Now with new, better-than-ever Vista, you get a little circle. Same thing. Just different visual effect. But how long can you wait before you lose your patience?

This is my new laptop from the new company, a sleek Dell Latitutde XT model, expensive, 84000NTD, which is close to 3000USD. The only software I have installed now is office 2007, and after having tried a few hours, I was so disappointed with the performance of Windows Vista.

Normally when I read emails, I like to manually set emails read when I am sure this email does not need additional attention from me. And that is what I did on this sleek Dell, and OMG, you can see from the video that I had to wait from 9th second to 15th second just to wait for Vista to bring up a simple popup window when I right clicked the mouse.

Sorry you'll need to turn your head 90 degrees to watch this video. The video quality is not good as I used my cell phone to take this video. I could not find a way to rotate the video by 90 degress with existing software I have.

This is a simple reason why I hate Vista. The time it takes to bring up the popup window ranges from 3 seconds to 5 seconds. It will be a disaster when I have many emails to read, and mind you, this is not the only place when I have to wait for the response. Vista is just a piece of crap.

To Make Up for My Camera

When I bought this camera, I only took her pic with my cell phone. How well can a cell phone take photos? Not bad to shoot with enough sunlight, but may be disappointing in the evening when the light source is only from the incadescent light on the ceiling.

I always feel sorry that I did not really capture her beauty.

Bro just recently bought some nice accessory for his camera (really nice. more later). Well, let me just jump to conclusions here for now. Don't ever allow a man to start playing with camera, car, or audio. It is a never ending journey, I can tell ya. But click on this photo. See how that little short string turns blurry at the back of her, and her crisp beauty against the dining table. That will be good investment to capture the beautiful moment of the kids (and kids are always the best excuse to get the budget approved).

On Board

On board at the new company today. I got up at the usual time, enjoy a full episode of Heroes, and walked to work. The new office is in a strange position. After careful evaluation, I have 3 options to commute:

1. I can walk to the office. It takes around 20 minutes, and I get to stop at any breakfast place to pick up some food.
2. I can walk 1 minute to a bus stop to wait for bus route 'red 3', which runs every 20 minutes. The bus will take a route that requires a lot of left turns, and you know how long it may take to make a left turn in rush hours.
3. I can walk 10 minutes to another bus stop, and hop on pretty any of the bus there, and get off at the VERY NEXT stop, and walk another 3 minutes.

It is in such werid location from where I live that makes walking the best option of them all. With this sweltering weather that reaches 90F at 8am, I was sweating all over when I got to the office. Not a very nice thing to start a day feeling stinky all over, I'd say.

It is funny to be on board today. My bro's office is not that far down the road from my office. It is my first day today, but his last day with his company. He will have 2 weeks off before he starts his new job.

Quiet day today. Small company. No complicated orientation. I walked in the office, and saw pretty much everything. Guess how long I can survive here?

Photo was taken on the way to work. The street is Ruiguang road.