Care or Selfishness?

In the movie Red, Valentine hit a dog accidentally. She picked her up, sent her to the hospital, and took her back to the owner. The owner asked Valentine if she did all that because she really cared about the dog, or simply because if she did not do anything, she would feel bad about herself, so whatever she had done was simply for her own good.

I'm sitting in the kitchen. Turning my head and looking out, I can see Calgary tower in the distance, gleaming in the darkness at 6am. I know the sun is not coming out until 8, and it's mostly likely to be a snowy day. It is my 8th day in Calgary. Fred was up earlier from stomach pain, but decided to go back and sleep in. I brewed some coffee, had a big breakfast, and browsed the internet.

Fred planned to come to Taiwan for a visit. It took him a while to make sure everything is fine, but then he booked the ticket, paid for it online on a Tuesday morning, then in the very afternoon, he had a heart attack and was sent to the hospital right away.

From my end, I did not anything about it. Friday morning, I was still chatting with M online, complaining about Fred being out of touch for some days, and just half an hour after we finished the chat, my cell phone rang. I picked up the phone, looked at the number. The number started with 02, so was a land line number of Taipei, and thus not from a telemarketer. I answered it. The voice from the other side said 'Sean? This is Chris, Fred's son....' And I thought Fred had died.

In the book, or movie He's just not that into you, there is a clip when the woman said the guy never called, and her girlfriend comforted her by saying 'maybe he is just out of town, or had a car accident, or just lost your number', etc. But the truth is he's just not that into you. I laughed about it and thought it was so cute, and never realized things like that could actually happened, when someone I cared could possibly leave, and I would be left in the dark, without knowing what could possibly have happened, because we do not have mutual friends, or I would not be in the contact list.

One of the arteries was 100% blocked. The doctor put 2 stents in in few hours, so Fred came to that evening, then called Chris. Chris took a bus and had a long bus ride from Vancouver (15 hours plus few hours waiting for traffic to clear up in the Canadian Rockies). He got here close to noon time on Thursday, met with Fred, then came back to the condo to make the calls, me included.

Bypass surgery is necessary. It is mostly likely scheduled in late January, after medication is probably taken care of. Fred will need to stay in the hospital for another 5 days after the surgery. I feel the need to be here, to be well informed, for whatever may come.

The dog, Rita, was found pregnant at the hospital, and later gave birth to several puppies at the end of the movie. It was a very nice warm scene when the owner put collar on each dog, hence a happy ending for her. The actor and actress found each other in 'He's just not that into you'. Every movie is almost guaranteed a happy ending. I expect a good ending as well, for the surgery and the recovery, and hence a good sailing season for him.

But am I doing all this and wishing all this for my own good because I care, or simply because I'm selfish and want to be well informed and feel good?

As for Chris' call, I only want to get such a call once in my life time.

Vitas

Last night before I went to bed, I read a little bit, tried to sleep but couldn't fall asleep, so got up and watched a few videos on youtube. One of the featured video is this Opera 2 of Vitas. I was tired, so did not really think much, so went on with another video and another after another.

Then this afternoon, Kroro, the girl I knew from plurk, sent me the message about the premiere of the upcoming movie Sherlock Holmes. She is going because she has a thing for Jude Law, and bought the whole collection of Sherlock Holmes for 2 free tickets to the premiere. We talked about Jude Law, his moustache as Watson in the movie, googled some of his photos, and while I browse through the photos, I remember I saw his movie, I wiki'ed, and figured that movie I watched is 'the Holiday'. Well, I was not so impressed with him in 'the Holiday', as he appeared to be just a single horny bachelor. That's about it. That's when the video of Vitas' came to my mind.

I did not remember the title, nor the name of the singer, but was able to find out by using a few keywords like 'russian'. So I countered Kroro by suggesting Vitas is actually quite cute and has a great voice. I went on, while still chatting on MSN, with a few other video clips of Vitas, then 'Kiss as long as eternity' blew me away. Nice song, nice lyrics, nice voice, and he is so so handsome. Wow. He is tall, slim, with face features just like scultures, and at the same time, very masculine. I especially love the clip when he put the hourglass upside down, and touch the machine (what is that?) gently. And such a handsome man plays the piano. Wow. That's all I can say.

Christmas Tree

Where is tree? You may ask. It is sitting right on top of the television. The last time I talked about this paper tree my niece and nephew sent me 2 years ago, then I decided to take a photo of it. When I upload the photo from the camera to the computer, I found it funny to see myself in the flection on the screen. This is a lovely gift.

Greetings from Australia

I received this postcard a while ago, but was too busy (yeah, right) to blog it. I started to use Plurk some months ago, and talked to a few people. Pey is one of the few ones I really enjoy chatting with. It's funny that on Q&A of Plurk's website, the intention of the plurk creator is to create a space for close friends and relatives to share information, but it turned out many friends on my plurk are total strangers.

Many people on plurk live in a completely different world from mine. I think they talk in Greek when they mention places they go, and how they have fun. Pey is one of the exceptions. I admire her courage in pursuing her life and passion, her determination to do what is right for her. We talked on plurk and on MSN, and had a really good time. Few weeks ago, she asked me for my address, and promised to send a postcard, and she did. Since internet became popular, I had not received cards for quite a while. The last one is probably from my nephew and niece. They wrote a card and attached a small foldable paper Christmas tree. The tree is so cute and adorable that I put it on top of my TV. Now I need to find a good place for this card, for this unexpected friendship, from Australia.

Lament for the Raid Leader

Snow has been our raid leader since World of Warcraft released the new patch last year. It is not easy to be organize a group of people online, especially everyone has his own schedule for the day. Some work during the day; some have to take night shift; some are students and disappear before the exams; some are engineers and have to work overtime without warning in advance. Sometimes we do not have enough people before the set time, then the raid leader just has to figure out a way to make it happen, either to recruit some strangers, or other sort. It is a very tedious work.

I went to Canada to travel, thus was absent for a whole month. After I returned, I only saw Snow once, and he simply disappeared. I know he is a nurse and works at different shifts. Maybe he has to be busy with his baby and spend more time with the family, or maybe he just needs to have a rest, and leaves the computer for a while.

This evening, he signed on, and told us this shocking news. Conversation is as followed:

Me: Snow~
Me: Please use your handsomeness to save us~~ (this is his slogan when we defeated each boss in the game for the very first time: OMG, I use my handsomeness to save the world again.)
Snow: @@
Me: Touched? :D
Snow: I may not be able to play game again
Me: @.@?
Snow: my fingers are so stiff.
Me: What happened?
Dog: I thought you are having rehab?
Snow: More problems with the tendom and scar (Can't translate those medical terms)
Snow: It's like 2 or 3 tendons tangle together
Dog: Was the operation not done well?
Snow: It's hard to have full recovery. Improvement at most.

Then Snow explains more about his condition, how much pain he had when he took us to Ulduar, how he decided to go to the doctor, after he could not grip the equipment at work any longer. It is just a sad moment for me to realize, maybe our raid team will be gone. If no one stands out to re-organize, we may just have to see if any other team has any vacancy for us, and try to fit into another group. It is sad, however, especially for Snow. We all know how passionate he is in gaming.

Posters

I always like posters. I would go watch a movie simply because I like the design of the posters. Visiting poster shops was also one of my favorite things to do. While I was in Tainan to visit my folks, I organized my belongings a little bit again (aka. toss), and happened to see some movie magazines, and some old posters.

I got the first one when I was probably a sophomore in the university. The movie had just been released. Interesting movie in the way that it is lovely, funny, but also dark. I put this poster on the door of my closet in the dormitory for few years. A public display in such a tiny space in the dormitory room, that's why much I liked this one. Now it's hard to imagine having to cram in that room room with 3 other roommates. I believe I only had, like, 20 square feet of living space.

I was still too little when the second episode of Indiana Jones was released. I love the whole series (exclusive of the latest one simply because Harrison Ford has certainly not aged quite well), so when the movie magazine had a sale of their poster inventory, I decided to order this one. Harrison Ford was definitely very handsome.

I don't know why I even have a poster of Bruce Willis, and it is definitely a mystery why I even have kept it for so long when I don't even like him to begin with. How can it survive after so many rounds of moving and tossing? It is so funny to see him with hair. Having said that, he looks quite good in the poster of his very recent movie, Surrogate.

Adium vs MSN Live

The last few weeks, things with F have bothered me quite a bit, especially after the MSN event. On top of that, I've heard of lots of complaints about the latest MSN Live, so I decided to play with it a little bit.

Setup: latest Adium (1.3.7) on Snow Leopard, Live Messenger (10.4.8089.726) running on XP

Scenario 1: Account on Adium does not have account on Live as friend. Account on Live does not have account on Adium as friend.

• I used Live to add Adium as friend. Adium did not receive any request from Live at all. Adium remained offline the whole time on Live.
• Then I used Adium to add Live as friend. Live did not receive any request from Adium either. Live appeared online to Adium, but Adium remained offline to Live.
• I logged off Adium and logged back on. Both appeared online to each other.

Scenario 2: Account on Adium does not have account on Live as friend. Account on Live does not have account on Adium as friend.

• I used Adium to add Live as friend. Live did not receive any request from Adium, but showed as online immediately.
• Then I used Live to add Adium as friend, but Adium still appears offline to MSN.
• I then logged off Adium and then logged back on. This time Adium is online on Live.

On Adium, I right clicked on Live account, and chose "Get info", a window popped up as shown in the first screenshot here. The value of 'has you' is No, although in reality Live does have Adium as friend.

I then used Meebo and log on Adium account, and found that the value of 'Has You' is also 'No', as shown in the second screenshot here.

Microsoft must have changed something so other IM programs no longer get the same old information they used to get. And because I know how to check this, and this caused me so much anxiety. If you use Adium to add any friend to MSN, it would be a good idea to send a message to confirm if they add you and can see you online.