Daily // January 2007

January 31, 2007

If I didn't ask Amy about my discrete math homework, I would probably have gotta something close to zero. That is not to say that I did everything wrong, but that I pretty much skipped 80% of the assignment.. I thought they were chapters we had to read instead of problems we had to do. Anyway, I'm glad it's due tmr and I had time to fix this.

January ends; February starts. Let's watch what happens.

January 29, 2007

Well, I didn't mean to skip two entries..but I did miss them, so sorry. First of all, happy birthday to james (though I doubt he'll see this). Secondly, enjoy the new song and I'll see you tmr.

January 26, 2007

It was unfortunate that Joe decided against taking intro psychology due to his dislike for statistics. Prof. Ball, why did you have to talk about stat today?! You chased away a student..

Anyway, at night a bunch of us had dinner in a korean restaurant. The food was nice and affordable. Now, the next thing to do is to have hot pot in this cold weather.

January 25, 2007

Today's I started my first ever psychology course, and something in me tells me it won't be the last. The topics and professor all sound intriguing. Lets see if I feel the same after the second class.

Sometimes my memory really surprises me. I'm reading a "C++ in 10 minutes" book (sounds good to be true? indeed. there are 27 10-minute lessons..so 270 minutes = ~4.5 hrs). I haven't touched it for days, but when I was describing it just now, the fact that it has 27 lessons came out of my mouth. You got to admire what the mind is capable of.

Lastly, I think it's time to remind ourselves that it's better to be hated for who we are than loved for who we're not.

January 24, 2007

Well, obviously, Martina's journey in AO 2007 has ended. But Serena's is still up and going and she will play either Sharapova or Clijsters in the finals. Kudos to her effort, though I'm thoroughly surprised that she got this far. Anyway..

Oh, and Happy Birthday, Martin.

January 23, 2007

Martina lost to Kim 6-3 4-6 3-6..

January 22, 2007

Sunrise, sunrise..

My classes seem to be fine at the moment. The best one is probably diffeq, where 6 familiar faces sit next to me.

Surprise, surprise..

Serena fought through Shahar Peer to get to the semi-finals. Will she make it to the final? Will Martina get through Kim tmr? Please, say yes.

January 21, 2007

The last time we ate at Chipotle, Derek said we'll come back on the sunday we return from break. At that moment, this "sunday" seemed so far away that I didn't think it'd come. Well, come it did, and today it is. But we didn't go to Chipotle. Instead, we had an okay dinner at ffc.

Weather here is great. Just great. -4 celsius with plenty of snow. It's like I moved from summer to winter in a matter of hours. The good thing is that it feels and looks like winter, which is quite nice. Now I can doze off and dream about drinking hot cocoa in the snow.

Anyway, cheers to a happy semester!

P.S. Martina beat Na Li in her 4th round match today. She lost the first set but rallied back to win 4-6 6-3 6-0. How well did she play? Well, she hit 8 winners only..(while Na Li had 33). But her opponent committed 69 unforced errors (she made 18). So was it a battle of unforced errors? Maybe.. But Martina will raise her game to beat whoever's in her way, right?

January 20, 2007

Not much to say today, since I'm packing now. Well, see you back in Baltimore.

January 19, 2007
Australian Open Special: Martina moves into fourth round

Martina rallied past Japanese player Nakamura to book her spot in the fourth round (6-2, 6-1). She awaits China's Na Li or Safina - the very person she lost to in the Gold Coast final earlier this year. We'll see.

January 18, 2007
Australian Open Special: Serena Williams battles past Nadia Petrova

This seems to be the only significant news in Aussie Open today. Serena, unseeded in this tournament and fresh off a long hiatus, launched a small come back in her 3rd round match against fifth seed Petrova. The final score was 1-6, 7-5, 6-3. I saw a bit of her playing, and her shots look sharp and penetrating, though her movement needs work. One more thing - thought you might be interested in these slideshows:

Top 10 Sexiest Women Spunks in Aus. Open 07
Top 10 Hunkist Men Hunks in Aus. Open 07

January 17, 2007
Australian Open Special: Martina cruised into third round after a 6-2 6-2 win

It seems that no major upsets are happening today, which is positive. Another good news is that Martina (and Kutznetsova (what a difficult last name to spell)) breezed through a tough first round doubles match 7-5 6-1. To be honest I was surprised that she picked "Kuzzy" as her partner and that she actually decided to play doubles. But I do believe that Martina is built for doubles, so any partnership won't matter as long as they are with decent players and a win in doubles will only boost her confidence in singles. She needs to move forward, literally and figuratively, in her singles matches.

January 15, 2007
Australian Open Special: EHP; Sharapova scare

The blistering sun contributed to a hot, hot weather in Melbourne and tournament directors had to implement the Extreme Heat Policy. This means that the main arenas will have their tops closed. Unfortunately this process cannot be executed during a match, so Sharapova and her opponent haplessly simmered on the center court. Sharapova's condition seemed melted when she blew up a 5-0 lead in the third set and gave Camille Pin, her opponent, a chance to serve for the match at 7-6. Sharapova had just enough reserve to pull through, ending the match 6-3, 4-6, 9-7. She should be relieved that she dodged this would-be-major upset.

On a more cheerful note, Martina cruised through her first round opponent Natalie Dechy with style (6-0, 6-2) in less than an hour.

January 14, 2007
Australian Open Special: Pre-tournament

First Grand Slam of the year! Technically, the Australian Open has started for five hours now, but I'll call this entry a pre-tournament entry. Tennis Channel is hosting a game called 'Racquet Bracket' where users pick their choices from 1st round to the finals in either the men's or women's draw. From the statistics, it's apparent that Sharapova is topping the crowd's favorites.

But naturally, for me it's Martina all the way. She seems to be the sentimental favorite for now. Why? Because while her form shows excellence at times, she still has problems closing out matches and coping with the power-players. Yet the fact that she reached six Aus. Open finals (97-01) consecutively and won three of them makes her a popular player in Australia. We'll see what form she's in on tuesday.

January 13, 2007

It's another one of those days that I just don't know what to write. So..enjoy new feature music, will you?

January 12, 2007

I feel empty. Blah.

January 11, 2007

What have I been doing these past two days? Well, I borrowed some BBC classic dvds from our neighbor. This neighbor is a great fan of Jane Austen, and so I got the 1985 version of Pride and Prejudice and the quite-recent Emma. I must say the acting is superb and the english-style dialogues are elegant but lengthy and wordy to follow at times. I do like the adaptation of 1985's P&P, and interestingly, since I saw the 2005 P&P also, I consider the former better. There are of course more older adaptations out there - and I wish to see them all someday.

"Love is full of lies." Indeed.

January 9, 2007

So, iPhone was announced today. It was probably the most intensely followed unconfirmed product in Apple history. It's quite an amazing device really, though I can't stop thinking about fingerprints all over the touch screen. Still, Steve's speech makes other phone companies' technology seem obsolete. Don't you think it's a good idea to stay low and be a bit humble as a newcomer? And why, out of all possible partnerships, did he pick one with Cingular?

Anyway.

January 7, 2007
Photoshop CS3

Photoshop CS3 beta was out for public testing in December, and I finally downloaded a copy since the new features seem interesting. Well, they turn out to be quite impressive. Let's look at the "auto-align layers" and "auto-blend layers" functions, which basically allow you to align multiple proximate pictures and blend them together.

Firstly, copy severeal pictures into layers in one file and select them all (ctrl+click). Select Edit\Auto-Align Layers. Choose auto and click ok.

Photoshop will take a few seconds to analyze the pictures and align them. At the meantime, sit down and enjoy a cup of coffee (with our feature music playing in the background). When it's done, you'll see that the colors don't blend with each other. Select Edit\Auto-Blend Layers.

Now, crop the picture to eliminate the edges.

That's it for an impressive but easy-to-use tool in CS3. If you would like to try it out, go to Adobe Labs now. Oh, the picture was taken in August 2005 in case you're wondering whether or not I flew back to hk without announcement.

January 6, 2007

Tonight, I decided it's about time to reinstall windows. I then asked myself if I wanted to install vista, and I said "why not". And so I did. Everything works quite smoothly. Even the infamous nero-7-incompatibility issue did not occur.

There is roughly two weeks of holiday left. What should I do?

Suffice to say, it is sad to hear that Kevin will cease his blog temporarily. On one hand, since I qualify as "friend 底", I support his decision to focus his attention on A-level. But on the other hand, I know I will miss visiting his site.

Notice that I emphasized the word temporarily. I hope that he (and everyone else whose going to take AL) study up, and as the song "Today" says, "承諾在某年 某一天某地點 再見".

January 2, 2007

Sleeping at 3 and waking up at 11 is taking its toll on me. Before, when someone does this, I would ask (sincerely) if there're trying to switch/adapt to another time zone. Well, I'm not, since its not necessary..but this sleep cycle seems to fit the pacific time zone i.e. LA quite well.

Well, good nite.

January 1, 2007   First entry of the year

On the first day of 2007, we went out to watch The Nativity. It was a good movie, though sometimes I prefer thrillers or comedies. We then spent the rest of the afternoon fixing audio stuff in a friend's house.

When I was studying at Taft, I used to think that coming home broadens my view and being at Taft shrinks my world. Now I sort of feel the opposite. Maybe it's because I'm not living in a city anymore; maybe it's because there's minimal socialization here. Or, maybe it's just a trick of my mind.

P.S. How was the visiting last month? Well, the cut (14044-14549) averages 16.29 visits per day. You decide whether thats good or bad.. Again, let's put 20-visits-per-day as the main goal for Login U this year.