Fascination with the stars

I never had the chance to own a telescope but I hope to some day, if I can save enough. It would be fantastic to see the great spot of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn with my own eyes.

All this started off when I was a kid when I had this habit of staring at the night sky. The twinkly little lights mystified me to no end. And then it happened. One night I saw not one but three streaks of light darting across the sky! I got hooked on everything cosmic from then on.

It was fun to imagine about other beings out there. What do they look like? How come they don’t visit us? Why don’t we build intergalactic ships and see what’s out there? Why don’t people want to live on the moon or Mars?

As a teen I started reading Stephen Hawking and watching Star Wars and it later transformed into an almost academic interest in cosmology. Cosmology has nothing to do with horoscopes but everything to do with studying the physics and mathematics of the universe.

I must admit that my fascination with distant galaxies is rooted in wanting to get away from the knowns – the unsolvables, things about man and his society that I know will never change in my lifetime no matter how much I try. Who among us have never wished that things are different.

Of course I have no reason to believe that any space-faring society out there are doing any better than us but sometimes the anything-but-this feeling can be overwhelming. Call it escapism if you like but you have to admit if not for it, no new worlds would have been discovered a thousand years ago.

Maybe that’s why I feel especially connected to the old movie “An American Tail” so much. Its about the story of the life of a family of Jewish-Russian mice who emigrate to New York City, believing that there are no cats in America and the roads are paved with cheese.

So escapism rocks and whatever’s out there in the stars, I’m game to find out. Now if only I can get my hands on a ship.

Do men gossip?

Men? Gossip? Of course not. That’s an insult to our masculinity

We’re men. We comment and give heads ups. In fact we move entire stock markets by passing secret leads to one another. We always make our friends swear that they will never repeat it to anyone else.

If by lunchtime, half the town knows our secret lead, we’ll tell them it’s market talk. Its very normal.

The other thing men don’t do is chat. We discuss. Chatting is two women sitting at Starbucks, cigarettes in hand and gossiping. We men’ll have none of that. We discuss.

BUT.

Men lie more, while women tell the bigger lies (just ask Chris Rock). Women gossip more, but men are not lagging too far behind. Source.

Ok so we do do the g word. But can we call it an update so that we can remain masculine. And shhh… don’t tell the women that.

Do opposites REALLY attract?

As a boy I would drive my mum crazy with my questions. One of them was why my uncles and aunties never shopped together. If its my uncle, he would walk with other male members of the family and if its my auntie, she’d go with her daughters or female cousins.

Oklah, silly question. Relationships are like fish. The older it gets, the smellier it becomes. But is there some psychogical or biological factor we can blame, something that makes men curse women’s ‘indecisiveness’ and women men’s ‘aloofness.’ I’m beginning to think so.

Take me for example. When I shop, I always have a precise list of what I want, let’s say some AAA-size batteries. I would go into the store, head for the target aisle, scan the prices, pick up the brand I like and head straight to the cashier. I’d be outta there in 5 minutes or less. Ok, maybe it’ll take a little longer if I’m choosing a CD player but the point is I always know what I want.

But when Shirley (my gf) shops, its a different thing altogether. If she needs a pair of shoes, it doesn’t mean she knows exactly what type of shoe she wants. Its a case of knowing what you want but not knowing what you want, you know, like saying it without saying it.

So what to buy is usually not decided until halfway thru the shopping itself. And who can make a fair decision until they’ve visited every one of the 11 shoe stores at the mall plus the 2 in the dept store.

Not only that. Objectives move too. She might have shoes on her mind but she may come back with shoes, blouse, belt, CD, make-up pack and other shit.

To avoid myself from going insane, my tactic is to let her wander off on her own and call me when she’s done as I busy myself browsing boy toys elsewhere in the building. It turns out many men also do the same. Great minds think alike, hahahaha.

My whole point is this. If you are male, your world is a collection of discrete objects, each one clearly defined, never mind if some things are impossible to define. Men aren’t bothered with detail. Life is always rational and there is a clear start and finish in everything you do, a clear purpose every time.

But for females, nothing is discrete. Enter alien factors like color, relationship, fluidity, detail and other mah fan (troublesome) things. The female world is much more complex and fine, with more variables considered behind every decision or action. Where a man sees one choice, a woman may see 3 or 4.

So if men and women are so different, sometimes to the point of conflict, then how in the world do they stay together? This was another question that drove my mum nuts.

My own answer is they don’t. Well actually they do but to keep their sanity, they get away from each other as much as they can. The women takes cover with their mahjong/shopping kakis and the men their snooker joints.

So to stay together, they get away from each other. Hope you get it cause I still don’t.

Astromax: My review Part 2

Following my review in Part 1 where I covered mostly the software aspect of Astromax, let me now talk about its physical aesthetics. I’ll keep it short and sweet because in all honesty there isn’t much to say about it.

The Pros:
It fits into the last vacant shelf of my AV cabinet

The Cons:
1. The red LED on the front panel is irritatingly distracting. Why does it have to be sooo RED, sooo COARSE and sooo BRIGHT until it kills the ambience of good movie watching. Where’s the dimmer control? There’s none.

2. No dedicated on-off AC power switch. If you have to reboot your Max as often as I do (which is about once every 3-4 days nowadays), you really don’t want to grope the wires behind your AV cabinet, every time guessing which plug is wired to which component. Its just plumb dangerous.

3. The smart card when fully inserted sticks out by 1 cm. An accident waiting to happen.

4. The whole box design is so American. In other words boring, like something out of the 80’s. And I thought the world has moved on to way-cool Euro/Japanese style design philosophies? I mean just look at how uninspiring Motorola phone designs are.

To make a long story short, I think Astromax’s box design sucks. It sticks out like a sore thumb in my rack of AV electronics. Without an on-board power switch, it is a hassle to reboot and knowing how frequently the Max locks up, I wonder how in the world did they miss that out.

‘Nuff said.

The Avatar: The Last Airbender

I can’t believe it. After an end-of-season hiatus, my favorite cartoon is making a comeback to Nickleodeon. Yay!!

The Avatar has been the reason why I wake up on Saturday mornings. It sits right up there with my favorites like Samurai Jack and Teen Titans.

If the word cartoon conjures up pictures of Tom and Jerry to you, rest assured The Avatar is of a different genre. Very different. The Avatar tells stories of human and social struggle themed on compassion and humanity. The stories actually have meaning. Values even.

The Avatar is the story of a little boy Aang (leftmost below) who is the reincarnartion of the Avatar, an ancient warrior who gained mastery over the elements earth, wind, water and fire and uses it to defeat the evil fire nation. While the overall plot is simple enough, it is the adventures of Aang and his two close friends Saka and Katara as they travel through strange lands pursued by the fire nation army that keep me on the edge.

I for one am relieved that the age of Hanna-Barbera cartoons is coming to and end. I’ve never fancied its portrayal of fun and adventure as hitting someone on the head with a stick. It has spawned generations of evil toddlers who, just like their heroes, settle their differences with a stick. These toddlers are now leaders of huge corporations and trust me you’ll be horrified to know how they run their companies.

If you want your kids to grow up as good people, let them watch the Avatar and Samurai Jack. Its better than the Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner crap a hundred times over.

So anyway I’m clearing out my old recordings in my Astromax to make way for the Avatar. Can’t wait, woohoo!!

Women

Of all the local blog articles on Women’s Day so far, I like Minishort’s the most. She spoke my mind, especially the part on people’s penchant to hype on one thing one particular day and then revert to the same old routine the next day.

I’m all for equality and but the truth is, many women I know like chivalry, that “ladies first” priviledge or an acknowledgement by men that women want to be treated special and not like old Joe down at the bar. You see, not all discrimination is bad or unwanted.

Although I still think women come from Venus and men from Mars, the only time when gender differentiation means anything is when I have to choose which wasroom door do I go through. And when I’m out driving. Other than that, I don’t see any difference. In fact you should see how I outran one fat lady to the buffet counter the other day, heh heh.

So to all women, this is your day so party on while it lasts!

And while I’m at it, I want to nominate for a special international transvestite’s day so we can have more can-can dances to see.

Heroes: My least favorite characters

There are two characters in the tv series Heroes that I’d rather not watch.

First is Niki Sanders the single mother.

I find it mentally draining just watching her struggle with her alter ego Jessica episode after episode. They keep coming back to the same old scenes in the garage, playing the same awful background music and reading the same old script. Ever since Jessica’s first appearance, there’s been nothing new to learn about the two of them. I mean come on, get over it already. I’m not going to spend the rest of the season watching her fight the same old battle with herself when she should be out there fighting the bad guys. I think they’re trying very hard to kill an otherwise interesting character with repetitive over-dramatization.

My second least favorite character is Isaac Mendez the painter.

Like Niki, the producers are trying hard to kill him with the broken record syndrome. They keep repeating the same conflict scenes between he and his girlfriend (and anyone else who comes near him, now that Petrelli and others are coming into his studio), the same reminders about why he needs drugs to paint and the same whiny excuses about why he doesn’t know why he draws what he draws. Look, we get it already. You’ve told this story in every episode and I’m gonna scream if you tell it one more time.

Its a shame that the power of subtlety is all but lost in Heroes’ screenwriters.

Now for some strange reason this broken-record syndrome is is hovering around just a couple of characters and I’ve started to flip channels whenever its their turn on the screen. I hope I don’t lose interest the way they lost me in the series LOST – a show whose tale is constructed almost entirely on flashbacks, which is like trying to guess what you ate by looking at a turd.

Got tagged by Anucia

Only barely 4 weeks into blogging and dear Anucia already tagged me. And up till 15 minutes ago, I hadn’t the faintest idea what tagging meant. Oklah I admit I’m still new to blogging but lets see if I get this right: I now have to tell 6 weird things about myself and tag 6 others right? Shouldn’t there be a third 6 to make it a merry “666″? Guess not.

Ok since u asked for it,

1. I cook (but guaranteed nobody will eat)

2. Nothing I plant ever survives.

3. I can feel presences and sometimes see them.

4. I dream of living in an igloo in the antarctic.

5. I once wore the same pair of jeans every day for 3 months without washing it

6. I’ve won burping contests a few times

Now to tag 6 others. Can I wait till I get to know 6 others cause I don’t personally know any blogger yet. Not even one. Pathetic eh

Why men don’t listen and women can’t read maps

I dunno but it might explain why women take so blardy long to reverse their cars out of the parking lot.

Man:
Get in, start car, reverse, drive off.

Woman:
Get in, clear back seat to stash bags, adjust seat belt, complain a bit about seat being too low, adjust rear view mirror, start engine, let it warm up a bit, take tissue to wipe something off the face, adjust aircon, see if hair in order, one last mind scan to see if forgot to buy something, reverse slowly, drive off.

All this while the guy in the car behind is seething and swearing.

Not that men don’t do all that other stuff. They just do it while driving.

(Oh ya, the title of this post came from a book by Allan and Barbara Pease. A hilarious piece of work.)

Hiro Nakamura

This character from the tv series Heroes cracks me and makes the series endearing, for me at least.

For one, its his screen character. Hiro is a nerdy otaku who can bend space and time and teleport himself. His childlike characterization of an innocent guy to the point of stupid is simply hilarious. He gets taken for a ride a lot, especially by his colleague and best friend Ando Masahashi who convinces him to use his powers to do things like cheat at the gambling table.

Although Hiro trusts strangers easily, he is not above doing naughty things like swiping a comic book from an NYC newsstand after paying the proprietor in Yen. And when the situation demands it, he will put up a stubborn argument. But despite getting punched up, thrown from a moving van, bullied and insulted, he’s never glum for long. This guy doesn’t have a malicious bone in his body.

My biggest respect for Masi Oka, the actor who plays Hiro, goes to his language ability. He speaks flawless American (common), flawless Japanese (common), and his piece de resistance: English with a thick genuine Japanese accent (not common for a native American speaker). His half-past-six Inggurisu beats James Kyson Lee’s half-past-six Inggurisu any time. James is the guy who plays his best friend Ando who in real life is a true gaijin – a native New Yorker.

Here’s some things you may not know about Masi Oka.

He graduated in 1997 from Brown University with degrees in mathematics and computer science and a minor in theatre arts.

He has a 180-plus IQ. (IQ of an average adult is about 105)

Was as a child featured on the cover of Time Magazine with the title “Those Asian-American Whiz Kids”.

Speaks fluent Japanese. (obviously)

Resides in Los Angeles.

Still drives a 2000 Honda Accord.

Produces CGI special effects for George Lucas’s ILM and worked on special effects for Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006), War of the Worlds (2005), the three most recent Star Wars movies, and The Perfect Storm (2000).

Has a blog.

Source: Wiki and IMBD