my random thoughts
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Wednesday, March 31, 2004 Fruit Fly Fight Club 
They look like people in bug suits! posted by Ben | | | 9:18 PM Tuesday, March 30, 2004 Google Voice Search It's not particulary ground-breaking. What's the point of using the phone to input a search and see the results on a web page? The cool part though, is that it's a local call for *ME* since I work literally down the street from them! Current geekiness rating (scale from 0 to 10) = 25 posted by Ben | | | 2:47 AM Monday, March 29, 2004 Believe it or not, America seems to be on William Hung fever. Just this morning, before going to work, NBC Today dedicated an entire segment on him and his musical endeavours. Believe it or not, he got signed to a record label and has a music video coming up. Anyways the host on the Today show says he will perform *LIVE* on April 9th. I wanna TIVO it, if I had a Tivo. posted by Ben | | | 12:02 PM Many people probably know about William Hung, the American Idol hopeful from the Bay Area who won most of our hearts with his determination to become a musical icon. And I give him mad props for what he does. But for all our benefit, please get singing lessons! His Songs posted by Ben | | | 12:52 AM Wednesday, March 24, 2004 It has probably been circulating for a while now, but here it is anyway: 1. www.realultimatepower.net. 2. http://www.blackpeopleloveus.com posted by Ben | | | 8:24 PM Free Beer + Free Food + (Possibly) Free Stuff = GEEKFEST I am so There. 
posted by Ben | | |
5:54 PM
Tuesday, March 23, 2004 OMG work is starting to suck so bad this week. Suck = everything due at the same time. The crappier it gets the less I want to deal with it. The less I do, the more it piles up. My interest in doing work, as it seems, is inversely proportional to the the quantity and its crappiness. You get the picture. posted by Ben | | | 8:48 PM Monday, March 22, 2004 I think anyone into Chinese films must know Infernal Affairs. Despite what most people say, I enjoyed the prequel quite a bit. Naturally I decided to venture out online to get more info about the behind the scenes stuff. Sad to say, most of the pages I found were in Chinese. Aiyaa. I felt so stupid being able to make out about 600% of the page. Honestly, it's definitely not enough to understand anything. The experience totally shot down my self confidence. posted by Ben | | | 11:16 PM The cable company is showing IFC this week on it's free preview channel! Hedwig and the Angry Inch was on last night. Good film, but I think people should keep an open mind when watching it. posted by Ben | | | 6:10 PM Saturday, March 20, 2004 Dragon boat season is startin' up again. Back to paddling like a crazy man! I wonder if I'll be in enough shape do a competition this time. Maybe go to the Vancouver race. posted by Ben | | | 12:09 PM Friday, March 19, 2004 1. My page counter says (at the time writing) that this blog has been viewed 1001 times since it started counting back on the 1st of October. Cool. 2. Music is great because I seem to always associate a song with each happy event in my life. Is that weird? Example: the song AK - Say That you Love me (FK-EK Japanese Vocal Mix) reminded me of the fun times at U de M, Montreal back in Summer '02, and the nights of drinking and partying and of course French Class. hahaha posted by Ben | | | 12:45 PM Thursday, March 18, 2004 Funny Stuff: first watch this then watch this I think the spoof is really funny at first. But interest significantly diminish in subsequent viewings! Later today I found this... Grandma on the Train posted by Ben | | | 4:47 PM Wednesday, March 17, 2004 Found an interesting article about the resurgence of the record player here. posted by Ben | | | 5:46 PM Tuesday, March 16, 2004 Recently I have been reading a lot about receiving FTA (Free-To-Air) DVB-S broadcasts in North America. The concept is simple. Most people can receive local terrestial broadcasts through their arial antennas and consequently receive programming for "free". Well, it's not completely free of charge since we are forced to watch commercials between segments, but I digress. Now applying the same concept to satellite DVB-S broadcasts and booyah...We can receive some of the channels that cable operators offer at a premium. For example, DW-World from Germany, CCTV-9 from China, Bloomberg news service, NHK and a bunch of other signals that you find on digital cable are actually FTA unencrypted channels. In addition to that, all those digital music stations that the digital cable, DirecTV and Dishnetwork people offer are also FTA. Anyone with a tuner and a dish can receive them free. The entire list of channels on every commercial satellite in the world is listed at lyngsat. If we know our stuff we can also decrypt Dish-network, Echostar or Bell ExpressVu signals and other encrypted services like...HBO! Anyways, that wouldn't be right so lets not go into that. The point is, no one in their right mind to spend a few hundred bucks on a dish and receiver to pick up channels off a satellite. But I would, because I'm such a geek. Gooooo MPEG-2! posted by Ben | | | 9:45 PM Ok so about two months ago, I went online to nrg music to order one of my all time favourite tracks on 12": Rain by Gaelle (Addison) from the Naked Music label. It's still on back order :( More info about the record here. Unfortunately the sample on the site doesn't do it justice. My Wish list (for now), in no particular order: 1. Gaelle - Rain - Naked music 2. Rasmus Faber - Ever After - Farplane 3. Reel People - The Light - Papa Records 4. Reel People - Butterfly - Papa Records 5. Jamiroquai - Too Young to Die (Grant Nelsson special edit) <-- I heard it on BBC's 1Xtra back in Dec '03 posted by Ben | | | 1:53 AM Monday, March 15, 2004 Funny Simpson's Spoof: "the Singhsons" Continuing with the South Asian theme...A friend of mine from back home recommended that I should check out BBC's (South) Asian network, especially this show hosted by Adil Rey (She knows I'm somewhat into bhungra and Punjabi beats). It's not bad. Definitely worth listening to. It seems that the entire BBC radio network (and consequently it's programming) is available online at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/ I usually listen to BBC 1Xtra, which is it's "urban" station. I think it rocks cuz all their weekly shows are archived, so if you happen to miss it, it's still there! Click here for 1Xtra posted by Ben | | | 8:35 PM Sunday, March 14, 2004 Dear Lacrosse players, Why are you all so violent? Stop hitting each other with those sticks, or jumping on top of one another as if it were a foot ball game! I enjoyed last night's game at the HP Pavilion because I found it extremely entertaining. However I was stunned to see that I saw more body checking in one period than in an entire hockey game. (Ok, fine, maybe they're around the same). I recommend shin pads/kneed pads. I think you need them. -Ben Jen: Thanks for the Card. However....I am having difficulties with your hand writing :P posted by Ben | | | 2:19 PM Friday, March 12, 2004 Wikkid. Got comments back up! And this time, it includes the trackback feature. What's trackback? click here to find out. Wahhh found another Fob blog just surfing around. It's chock full of canto syllables. Can I still call it FOBby even cuz the owner of the blog is from Singapore? NEwho...It's even got M-pop goin' in the background. Can anyone ID the singer? It says XieZhi something. Who the hell is that? http://tonygalz.blogspot.com/ posted by Ben | | | 2:56 AM Thursday, March 11, 2004 I just finished updating my resume for the (work) visa extension application. I remember working extremely hard to make sure it looked great when I submitted it to apply for the co-op job. The first thought that came to me seeing it again a year and a half later was "what the hell is this krap?" My 23 years of existence almost completely summarized in two pages of Times New Roman 12 pt! The contents won't get any better, but I can at least do something about the appearance. Perhaps a few days worth of revamping will mitigate the problem. posted by Ben | | | 11:38 PM Good news is that I'm no longer bored today because of the sudden influx of work that just came in. I am, however, extremely sleepy because I spent most of the evening listening and mixing my new used records (does that count as an oxymoron?) that I picked up at Amoeba on Sunday. Good stuff that's all I have to say. Fact is, not a lot of people that I know personally appreciate the deep, sexy baseline and the jazz influenced harmonies that soulful house is known for. My goal: meet up with local house-heads in Toronto and the Bay area. How? I'm not sure yet :) In other news....I would like to know how to take advantage of rss feeds coming from sites like techbargains.net or slickdeals ...HELP? A somewhat entertaining story: "random Chris Rock thing". Seems like an urban legend to me. posted by Ben | | | 3:25 PM I was extremely bored and tired all afternoon, which explains the multiple blog postings. I don't know what's wrong with me lately, really. It seems as though I just don't care anymore, regardless of how hard I try! I hope this is just a phase because the lack of productivity really scares me. Starting tonight I'm going to get more sleep (I already sleep 8 hours a night), vitamins and fluids. If that doesn't work I'm just gonna take a few days off and just chillax. posted by Ben | | | 1:58 AM Wednesday, March 10, 2004 I was somewhat ecstatic to find out that my blog page has been viewed almost 1000 times since I started logging hit counts last October. Considering the fact that I don't advertise this to a lot of people, it's a bit strange. After a bit of snooping on the visitor statistics, it turns out that people found my page through http://search.msn.com by typing in "Paris Hilton Porn Tape". WTF?! I only mentioned it *ONCE* in one of my entries and the whole world practically flocks to check it out hoping that they could get a copy. ewww? uh huh! My two $0.02: The video is a total turn off. Believe me. I've seen it. It looks more like night vision shots of the Gulf War than a porno video. posted by Ben | | | 10:28 PM My work computer is making this funky grumbling sound. Crap I should be backing up data rather than blogging this :/ posted by Ben | | | 4:07 PM Over lunch yesterday, a fellow intern and I discussed how our undergrad engineering program tries to promote "well roundedness" by not allowing us to take in classes that are arts/humanities related. Having spoken to engineering friends from Stanford, Berkeley and USC I have come to the sad conclusion that we University of Toronto engineering students have been completed shafted from any form of "enrichment". What I mean is that we are restricted from taking any "complementary" studies courses. As I recall the only course that I ever took which required me to venture outside of the engineering buildings was back in year 2 when I took Greek Mythology. I really think engineering students should have more things to say other than how much ram their ATI/Nvidia cards have... posted by Ben | | | 12:49 PM Tuesday, March 09, 2004 Isn't it cool when the first day of the month lands on a Monday? YES IT IS! It's even cooler when it's also your BDAY. Happy BDAY to me! (Although it's a week past my birthday) I'm scared because I'm 23. A few centuries ago, I'd be married with *several* adolescent children. I really don't fell "23". How are 23 year olds supposed to feel anyway? I think I feel "16" right now...at least I look the part hahahaha. Last weekend's BMW autocross was sooo fun. I've never drivin so agressively ever! Too bad Chris forgot his digicam because no one believed it when I told them I was going into super tight turns at 50 mph! Then the fundraiser test drive in the Z4 down the 101 was a dream. I can't believe how many people turned their heads to look at who the driver was. I'm willing to bet they're thinking "Hmm....I wonder how those hooligans who obviously can't afford a car like that driving one?!" Yes, the universe works in weird ways. Yesterday we got tickets to go see Wynton Marsalis perform in San Fran. I was blown away at the skill and musicianship of the band. Watching a live Jazz performance is so different from just listening to it. We originally thought that the show was going to be at the Herbst Theater, but found out last minute that it was at this other place called the Masonic Auditorium. We ended up walking like 10 block up a 90-degree incline (San Fran hills are really steep) to get to the place. *GRRR*, that's all I have to say. posted by Ben | | | 12:07 AM |
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