avatar

• computer graphic is always a strength from james cameron. better focus on last few minutes.
• name of the moon is pandora… obviously this is to show how greedy we are
• jake scully is the chosen one, a bit like anakin skywalker. of course the harm is less but less dramatic… and reasonable to him to become na’vi finally due to his human body defect
• human pls don’t underestimate force of nature
• how to get two more sequels? if the way follows similar to jurassic park, that wastes this one ending.

sherlock holmes

maybe it’s a bit more on action. but if it is filmed by conventional way like those tv episodes for stories of agatha christie, it’s not a blockbuster even with jude law or robert downey jr.

besides the novels did say holmes is kinda professional on martial arts. this doesn’t make conflict to the original idea from sir arthur conan doyle. and the film does emphasize the method he investigates. actually many tv series nowadays are using the same style, like house, the mentalist. using both law & downey and starts with holmes already famous is very fit too all other stories using holmes’ methodology. they are not cartoon heros anyway. if people really want to know their background, they would buy the fictions and study themselves.

for some cg screens i have a feeling of another film starring jude law, sky captain & the world of tomorrow. the only drawback is i don’t like the way they handle hair of robert downey jr. it’s a bit too modern.

For the sequel, obviously needs to include death of mary, and of course professor moriarty.

2012

1. actually actors are quite well known, only hong kongers are lack of knowledge. of course you cannot get every 1st-class to play;
   
2. maybe we expect a bit more, the movie actually is ok. but seems like the older twos are a bit better;
   
3. every parents care their children. sorry for yuri;
   
4. hope is for sissies. sorry for gordon, tamara;
   
5. it’s normal to have rich on board as capital is needed and in order to make whole earth being unknown. of course murders are reasonable in this circumstance;
   
6. USS JFK had been retired. they
7. should use another aircraft carrier instead. btw why not use bentley a bit more;
   
8. a bit too good for chinese; they don’t let remaining especially workers to come even for ancient chinese. their product may be in second class only. it’s hard to say every ship is in good shape after first wave of tsunami;
   
9. where are the remaining arks? only three can pass through?

the clone wars s2e06

anakin said he wants to celebrate the victory in the clone wars with ahsoka when she is in trap. that means ahsoka should be dead already in revenge of the sith. what he talks often fails, like his mother, padme.

the death i think also contributes him to closer to stay in dark side…

wtcc macao 2009

1. so dirty the team order was at the end of race 1. both seat & bmw did tricks to make the plans secure…
   
2. there is no advantage for bmw anymore. despite rumours heard before, hope they stay in wtcc.
   
3. this year crash was more violent than years before. thompson’s car was in too heavy damage in qualifying so he couldn’t show up in races. what a waste for him & lada. the crash for engslter was unlucky (he had already been unlucky this season with the crash with stupid safety car) & hope him recover soon. sad for larini, couldn’t finish for his ever last race.

p.s. so crappy tvb broadcast was, both presenters & timing for ads suck.

tp-link & macbook

i may know the wireless connection getting crappy between tp-link wireless router & macbook.

there are two factors, one is temperature of macbook. if the heat is not exhausted out, the temperature is directly proportional to the interference of the wireless signal. the connectivity in winter is much better than that of summer.

another is the boot camp. it seems either mac os or windows doesn’t disconnect / release the original connection well enough the next connection in another os sucks. but i still need to use windows as latest office for mac doesn’t support vba.

albums collected

1. we sing. we dance. we steal things.
   first is attached by “lucky”. then find other songs are cool too
   
2. fearless
   "love story” is a big hit & makes me interested. i also like “white horse” & “you belong to me”. Thx MTV for promotion when i was in singapore.
   
3. the boy who knew too much
   great. even better than “live in cartoon motion”

house so far

finally caught up the latest episode after going back home.

to see house to get away vicodin & hallucinations in psychiatric hospital really finds how his mind changes from resistive to cooperative without affecting his medical gut. and he finally finds a way to help people in a right way. the affair between him and lydia makes me think lydia is more attractive than cuddy and lydia is much fitter for house’s future. really hope lydia show in a later stage to fight for house. cuddy pls work a bit hard. :P

besides pls allow dr nolan to come back to further guide house. wilson is not strong enough to help house to go on as wilson knows the old devil house for too long and he is still sticking with amber.

it’s the right choice to choose foreman as the interim head as he had experience in mercy and he can use house’s angle to think. it’s a bit shock for the leave of taub, but i think his former colleagues find him back to the old field & kick him back. it’s normal for foreteen to separate and actually i like jennifer morrison more than olivia wilde.

what chase did to kill the dictator is reasonable as for his background. he was nearly a priest but he could not stand for his faith. his handling is still a mess now and should be an interesting point for coming few episodes.

inglourious basterds

the layout is a bit like a book, starting with chapter 1, 2, 3. even the film is a bit spaghetti western and a bit violence scenes, the story is quite mainstream. you can say it is right in balance. btw i love the way to handle nazi

the guy acting colonel hans landa is really good. he can show how the colonel really does the job well & treats the job as a job instead of a crazy nazi.

both main actresses are pretty and it's a bit sad the jewish cannot have a happy ending. btw the last scene of her is just like a ghost.

another main actor, brad pitt, is cool in the film with that accent. but when comparing with colonel, i think something is missing.

obviously british is in a bad role in the film, the lieutenant nearly ruins the operations. even though he's good in german movie industry, he doesn't act as a german in other ways. and he wastes two local basterds and nearly makes the key person dead.

really hope hilter was dead in that way, so tom cruise will not die later.

p.s. don't know why german language inside the movie sounds much better than that i saw i youtube.

e-statement by hsbc hk

in order to save more paper, hsbc hk will enforce using e-statement instead of traditional mailing very soon.

i still stand on traditional statement even it will charge me starting from 2011. this is because conversion of statement is quite different from that of other paper. especially when many places from government, public utilities, to financial institutions (even hsbc itself) still only accept traditional statement.

besides they only officially support on windows xp & internet explorer 6. win xp is going to be faded even it is still mainstream. ie 6 is even worse, microsoft already pushes hard to make users use ie 8 instead. and there are users using other systems (mac, linux, or mobile systems) with different browsers (firefox, chrome, safari, opera...). how can they use the service even if everywhere accepts e-statement?

pls stop this stupid move before everything is ok. pls don't flatter those environmental protection enthusiasts.

Up

i just think the ideas brought behind are similar as the things inside steve jobs, de facto owner of producer, pixar.

everything is just fit into the right position with no less or more.

that's why pixar will bring back two old friends, toy story & cars, instead of a new story in coming years.

some new good google services not available in chinese

1. sports' schedules & contacts' bithdays - only contacts' birthdays are available to us, but we do need sports' schedules. of course it's hard to cover both local & overseas sports, hope they can try putting it on stock faster. (why do they announce in gmail blog instead of docs' blog? because of contacts?)
   
   
2. Google Domestic Trends - this will be free & easy way to study the big trend of economics so we can buy at low & sell at high. actually they can directly implement this to hk version of google finance (use google translate to make it in chinese) as our/mainland's economics is highly depending on that of the states. so we study what happened across pacific and we can act accordingly.

lens of canon cameras

the said e18 error is always a nightmare for many users. for me, this problem makes a 3-year ixus 40 dead & now nearly kicked my 1-year ixus 860is to hell.

the ixus 40 problem finally made the battery closed to explosion (blowed a bit) and the fixing fee quoted by canon service centre can allow me to buy another good camera under other brand. but i still like canon so i get ixus 860us.

the problem of new one is it loves to switch on again even i shut it off and put into the case. & it makes itself out of order. when i took it out & found the lens rotated anti-clockwise for around 30 degrees. luckily method fix #7 mentioned in this blog post saved my day. but the rotation may already hurt some electronics inside, there are dead spots on lcd screen...

tailor made label cloud

finally the team made the official one which users wait for long time. compared to the one done by enthusiasts, one thing is needed to improve. that is to limit the amount of labels to be shown. if you have a page solely with labels, that's fine. now it is one of the items put on sidebar for most users & we don't expect to see a long cloud making screen very long for a tiny blog post. so i stick on enthusiat's one at this moment.

(sep 13: another is much better, jump breaks)

is latest update for google reader a fight against their old friends in friendfeed

i think they just show the function making friendfeed less usable just after friendfeed is bought by facebook.

for me, friendfeed is the central of showing my sharing items stored in different networks. now this move from google reader is to make information crossly shown in different networks. so you can add a feed from twitter to google reader at the same time you can share things back to twitter. this makes things more mess

24 s8 (spoiler)

they are doin something impossible again. peace between the states & iran...

good to bring kim (which brings her daughter) & ethan back. but how about aaron?

crash!

my pc’s office 2007, .net framework, silverlight & hp printer drivers keep on crashin’. what the hell?

more on america’s army 3

of course we cannot compare the brand new thing with the old aa2. it does bring something good, especially ifak which you can be treatable after gunshots, and also much more detailed basic training with new point systems. besides one thing you cannot do in aa2 is to melee the enemy.

however they should bring some aa2’s features back. i don’t like the aim point which is much harder to hit the enemy and hard to see when background is in rich details. m320 is worse than m203 in both way of aiming & number of available rounds (that means my favourite, insurgent camp, cannot be converted). and you don’t know how many bullets left after firing few. it’s very hard to get good result for xm110 test even you aimed the target so well. i miss m24/m82 anyway.

finally hk disneyland is shown

in google maps & earth! and also union square, land reclamation in front of star ferry, stonecutters bridge.

but how come lee garden road is next to hk academy for performing arts?

america’s army 3

it’s completely fresh built, not like aa2 was just building on top of aa1. but before closing publicly staffed development studio, army should allow them to fix up the bugs first. there are still tons of bugs after the first update, like abnormal menu behaviour, account setting maintenance failure in game.

one of the things pissing me is it cannot link with aa2 account. i have already pre-registered my account so i don’t create a new one. the damned in-game setting don’t allow me to link back.

but the suck one is user cannot finish the basic combat training which you cannot play the game online! i have finished combat life saving for three times but the it doesn’t allow me to move on. is that due to steam? (seems so, the auth server delayed updating my result) damn it.

24 s7 finale (spoiler)

• tony is in dark side, what will happen in season 8? but it’s cool in his mind for the revenge. basically everything behind in last few seasons is known.
  
• when jack is saved, how would he think? and how’s kim?
  
• so renee will be in new ctu?
  
• there should be something like redemption before broadcast of season 8 to explain the things above.
  
• will they bring janis back? and also morris if chloe is in new ctu? what will aaron do? they need to bring him back to complete the journey.
  
• how do the guys working with alan wilson save him? jack’s brother & dad, charles logan were also in the same organization. so allison faces far more than her family. she needs to work alone this time…
  
• which line will be faded away like karen hayes?

house divided (spoiler)

this one should be the best in this season so far.

story is so rich this time. it gives every characters shown up, first digging up house’s mind with amber! wilson was made miserable again by putting the bachelor party in his house (coz house kicking out cameron from the party) and walking out without pants after playing with his known stripper. foreteen is cool and seems like unbreakable. chase is poor being nearly killed by jealousy from house. and cuddy saves house and the day again.

but cg for flame by wine is a bit weak.

new flu outbreak

suddenly there is a new flu coming out and we should take more care on the incident going.

1. it’s like the flu in 1918, i.e. young people are much more easier to be infected. so we should have a better living style.
   
2. pros and cons compared to that in 1918.
   
   pros: organizations like WHO and more NPOs, medical development including genes, vaccines, and drugs; information circulation and alerts so earlier measures can be taken;
   
   cons: easiness for travel (mobilization / globalization); crowded living conditions in urban areas; fewer exercises / lazier and full of junk food.
   
3. hope margaret chan not make mistakes like what she did in hk again.
   
4. currently the deaths are still in mexico, and original outbreaks in there and mexicans populated southern part of the states, that may mean a. poor medial conditions there; b. virus is active in hotter & drier places.

may god bless us.

gingko house

luckily i still work at central / sheung wan district in these few months so we can try it before going to quarry bay / tai koo area. we didn’t book a table but we were lucky there is a time gap for us to take our lunch.

the most special thing is the waiters are elderly instead of youngsters used by most newer restaurants elsewhere in hk. services are wonderful and discreet even without service charge. also the set lunch is delicious. pizza is thin and rich in tomato sauce. if the time gap is longer, the lovely set drink will not be wasted. the bill is reasonable and actually i would pay for more. hope i try more before relocation.

america’s army 2.8.5

another update before AA3 and it shows more ES2 introduced in previous one in existing maps. developers said there will be special tricks for “bridge” based on addition of ES2. i’m looking for them.

however they need to update they deploy client before further update. mine still crashes and i need to use old way to get the latest fix.

24 s7e17 (spoiler)

• reasonable to bring kim back. but it’s experimental… and may be too late for treatment. the thing should bring more harm than he’s was drug addicted in season 3. what will this happen in season 8?
  
• olivia and her reporter partner ken is really a pair of mom & son (bitch & sob)! is their sleep longer than that of logan’s? btw cool to see aaron again.
  
• tony finally rocks but how can he broadcast live images out the facility? the place was shielded for intrared, it should have done something else for wireless jamming (special station for internal communication only) and the place is underground with military grade material.
  
• and that american way makes the monster back to her ass at all.

finally rumor gone for house (spolier)

goodbye kutner.

… to work for obama!

anyway it brings the line for next few episodes to let house to find out why he chose suicide. since he was so positive as far as we see. only little changes were found in last episode (let taub get his point). maybe he’s afraid to be another house?

goodbye ER!

it’s the last stuff for golden era of nbc which i started watching it since i took secondary school (dropped it after carter left).

it’s nice to have the old opening credit & theme song back and there are so many familiar scenes (even carter & rachel greene conversation!). and also to get so many original casts to appear once more.

what i wanna say it ends in a good way at all. thank you.

ref: wiki, alan sepinwall, snap judgement, pepe, series & tv, emmy extra

something new and cool but should be fixed

the idea behind latest feature in google reader is good but i think it’s duplicate with current function, share with note. and they said, “Currently, you cannot comment on items in a shared items subscription or on a shared tag; comments can only be made on items shared by friends.” that means i needa type twice for same thing i thought. hope they check and do something to fix the situation

old times – ER S15E19 (spoiler included)

it was another anticipated episode before ER ends.

why? as the title said, this one is for long time lovers. four original casts are back, george clooney (should be the last time to see him to play a tv drama), julianna margulies, noah wyle & eric la salle.

main story is john carter needs to have a kidney transplant (lost one when lucy was killed & remaining is being damaged in africa). he was in the hospital his mentor peter works. this is touching when they talk before the surgery and how peter saves john during the operation. they are obviously far over mentor/student relationship.

in seattle where doug & carol reside, sam & neela are there to wait to get the transplant organs from a dying adolescent. doug & carol worked to convince teenager’s grandma to let her grandson go. when doug found sam & neela working in county, they check out who they know in common shows the big change in the show. finally sam & neela got what they want and back to chicago. it’s a bit odd for doug, carol, sam & neela not knowing kidney is for john…

anyway the story quality is back to the old days! and also we don’t expect george clooney for playing not only a cameo!

24 s7e13 (spoiler included)

so far i think it can be nominee for emmys. the story is exciting and unexpected. and it’s sad to watch bill’s dead… and also finally knows a bit on what happened to aaron pierce’s last four years.

empire: total war

i give up to try/own it

1. not much free time to play games
2. steam said demo is not allowed for my region
3. gamespot said it’s not editor’s choice.

valkryie

most of cruise's films i saw were too action-based and this one only first few minutes are as impressive as before. as i knew the history a bit before which makes me feel this one likes bbc / national geographic documentary instead.

red cliff

1. war scenes are ok
2. too much on lin chi ling
3. story is too far from history

24 s07 e01-06

spoiler

 

gap between redemption & e01:

1. first son was dead
2. the mine didn’t kill the colonel

something in fbi:

1. janis is a bit like chloe

and:

1. very good way to bring tony, chloe & bill back
2. whole secret service is in bribe?
3. how can jack face colonel? how will colonel do if he knows jack is now with tony?
4. no traffic collision avoidance system on both planes? or that cip can override? the small plane may not be detected.
5. what will happen for first gentleman?

another year

first is to secure my job, i.e. to work in cautious. the mistakes i made are not acceptable. i need a well balance between efficiency, stability and multi-skills. i’m not bad on efficiency, multi-skills, but really sucks on stability. sometimes i can do some miracle things, but often i give troubles to others. even everything is not perfect, i hope i get better eventually. a tough challenge is ahead to test my weakness due to recent layoff. besides everyday tasks, the new one would be very demanding on both efficiency and stability. can i still do my best after high workload and long working hours? others can, but i’m not sure. should i find another way out after the turmoil of the economy?

and it should be wise not to apply the master course when we are sure whether the job can be secured. but there are things i can consider, driving, learning german, first-aid… let me think about it in coming holidays. besides i need to put a bit hard work to continue my self-learn access thru this book and get back some java skills from robocode.

when everything is not safe, spending is another key topic. except things mentioned below for personal entertainment would use extra money on my low expense life, a pair of leather shoes, some shirts were bought already. another trouble thing should be my cell phone. the battery cover is already loosen. the connection of charging adaptor is not as firm as used to be. but i still don’t firm what kind of phone i want yet.

money saved still puts to stocks. this year should be a good year to absorb more. but i can absorb less than i can as i did some stupid decisions last year. first is not trying to add new member including ipo in my list of stocks in this year. i was suck to get 00005.hk, 00151.hk, 00330.hk, 02318.hk (luckily sold with profit), and 02827.hk in 2008. and i will concentrate on 00410.hk besides 00006.hk under monthly investment plan. but i cannot withdraw the possibility to get more stocks for other members.

summer makes me sportive. nearly every week i kept swimming last year from june to october. but after then only played tennis once with my friend and no major exercise was done until now. i really need to think what to do during winter to keep my body fit.

for personal entertainment, this year should be mostly on lego, empire: total war, the remaining books of poirot series. already bought two when it is firstly available in this year, but there are more attractive sets from lego to be available later this year.  like 10193 - medieval market village, it can be said as one of the master pieces from lego in these recent years. besides there are rumour sets also attractive. really hope lego hk can import them and sell them not only in special event.

despite the disappointment of medieval ii: total war, empire: total war should be promising. it is built by the same team which brought rome: total war to us and they also bring new way to play in the game as what they did in rome: total war, like naval battles. the only drawback is the map will be too large. just better wait it out & commented by game sites before further decision. game time should be much less even i still play america’s army which should be a new version out later this year and civilization iv in long holidays.

finally bought mrs mcginty’s dead at a reasonable price, but i don’t start it yet as i’m reading 44 scotland street right now. hopefully i can finish it within this year and get me back into the world of poirot.

and please give me more time to chase house, 24, doctor who, and torchwood.

what hk parents not to do to their children

an excerpt from 44 scotland street,

“The whole part about childhood,”… “is that it affords us a brief moment of innocence and protection from the pressures of the world. Parents who push their children too hard intrude on that little bit of space. And of course they make their children massively anxious…

honey orange latte

last year end i nearly missed my favourite, toffee nut lattee. so i won’t miss the chance to taste latest special, honey orange latte.

 

they have already a drink with orange flavour, mocha valencia. this time, aside with orange is honey instead of chocolate. the effect i think is just taking out the chocolate taste, honey is just another sweetener only. the brewing temperature is actually too hot for honey to take its effect. luckily it doesn’t take out the smell of orange. and the drink  fits the festival and atmosphere well which can sweet your mind.

windows live essentials

a new version is out. in last version i removed windows live mail as it sucked. the new version, however is much better and i think it can replace outlook express finally.

for others, i have installed messenger, photo gallery, and writer. i don't like the big change in the messenger even though it's still friendly. but it's cool to put share files in skydrive so the files can be available at all time.

i seldom use photo gallery but it provides all basic stuff other software provides. u cannot feel the big charge in writer even they have made some cool plugins.

what a shame is movie maker is for vista only. it’s time to replace windows movie maker in xp.

another lego city sets in hand

8398 & 8401!