Capricious Me

Seems like an unreasonably large number of people are incensed over the supposed scandal of Zhang Yimou using a nine year old girl to “sing” while dubbing her voice with a seven year old who was not deemed cute enough.

Um. Why WHY are people so hung up over this? Hollywood (ever seen Star Wars? My Fair Lady? Sound of Music?), Bollywood (um…. EVERY SINGLE MOVIE) has been doing this for ages and people love it. The opening ceremonies are just that - ceremonies, a show, entertainment. Lighten up. Enjoy the show. Think about it this way… instead of one little girl getting to participate and receiving all the attention, two will now benefit from the “exposure” of this lip-sync scheme.

I really hate listening to the commentators and coverage. Of all the things to show about China, of all the improvements Beijing has made, of all the modernization China’s gone through, why show us your reporters grimacing and being disgusted by fried scorpions, which is hardly the street food that I or many others grew up with. It’s like having someone come to the US only to report back that Rocky Mountain Oysters are a very popular snack.

America, is this what you consider human rights? This is, unfortunately, not an isolated incident. What a shame. People look to the US as the land of opportunity, but the harsh reality is veiled xenophobia and adverse bureaucracy that seems to mock the greatness this country achieved through the toils and contributions of immigrants.

China’s victories in team gymnastics makes me soooo happy. I always root for China. :) What can I say? I may be an American citizen, but I’m still Chinese.

The men’s gymnastics is always amazing to watch… but the Chinese men were so much better than anyone else that I wasn’t too surprised when they won. The women’s results were much more exciting, especially since it was such a tug of war all the way through. I’m looking forward to the all-around and individual event competitions.

The synchronized diving is pretty amazing to see too, but I only got to see the women’s 3m. Of course China got the gold there.

Go China!! Jia you!

Tonight, I shall be watching the opening ceremonies and making crepes. :)

Earlier this week, I made quite a few using prosciutto, serrano ham, cheese, lemon juice, nutella, bananas (not all at the same time). Tonight, I add mozzarella, basil, and tomato. I’ve been planning the basil, tomato, prosciutto, mozzarella for a while… I hope it does not disappoint.

So I’m back in Davis, for the weekend and a few days before I head back to the bay area for cooler weather for the rest of summer.

I came back to find that one of my roommates bought a PS3 and borrowed the Planet Earth series on blu-ray. We also had a super awesome surround sound system set up thanks to Chad’s speakers. When Planet Earth isplaying on our 48 inch hdtv with surround sound, you feel as if you’re in the deep ocean or grasslands or a cave. I’m having second thoughts about going back to the bay area so soon…

I walked into my room to find that a wall of Chad’s clothes, chairs, and other belongings took up the majority of my room. I have several small, distinct paths that allow me access to my bathroom, bed, and closet. I can even squeeze myself into the chair to sit at my desktop computer, where I proceeded to play Diablo II as an Amazon, but only until I completed the 1st act. (I think my favorite class is still the necromancer, because almost from the start you can summon odd creatures to do your bidding.)

My last night in Seattle was pretty awesome, thanks mostly in part to the people who came out to join me. A small group of us went to have delicious, awesome pho in a hole in the wall restaurant that was empty but for us. Then we headed over to Zig Zag for some drinks, which is where everyone else joined us. Zig Zag is by far the best bar I have ever been to for one reason: Habanero tequila. OH yes. One of the owners ages his own tequila, and happened to make one infused with habanero. This, mixed with tobasco, passion fruit juice and lime makes for a burning good drink, for those who like their spicy. This was my second time to Zig Zag and it is one of my few regrets that I did not find this place sooner. If you ever have a chance to go, sit at the bar by all means possible. Knock someone off their stool if you must, because watching the bartenders mix drinks is a sight to see. These guys are serious about making a good drink. I had at least two tastes of my habanero drink before the bartender was satisfied that I was satisfied and poured it into a martini glass.

I really should do a post about the memorable food memories.. particularly those of the otoro at Nishino…

Today was puzzleday. The day was so awesome. The puzzle creators and people planning the event were all dressed up in costumes. Among the attendees, several Star Trek crew, a grunt (from Halo), Master Chief, a flower/vines creature (mother earth?), Darth Maul, a Jedi knight, Neo (from The Matrix), a cardassian… Oh, the costumes did not disappoint.

When we were at the closing ceremonies, the author of the puzzle or a representative would explain how to solve each puzzle. One of the authors was… KEVIN LITWACK. From my high school! I remembered then that Lily had told me that he was at Microsoft and I’d confirmed that there was a Kevin Litwack working there. I didn’t know him very well, but Lily and he were on debate team together.

Pain Train Synchronetics (5 pts plz!), my team, came in third today (we were the 3rd team to complete the metapuzzle) but we had the highest overall score and solved every puzzle but one (which is at least 2 more than any other team, including the teams that solved metapuzzles before us) so I was really pleased. As a prize, we each got a little star trophy with a hologram of a shooting star that says, “Third Place - Lieutenant” and a Mars Mission Lego set and a handshake from Master Chief. (The theme was space related.) The 1st and 2nd place teams got pretty much the same prizes.

Puzzlehunts are fun. I wish they would bring college puzzle challenge to UCD, but I doubt that we’ll be so lucky.

Ugh. Windows partition of my macbook is in an infinite reboot loop. I can’t boot into safe mode because it won’t obey “Ctrl-Alt-Del” for the login screen and the mouse pointer is stuck.

This. Sucks.

I’ve been doing a lot of my programming on the laptop while I used my work machine to process data intensive stuff. Sigh. My data’s safe, but all my work from earlier today is inaccessible.

Um, what the hell, Seattle? I thought we agreed that you’re done with the rain.

Let’s talk about yesterday. It was warm; it was sunny. And then you decided, around dinner time, to throw a hissy fit and pour as hard as you can. These mood swings have got to stop. July 4th is coming up, and I want my sunshine.

The new prime cards are GREEN. I wouldn’t go so far (and be so delusional) as to call it Lime Green, but when I saw my new card full of green swirls and prettiness… I gave a little happy squeal inside.

So Mike, who is awesome beyond words, got us tickets to see Maroon 5 in September. (Counting Crows will also be there, as will Augustana, who I just started listening to on Pandora and it’s pretty good.)

*happiness*

And then… there’s THIS. Diablo III! The gameplay video looked so awesome. There was a bit with Deckard Cain when he starts to say, “Stay a while and listen,” and get interrupted midway. Heheheh. And he sighs, “No one ever listens.” Which is probably true. Anyway, the new class, Witch Doctor, looks like a lot of fun. Swarms of locusts? Gruesome pets? Firebombs? Mind altering spells? It’s going to be a long wait till 2010.