New ipad camera : cons

Up until recently, I use my Canon camera to take self-portrait photos and videos.  The video and image quality seemed decent enough, and I was happy with it.  And then, I brought my iPad, it comes with a front facing camera and another camera at the back.  So recently I tried using it to take some self portrait, and found that I have serious problem using the high quality 5 Megapixel camera at the back to take photos.  So instead, I used the front facing camera.  And the problem was pretty lame.  That make sense, because the resolution is just 640 x 480, but at least I am see what photo or video would be like by looking at the iPad screen.

So at the end, I realized that for self portrait videos and photos, I should stick with using my Canon Powershot SD880 IS.  At least I can:

• Hook up to my TV and see what the photo or video will look like.
• High quality video and photo
• Has easy to use timer

TaoBao Shopping Experience, 2012 edition

Everytime I go to Hong Kong for workation (work + vacation), I also try to buy some costume or dress from TaoBao since they have huge variety of dress and accessories that you can't find at any local store.  Since I tend to go to Hong Kong once each year, that means I also shop at TaoBao once each year.

My last year's TaoBao shopping experience was, unfortunately, less than enjoyable.  I experienced quite some of the problems, including:

•  The cheap dress I brought was indeed cheap in quality, for that purple dye stinted my skin after wearing for less than 15 minutes.
• The experience of waiting for SFExpress (順豐速運) to come by was extremely annoying to me.  Plus I had to pay additional delivery charge since my home was considered "rural location"

This year's TaoBao shopping experience was relatively better, mostly because:

• I only brought item from TaoBao this time, and that item was basically a different color version of a pair shoes that I brought last year.
• I chose SF Express self-pickup service.  That way I can work the pickup into my schedule, and no extra charge I need to pay.

My only problem this time is that I picked "九龍旺角大南街164號地下"  as the pick up location, which is actually in the middle between Price Edward and Sham Shui Po MTR Station.  I really should have picked "九龍深水埗大南街40號地下" which is very close to Prince Edward MTR Station.  Other than that, I was pretty ok with the whole process.  In fact I am a bit regretted that I did not buy more stuff from TaoBao this time.  

That bloody wig

I realize that I am not a particularly energetic person, but what drains my energy even faster is a bad wig.  To be fair, a lot of times it's not really the wig itself has any flaw.  It's just the way how I use the wig causing me pain, literally.

Case in point: last weekend I crossplay as a Xinjiang dancer as AnimeOverload 2012.  In order to complete the look, I need a wig that has hair at the the forehead part that I can comb over so that it will look like I comb over some long hair from my hair line to the back and form a series of braids.  I couldn't found a short hair wig that did the job, so I used a hair hair wig.  Since the idea is to not showing long hair at the back and instead shows a bunch of braids (a job taken cared by a Xinjiang hat), I have to make to  turn those long hairs either into braids, or at least tide them as one chuck.  I chose the later, and here's the problem: that chuck of hair is actually quite heavy, and it constantly pull my head thanks to gravity.  Thus, I started to feel the hair-pulling pain after wearing it for an hour.  Eventually I wore it for more than 6 hours, and by the time I took the wig off, I had a serious headache, and had to at least rest for half an hour to slight ease the pain.

Ironically, I really like the look, so I'll probably do it again, but NOT during conference.  2 hours is that max I can handle the pain from that wig.

Contact lens and Samsung Galaxy Nexus

Don't get me wrong.  I still love the Samsung Galaxy Nexus I recently brought.  It does exactly the stuffs I need it to do, and done them quite nicely.  But it failed to serve me when I am in contact lens, cause when I am in contact lens (instead of wearing a pair of regular glasses), things get blurry.  I realized the problem when I was at AnimeOverload 2012.  I found myself kept having trouble posting Facebook status and sending messages because the text on the screen is just too darn tiny.  Granted, I probably will have the same problem if I got an iPhone instead.  So perhaps I should continue carrying my iPad around instead of just the Galaxy Nexus.

不太難看的妝

今次去 AnimeOverload 2012, 最大的得著,是發現自己原來在壓力下，可以用二十分鐘內，化一個不太難看的妝，這個就是成果。

I used to proud of my total independence. I say whatever shit I want to say, do whatever stuff I want to do. No one can control me or bug me. But on the flip side, no body cases what I do. Every time I mention something like this, my friends will say "it's about time to get a girl friend". But that sounds too much like getting a girl friend just to fulfill my need, as in "I am thirty, so I buy a bottle of water" (and by the way, sorry, but still don't like the idea of buying bottled natural resources). Beside, there's consequence. I can't get, utilize, and then get rid of a girl friend, like people getting rid of their pets. Usually I either not attach to someone or some object, or getting very attached to someone or something, even after they died or self-destructed. And my experience told me that you don't just get a girl friend, but instead a family of new friends, relatives, and sometimes enemies. I really don't know if I am being overly selfish or overly sensitive.

Still, there's no string attach to me right now. All is takes me kick start myself to search a new adventure of love and hate. Or wait for "little people" do it's magic.

I should stop reading "1Q84" for a while.

Location:Should I find a girl friend?

A friend I met at anime convention was chatting with me about football and soccer. Somehow I came up with this analogy: if American foot is like turn based RPG (rely on formation and strategy, process in turn base), then soccer is like action RPG (rely on formation and strategy, keep on combating until reaching a major milestone).

I usually don't say smart stuff like this, so I gotta document it here.

Location:American football and soccer

"With GreyHound, I can go anywhere"

Thanks to my friend Rachel, I got to meet a lot of interesting people, people I would't naturally have met with my kind of blunt honesty and natural talent on pissing off people. One of them was a maid cafe girl called Bambi. Bambi is an Asian American girl in a cross section of a elder teen and a young adult, working at a Sanrio store, having a pair of giant eyes (at least when she put on her prescribed contact lens). Like a lot of young people these days, she's socially active, cheerful, enjoys alchocol breverage, and absoutely ready to try anything that doesn't kill her. You can be attracted by Bambi for tons of different resons. For me, it was a line she said to us last night.

"With GreyHound, I can go anywhere."

She said that during our conversation at maid cafe. We were talking about driving in general, as I always have an impression that all young people knows how to drive. In fact. some probably started doing it long before they got their driver licenses. Bambi, on the other hand, doesn't feel like she has a need to learn to drive. She commutes by bus to work during weekdays, and goes to mall or visit friends by bus during weekends. She doesn't have the luxury to impulsively decide to get to somewhere miles away in 15 minutes, and instead have to schedule her life around certain bus schedules. And there were times when she had to do a little bit hitchhiking so that could get home after 11 pm, as buses start coming by a every 45 minutes interval instead of every 10 minutes. Still, Bambi continues to manage her life, done what she wanted to do, and having a good time.

The reason why all these surprised me was because, while I had the similar bus riding experience during my college days, the memory and the feeling I have as I recall about taking buses was way different from what Bambi told us. Back then I had to squeeze a lot of college credit hours in my college study schedule because I need to get through college as soon as possible, before I ran out of money to fund my college education (I was a foreign student back then and there's no financial aid for foreign students). I found that having my life dictated by public bus scheduled being something that caused a lot of pain and agony to me back then. The inferior public transportation system in the city I lived at didn't help neither. Seeing my friends getting their own cars one by one, starting to have a brand new life that involved partying, dating and having fun made me depress. Eventually I got my own second-hand used car with the US$1800 I saved during my junior year. With this new freedom machine, I told myself that I would keep fighting in my life, and made sure that nothing in this world, particular not the stupid Metro Bus Schedule, would in any sharp of form control my life ever. I didn't want to rely on anyone to give me ride. I wanted to be the driver of my own destiny.

Such road map of living worked out fairly well for me throughout my life. Now I make a decent living, do and go wherever I found pleasing to me, and without no one holding me back, meaning no family no baby and no loan, I have the opportunity to make any major detour in my life. And since things worked out for me, I assume that it should on the others too.

But Bambi showed me another possibility of navigating life. I don't know how things will end up with her, don't know if she will still be happy with all the decisions she made during her post-teenage days 10, 20 or 30 years later. One thing for sure, though, is that she's hopeful about her life and the situations surrounding her. That is the power of being young: that everything is possible, and there's always a way to get through situations no matter how crazy and dead-end it may seemed. In the meantime, she just keep smiling, being cute, and having a good time. She doesn't have to take the owning a car and learning to drive route, because "with GreyHound, I can go anywhere."

Location:Middle Fiskville Rd,Austin,United States

I just found out that I have a draft blog post left on my blogger account with something wirtten like this:


"I cannot believe that totally forgot why I was not happy the last time what made me unhappy the last time, now I remember it: it was the freaking line ,and I am in one of those lines now. Very stressful.

Long long long line at on site registration"


I think I wrote that while I was upset for being pointed as "transvester" while I was lining up for A-kon anime conference registration.  It was a while ago so it wasn't that hurtful anymore.  Still, I am trying to make it as a reminder to encourage myself being kind to the others, because there's already enough hate, hurtfulness and rejection in this world.  We need more love and acceptance instead.

It must be tough to be a girl

I knew I am sensitive to rejection.  Not being accepted, being isolated, being ignored and being discriminated can really destroy me.  But at least I am also crave for satisfaction from doing great work, found accomplishment on creating something good, or found myself fully utilize my time doing productive activities.  So my male DNA kept me from totally relying on social relationship to gain happiness.

Girls, on the other hand, are born to be social animal.  Their happiness mostly built on the top of being socially accepted, and for most of them the ultimate goal in their life is to find someone who they can depend on, someone they love, and importantly, someone who loves them.  That's why breaking up or divorce is such a big deal to them.  But then I was also told that girls recover from breaking up faster than man.  I guess that maybe caused by the fact that they are highly social, and thus have more experience on dealing with hardship in relationships.

People tends to ignore the fact that when they try to get something, they also get the things that comes along.  When you married a guy, you get the things you like about him, but you also get the things you don't like.  And in most case, the things you don't like about him will stay being like that forever, and you have to deal with the fact that you will not get the perfect him.  That perfection image is only in your dream, and will never become reality.  So for the same reason, when a guy wants to be become a girl, he shall also prepare to get all the good things and bad things about being a girl.  And in a social norm of looking down transgender people, there's way more negative things you will have to endure.  So count the cost before jumping in.  But once you are in, be proud for being yourself and for the fact that you are brave enough to make that commitment.

表演服

約了朋友Skype視象通訊，朋友卻「放了飛機」。反正已經上了妝，便找了一套之前未用過來拍照的服裝，準備拍些照片。郤又發覺相機在車上，不想一身表演服行出車房，於是用iPad. 說了一大堆，還不是要替拍攝效果不好，來個開脫。

又在練畫漫畫。

Why I don't take phone call

A new friend asked if he could call me, and I think I need more than "no, I don't" to explain why I don't like taking phone call from any human being in this world unless it's life and death situation:

1.  Most phone calls I took were related to life and death situation:
since I screen and ignore almost all the phone, those that got through were usually emergency calls, and in this world emergency call usually means bad stuff.  They were like bosses hunting me down, accountant hunting me down, church hunting me down ... you got the idea.  So basically I was conditioned to associate phone call with all the bad scenarios.  But you might ask why I screen call in the right place, which brings to my second reason ....

2. Busy busy busy
My day job frequently requires me to work overtime, sometime work til midnight or even later.  And when I am working I need to be laser focus, or my mind will wander around and next thing I know I start surfing the web for 3 hours finding out what the bands I used to love are doing these days.  And when I am not working, I usually try my very best to devote as much time practicing drawing as possible.  That also take a lot of effort because a lot of time I will get distracted by my music keyboard, guitar, manga, Wii, 3DS, iPad, XBox360, PS3 .... and next thing I know I might have played Super Mario Galaxy for 3 hours and then deeply blaming myself.  So even I don't know when I will be practicing drawing, and like working, I need laser focus when I draw.

3. I am a self-centered bitch
That should be reason number 1 actually.  But even that needs explanation.  Some of you may wonder why teenagers love to text and sometimes even prefer text instead of making phone call.  One of the reasons is that phone call is being considered by young people as an intrusive way of communication.  It's basically saying "hey, I need your attention now, so give it to me!"  Texting, on the other hand, is being considered as a respectful way of communication, saying "I have a message for you, and you can read it when you have time,"  So, yeah, this young generation is a whole generation of ego freak, so get used to it, or start a Hungry Game to gradually getting rid of all of them :-P.  But, wait, there's more ....

4. I am also a cheap bastard
I came from Hong Kong so I am so spoiled by the super low mobile voice and data plan in Hong Kong.  Still, I hate all those expansive monthly contract bounded data plans provided by US carriers.  After doing tons of research for years and examined my use case, I concluded that I should use prepaid phone with my Android (HTC Desire).  That works out very well for me since now my monthly cost on phone is like less than US$5.  Of course, that turned my Android phone from a smart phone to a dumb phone that happens to run Angry Bird Space.  I also pay US$30 per month for my iPad data plan so that I can use browse the web, listen to podcast, use Skype, check Facebook, send Twitter message and so on anytime I want.  Since that US$30 is a no-contract unlimited data plan (and I still haven't find time to seriously abuse it), I find it a better deal than than $50+ per month voice + data plan.  Short story long, so you see that every single voice call cost me extra money, and I fulfill most of the Chinese stereotype, including being cheap.

5. I take conversation seriously
The final point seems contradicts all the above point, but let me explain.  I tried avoid random phone calls (and along the way, all the junk calls).  But when I need to communicate with someone, I always want to truly devote my time and dedication.  I want to do nothing but make that vocal conversation, instead of treating the call as a background task while I am doing other more important stuff like doing laundry, cooking, walking or even driving.  That's why I like Skype since it forces both party to sit down and have a nice dedicated conversation.

So there you go, my long explanation about why I don't take your phone call.

三年前造的一件旗袍

昨晚跟朋友去派對，順道捧朋友組的樂隊的場，因為她們在一個Club有表演，大玩七八十年代的Pop和Rock. 朋友說不想喝醉駕車，於是在附近的酒店租了房，讓我們轉女妝也方便一點。我發覺原來我除了舞服，Cosplay和展場裝，跟本沒有正常的女裝，選無可選的情况下，挑選了三年前造的一件旗袍，幸好還挺合身。朋友是外國白人，超喜歡中國服，於是拍了照片。

角式扮演

終於放下了「忙、忙、忙、沒有時間」的藉口，化了個妝，穿了一套之前沒有穿過的服裝，算替壓抑中過活的幾個月作一個交代。我愛角式 扮演。

Red pigment on my body

It's been quite a while since I have time to crossplay.  Last night I finally decided to spent the time to try out a purple dress that I brought last year.  After wearing that cheap dress (a mail ordered costume from China), I found that there's some red pigment on my body at the edge of the top part of the costume.  Obviously the costume is so low in quality that the dye of the costume left color mark on my body.  Bad bad bad.  The costume instantly fell into my "fun to try but don't wear it for more than 20 minutes" category.

Kind of depressed

Work was ok so far until recently, and I am starting to get depressed because of some personal problem. Working and doing jobs are never the problem; it's always people who let you down.

My shoes size and such

I am so rarely shopping for appeal and shoes to a point that I don't even remember my size. So I just checked, and found that 9 to 9.5. For instance, the ankle boots I brought last year was 9.5 and it was nicely loose. I found that I have an open toe mid-heel shoes in 9, though. For width, I think it's M.

For shirts and sweaters and such, they are all in M.

There, a note to self :> .

綺夢

根據我的記憶，我極少發綺夢，原因也沒有怎麼深究過，反正發甚麼夢都不是自己能夠控制的。昨晚郤發了一個夢，夢見一個漂亮和乖巧的維族女孩許配了給我，我和她都蠻害羞的，但後來不知怎麼樣的，我們一起臥在床上，我輕輕用鼻跟她的鼻磨擦了幾下，然後吻她的咀，跟 著我便想到甚麼時候結婚之類的事情。跟著我便開始和她的朋友閒談。由於她的家好客，會有些傳教士等陌生人出現。有次睡覺醒來，意 發覺有個婦人在床末睡覺，不過我的床超巨大，我在想，也沒所謂，是我未來太太的朋友，給人家方便也無妨。

這樣，夢便完結了。

買和用衣車

這套服裝是我上年十月左右訂造的，但穿了還不過一次，那四個承托隱形吊帶的扣便全斷掉了。為了修補，我居然買了一部電子衣車，還學會了用衣車修補衣物。十年前的我，也許發夢也沒有想過我會買和用衣車。

蒙古舞袍

週末，又是整理家居，試妝和做造型實驗的時間。

我發覺有個織了長辮的假髮很久沒戴過，於是便穿了蒙古舞服，用來配襯這個假髮。戴了一會，終於記起為甚麼沒有戴這個假髮：由於辮子很 長，也有一定的重量，結果假髮戴了一段時間，頭便因辮子在後扯的重量而變得很痛。所以不宜久戴，成了雞肋，不過蒙古造型，沒有辮子， 又好像有點不像樣。

另外，我發覺家中幾對蒙古靴，都和這套桃紅色的蒙古舞袍，不太配合，不是紅得不一樣，就是款式不配合，後來試穿了一對銀靴，發覺效果 出奇的好。雖然那雙不是蒙古靴，但銀色配桃紅卻很悅目。

近一兩年我差不多只化淡妝，看起自然一點。但今天化同樣的妝，卻發覺好像缺少了甚麼似好，於昰把心一橫，塗上了鮮紅的唇膏，發覺效果 相當不錯。畢竟那套蒙古袍是舞服，所以配比較誇張的化妝反而更合襯。

Boots, reorganized

It's something that irritated me for so long: my boots were all piling as a stack of mess. Today I finally took some time to organizing them by turning many of the cardboard boxes into cardboard insert that I can use to keep the boots stay stiff by inserting these cardboard pieces into the boots. The result is that I can lineup these boots in a very tidy way.

But now that I have all the boots lined up properly, I found that I am starting to running out of space in my room. maybe it's time to consider getting rid of clothes that I don't need.