Darth Vader Toaster!

What about starting your day with a small dose of the power of the Dark Side?

$54.99 at the Star Wars Shop

Tai Pei

I use to keep a few frozen meals at work for dinner when I need to stay late. I got a couple of these frozen food from Market Basket with 2 for $4. Fried rice with chicken for one and shrimp for the other. I had the chicken tonight, and it turns out surprisingly good for frozen food. And it is authentic Chinese.

On Cranes Beach

Jaspard and Lisa

Trees stripped

I am always fascinated by the forms of tree branches when the leaves are gone. But I have never got satisfactory pictures with my digital cameras. In a not-so-cold pre-winter evening (still freezing temperatures) I shot with Kodak UltraMax 400 I got from CVS using my Nikon FM2. The photofinishing lab at a local CVS is surprisingly good at tuning evening colors!

The way back

A short flight from Newark to Boston, after the usual long haul from Hong Kong.

13 Sai Lau Street

We used to live on the third floor of 13 Sai Lau Street, Tsuen Wan. In 1998 a few city blocks were collected by the government for re-development. We had to move with compensation.

I went on a nostaglia trip of Tsuen Wan with Sue and ran into San Tung Uk museum. I hung out there a few times after school when it was still a ruin. It had be reconstructed and turned into a museum that try to reproduce the traditional Hakka walled village. Inside there is a small exhibit showing the development of Tsuen Wan as a town in the past couple centuries.

There is a picture taken from the roof of my old home in 1997. I can still remember the 7-11 my mom used to buy ice-shake at the corner of the picture. I am surprised I didn't have the idea to take a picture myself at that time.

The whole area had been torn down and is now a modern shopping mall + residential high-rises.

Lee Cheong Ivory Arts Fty.

A couple of weeks ago we went to Gold Coast and took pictures with a bunch of friends. We ran into a stall selling ivory sculptures. The old man saw my manual camera and told me he took his sculpture pictures with a film camera too. Then he showed us his sculptures using mammoth task and ivory, and patiently explained to us the composition of different sculptures, with full knowledge that we are not buying. A small piece of his ivory sculpture costs HK$3000!! He has a webpage for his sculptures here.

Nam San Wai revisited

It was a very good day. Beautiful weather, good company, terrific food and a peaceful night.

LIFE and Google

Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google.
http://images.google.com/hosted/life

Dowager Empress of China Tzu Hsi (1835-1908).
Location: China
Date taken: 1903

Bike ride in Tuen Mun

Bike Trip to Bak Nei

Po Lin Monastary

Pentax MX 50 mm, f8.0; Fujifilm Superia Xtra 400

Local food in HK - 2

Noodles, Causeway Bay

Little Fat Lamb Hotpot, Mongkok

A stall for preserved fruits, Shatin

Stuffed fishie pancakes, Causeway Bay

Hong Kong Disneyland

Nikon FM2 50 mm; Fujifilm Provia 400X cross-processed

Ave of Stars

Nikon FM2, 50 mm; Fujifilm Xtra 400

Local food in HK - 1

Foreground: spare ribs; Background: frogs and mushroom. Four Season Hotpot Rice. Arthur St., Yau Ma Tei

Fried oysters with duck eggs, Four Season Hotpot Rice

Chicken Hotpot, Taiwai

Coffee and toast, Mei Do Cafe, Temple St.

Nai Chung at low tide

Nai Chung, Shatin
Nikon FM2, 50 mm; Ilford Delta 3200 Professional

President Obama!

Barack Obama won the white house with a landslide victory!

Senses has defected ignorance and arrogance. American is still the most civilized society of the world.

I am glad that I live in a time when so many histories are made.


p.s. The biggest landslide victory of Barack Obama lies in Washington D.C., the very capital of the country: 94% of the vote went to Obama. McCain only got 4% of the vote.

The magic of cross-processing

I always think that digital photos record the fact but film photos capture the memory.

I met a friend who plays around with cross-processing - process slide film with the negative film procedure. That is plain magic.

Now I bring my FM2 along loaded with a roll of color slide or black & white all the time.

The Central Footbridge
Nikon FM2, 50 mm, F8, 1/15 sec. Fujifilm Provia 400X

Shatin Racecourse
Nikon FM2, 50 mm, F11, 1/2000 sec. Konica Centuria 200

CX460 to Taipei, boarding
Nikon FM2, 50 mm F8, 1/60 sec, Fujifilm Provia 400X

Lau Fau Shan

I rode my brother's bike to Lau Fau Shan with my cameras today. It took me only 40 minutes to get there. Lau Fau Shan used to be farming a lot of oysters. Not anymore because of all the building in China across the bay. Now it relies on seafood trading and seafood restaurants. I bought from there a couple bottles of home-made oyster sauce, not oyster-flavored sauce.

Racecourse

First time at the racecourse. I wanted to go there for a long time but found no special reason. This time I went with a friend whose father is a member of the Jockey Club and he goes there every racing day. I placed 4 bets. I bought a win for one of the race and the horse got a second place. Only if I bet on place I would have got $150 from a $10 bet. The food of the Chinese restaurant is pretty good.

NY cheese cake in MK

Nikon FM2, 50 mm F1.8, 1/60 sec
Ilford Delta 3200 Professional

Light in the dark

In the dark, a dim light bob encased in an artistic case becomes a bright and beautiful sun.

Nikon FM2, 50 mm F1.8, 1/30 sec
Fuji Superia 800

Colin Powell endorses Barack Obama for president

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – Colin Powell, a Republican who was President Bush's first secretary of state, endorsed Democrat Barack Obama for president Sunday and criticized the tone of Republican John McCain's campaign.

Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081019/ap_on_el_pr/powell

Snaps in HK

I am using my handsome Nikon FM2 for film pictures. Some of them were positive films cross-processed. The picture is so solid and color so vibrant.

A stupid move

I don't know why I am here... Just want to get out of here.

Nostalgia not

The second morning in HK. Since the big HK breakfast yesterday morning, and the bad news I got a few hours after that, my stomach refuses to take in any much food.

This morning I woke up at 5:30 again. Four hours of sleep two nights in a row. Not good for the mood nor the knotted stomach.

I went out with parents and brothers to visit my great grandma's grave in the morning. Only after an hour's commute we learned that the area where the grave was located was fenced off because of recent rockfalls. We can only do the ritual 10 feet away, not even being able to see the gravestone itself. As usual I stood behind my busy parents and brothers and responded when summoned.

I still can't take the humidity, although the peak time has already passed. We then went to a restaurant in Tsuen Wan for dim sum. I ordered a rice roll with roasted pork and a congee with pork and million-year eggs. The waitress came back with a congee with dried fish and peanuts, saying that they didn't have congee with pork and million-year eggs. Unfortunately, I don't like both pork and peanuts. But father was so nice to take it, and I managed myself with a few sips of the congee. The rice rolls were crap. The skin was too thick too coarse, the roasted pork is hardly any roasted and thinner than the skin. I was also feeling cold, where mom said she was not. This was an indication that I was sick.

So I called off the dinner with Sue and came home to take a nap. I took a walk to the West Rail station through the local streets I used to take during the twenty something years I lived there. I was expecting some sort of nostalgia, but there was not. The streets had been degraded to an big open market. A nasty one.

I took to the clinic where my grandma would bring me to when I got sick. There was a small garden lined with benches patients could sit on while waiting in the line. It still look the same. But that reminded of grandma.

Next I walked pass our old home. It was torn down some 12 years ago and replaced with a brand new property with a big and modern shopping mall. It has a nice and simple garden in the middle. I didn't bother to check out the shops. As I walked I tried to figure where our old home should be located.

Then it was the city hall where grandma used to bring me to ride my bike. At that time she needed to carry the bike up the footbridge to get there. After that I arrived at the bus terminal I took bus to school during the 6 years of secondary school. I always walked pass this place with my first love. It had never been a busy bus terminal and is still like a ghost town. But at this point, I gathered that I did not miss this place at all. All I miss is the people that I had acquired and loved.

Almost everything in this trip so far goes wrong. I planned to walk this trail with someone important to me, but it didn't work out. But one thing now I know. I am ready to move on. My home is where the girl I love is. But where is she?

The last punch

From BBC news

The second presidential debate is generating intense interest among the public.

Barack Obama is fighting back over attacks on his character

More than six million people have e-mailed questions to the moderator, NBC news presenter Tom Brokaw, who will preside over the town hall-style debate in Nashville, Tennessee.

He will select only six or seven e-mailed questions, as well around a dozen from the studio audience of 80 uncommitted voters.

Mr McCain, who is widely viewed as having lost the first debate, has vowed to take the gloves off for this encounter.

Mr Obama, meanwhile, promised to fight back.

"We don't throw the first punch, but we'll throw the last," he told a syndicated radio show.

2010 GTI!!

VW unveiled the 2010 GTI at the Paris Car Show. They finally add back the shoulder lines to make it more vicious. The steering wheel looks a lot hotter too.

The nose of the 2010 GTI looks a bit like its big brother 2008 Sirocco.

VW Sirocco

Peacock and GTI

This morning I peeked out of the window and the peacock is perching next to my car again. It seemed to have noticed me and looked back. I got home in the afternoon to pack something, and the peacock is perching next to my car again. I am going to lock my car in the garage in the next couple of weeks while I am away.

The power of panicking

While fear of further market downturn brought Dow Jones a historic dive after the $700 billion bailout bill failed to pass in the Congress, a rumor of bomb attack in a temple in India resulted in a stampede that killed 168 people. A real bomb attack a few days earlier killed 6 and wounded 45. The imminent threat painted by the Bush administration based on false intelligence lead the congresses to say yes on the war in Iraq.

Fear can do more harm than the real threat.

Ford Model T goes 100

Oct 1, 2008 marks the centennial of Ford Model T, the symbol of modern era in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Cnet.com has a very good review of the car that had shaped American landscape.

History in the making

This season's news is far more thrilling yet entertaining than any TV shows ever made. The first black presidential candidate for the United States talks sense in this time of turmoil and is leading in the polls. The 72 years-old John McCain seeks to be the oldest first-term president and picks a female governor of Alaska with no national experience nor foreign experience (and needs babysitting by McCain throughout the campaign) to be his running mate. Her less-than-handful interviews by the media are disaterous. Financial institutions on Wall Street crumble one after another. Investment banks got bought up by gigantic banks which become even more gigantic, got nationalized or gone bankrupt. John McCain "stops" campaigning and rushs to Washington to "lead" a bipartisan meeting with House representatives, President Bush, head of the Fed and Treasury Secretary to settle on a bill that allows the government to use as much as $700 billion to bail out bad credits, but both Democrats and Republicans say that McCain is not helping if not bring trouble. The meeting ends with a standoff after the Republicans revolt. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson half-knees to the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and begs the Democrats to resume the meeting, and concedes that it is the Republicans that are holding back the negotiation. The House leaders spend the whole weekend doing some real work to sort out a bill, which is only rejected in the House by 23 votes, because many congressmen and congresswomen do not want to take the risk of upsetting their constituents only 5 weeks away from election. Dow Jones plummets by 777 points, the biggest one-day drop ever. The rest of the world follows suit.

This is history in the making. I am so glad to witness it up close.

p.s. The decision by a few US Supreme Court judges decided in 2000 the fate of millions in the Middle East. Let's hope that the decision of a few dozens of US House representatives do not turn the world over this time.

ATV burn-up on re-entry

From BBC news:


Europe's "Jules Verne" space freighter has destroyed itself in a controlled burn-up over the southern Pacific.

The 13.5-tonne cargo ship had completed a six-month mission to the space station and was packed with the orbiting platform's rubbish.

Two engine firings were required to slow the freighter sufficiently to pull it into the atmosphere.

The European and US space agencies had chase planes in the air to try to capture the fireball on video.

Palin's foreign policy experience in her own words

It is a joke to put this woman on the VP seat. I am very looking forward to the VP debate next Thursday.

Yet another final frontier

Prayer

A friend of mine was to deliver her baby daughter at the end of July. I lost touched with her 2 weeks before the due day, and I wrote her an email almost 2 months after that. What I got back was a short message, saying her baby was dead. I was shocked.

It must have been two awful months of her life.

I wish I can do more than praying for her.

New toy

My new toy: Nikon FM2. Made from 1982 till 2001 and all mechanical, they are the most sturdy SLR ever made. This particular one was made in 1989, and it comes with a Nikkor 50mm f1.8.

Top Republican says Palin unready

from BBC news:

Senior Republican Senator Chuck Hagel has voiced doubts about Sarah Palin's qualifications for the vice-presidency.

John McCain's running mate "doesn't have any foreign policy credentials", Mr Hagel told the Omaha World-Herald.

Mr Hagel was a prominent supporter of Mr McCain during his 2000 bid for the US presidency, but has declined to endorse either candidate this year.

He was opposed to the Iraq War, and recently joined Mr McCain's rival Barack Obama on a Middle East trip.

'Stop the nonsense'

"I think it's a stretch to, in any way, to say that she's got the experience to be president of the United States," Mr Hagel told the Omaha World-Herald newspaper.

And he was dismissive of the fact that Mrs Palin, the governor of Alaska, has made few trips abroad.

"You get a passport for the first time in your life last year? I mean, I don't know what you can say. You can't say anything."

Mr Hagel also criticised the McCain campaign for its suggestion that the proximity of Alaska to Russia gave Mrs Palin foreign policy experience.

"I think they ought to be just honest about it and stop the nonsense about, 'I look out my window and I see Russia and so therefore I know something about Russia'," he said.

"That kind of thing is insulting to the American people."

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