sigh.. but it’s good to know that “70 percent of bachelors are completely against having sex at their party, 20 percent are hoping that the women in the show will force it upon them so they won’t have to feel guilty, and the other 10 percent actively try to make it happen.” And the ones that try to make things happen argue, “There’s a price for everything.”

I found this anecdote hilarious (but at the same time, sad):

Guys make idiots of themselves in other ways too. At one party, the bride’s little brother was there. He was 18 or so, still in high school, and they got him totally wasted. All of a sudden, right in the middle of our show, he pulled out his penis and started playing with himself. In front of everybody! His father walked up to him and said, “Son, are you sure you want to be doing this?” The kid slurred “Leave me alone” and just kept going. He eventually passed out cold with it in his hand.

And also, today’s featured video: Would you do him outside? lolol

Doesn’t he look like there’s a monster inside his body, trying to wring out his body? And somehow this reminds me of Resident Evil, but I’m not sure why.

—-

PETA wishes Obama hadn’t swatted that fly to death during his televised interview, saying that Obama should show more humanity to a pesky fly.

PETA is sending President Barack Obama a Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher, a device that allows users to trap a house fly and then release it outside.
…
Deputy press secretary Josh Earnest said the White House has no comment on the matter.

Yeah, I wouldn’t either.

—-

Microsoft is pushing hard for their new IE8. In fact, they’re giving out ten grand in an internet scavenger hunt. Oh, did I mention that you’ll only find it by using IE8? And I quote, “But you’ll never find it using that browser. (So get rid of it, or get lost.)” Thank you for that ultimatium, but I already know where the ten grand is buried.

On the same subject, Microsoft drew out a little comparison chart among the browsers: IE8, Firefox, Chrome. I’d say this chart is another good way to provoke a geek argument. Security? Please. Privacy? Just because Firefox’s Private Mode and Chrome’s Incognito aren’t called InPrivate doesn’t mean they don’t deserve the checkmarks. Reliability? I thought Chrome first came up with the idea of sandboxes and “tab isolation”??? oiasjdofjwa r blahhh arg

—-

But what really blew my mind is the following. Really, this left me flabbergasted.

15-Year-Old Texting Champ Wins $50,000

what. the. hell.

LG, in a nod to texters’ dangerous tendency to multi-task, forced contestants to run an obstacle course while sending difficult-to-type messages, and compose tongue twisters while being taunted by a giant emoticon.

Life’s definitely good, LG.

-edit-

Geek Technica busts IE8 myths. and…

Included in the video was their idea of Microsoft Surface. Though it’s still too expensive for the average consumer to buy, it’ll become a reality. Here is the video of what Surface is

Anyway, Project Natal is something the XBOX team has been working on recenly, and it’s basically a controller-free gaming system. Though I have my doubts in this (i.e. how well it works), the concept video is undoubtedly mind-blowing.

Sony toyed with this idea a few years back (remember EyeStation or Eye-something? The little webcam you hook up, and you calibrate it by standing inside the body outline shown on the screen) I guess Sony marked it as a failed attempt and never went forth with it in R&D.

Project Natal: good concept, pain in the ass to implement. Mainly because the input is a variable, and not a defined button. Everybody’s living room is going to look different, and dogs would be walking by (though that can be fixed with facial recognition). But hey, we have progressed through static HTML pages to PHP to websites built entirely upon user inputs (namely, facebook)

-edit-

Sorry, Project Natal is a reality. Microsoft explains:

Compatible with any Xbox 360 system, the “Project Natal” sensor is the world’s first to combine an RGB camera, depth sensor, multi-array microphone and custom processor running proprietary software all in one device. Unlike 2-D cameras and controllers, “Project Natal” tracks your full body movement in 3-D, while responding to commands, directions and even a shift of emotion in your voice.

In addition, unlike other devices, the “Project Natal” sensor is not light-dependent. It can recognize you just by looking at your face, and it doesn’t just react to key words but understands what you’re saying. Call a play in a football game, and players will actually respond.

More info on Gizmodo.

Anyway, I’m guessing people found that site too depressing or something, a new site popped up. MLIA, or MyLifeIsAverage (Life is pretty normal today). They weren’t kidding about being average.

But that’s not all.

Today, I found out another site – GivesMeHope (Life is beautiful today!). What. The. Hell. I won’t be surprised if I start seeing GMH on facebook statuses.. = =

However, I would say I found this post to be funny:

Today, I lost my virginity. I’m an avid WoW player and spend most of my time on Digg.com. GMH

On a related note, mydadisafob, mymomisafob

Disclaimer: aforementioned sites can be a great time waster.

• grease 1&2
• dirty dancing
• breakfast club
• breakfast at tiffanys
• sabrina
• sound of music
• pride and prejudice
• tale of two cities
• pretty woman
• princess bride
• knotting hill
• you got mail
• sleepless in seattle
• Armageddon
• when harry meets sally
• con air (nicholas cage)
• braveheart
• overboard
• ghost
• bodyguard
• you love me, you love me not
• crash
• city of angels
• gone with the wind
• west side story
• fiddler on the roof
• american beauty
• august rush

Strand 80 (bold is I’ve read)

1. To Kill a Mockingbird , Harper Lee
2. Pride and Prejudice , Jane Austen
3. Great Gatsby , Scott F. Fitzgerald
4. Catcher in the Rye , J.D. Salinger
5. Atlas Shrugged , Ayn Rand
6. Fountainhead , Ayn Rand
7. Lord of the Rings , J.R.R. Tolkien
8. One Hundred Years of Solitude , Gabriel Garcia Marquez
9. Jane Eyre , Charlotte Bronte
10. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone , J.K. Rowling
11. Lolita , Vladimir Nabokov
12. 1984 , George Orwell
13. On the Road , Jack Kerouac
14. Gone with the Wind , Margaret Mitchell
15. Anna Karenina , Leo Tolstoy
16. Brothers Karamazov , Fyodor Dostoevsky
17. Crime and Punishment , Fyodor Dostoevsky
18. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn , Betty Smith
19. Slaughterhouse Five , Kurt Vonnegut
20. Ulysses , James Joyce
21. Kite Runner , Khaled Hosseini
22. Catch-22 , Joseph Heller
23. Grapes of Wrath , John Steinbeck
24. East of Eden , John Steinbeck
25. Sun Also Rises , Ernest Hemingway
26. War and Peace , Leo Tolstoy
27. Hobbit , J.R.R. Tolkien
28. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows , J.K. Rowling
29. Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay , Michael Chabon
30. Wuthering Heights , Emily Bronte
31. Prayer for Owen Meany , John Irving
32. Count of Monte Cristo , Alexandre Dumas
33. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass , Lewis Carroll
34. The Stranger , Albert Camus
35. Brave New World , Aldous Huxley
36. Little Women , Louisa May Alcott
37. Middlesex , Jeffrey Eugenides
38. Moby Dick , Herman Melville
39. The Alchemist , Paulo Coelho
40. Les Miserables , Victor Hugo
41. Tale of Two Cities , Charles Dickens
42. Anthem , Ayn Rand
43. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles , Haruki Murakami
44. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , Mark Twain
45. In Cold Blood , Truman Capote
46. Cat’s Cradle , Kurt Vonnegut
47. Love in the Time of Cholera , Gabriel Garcia Marquez
48. The Little Prince , Antoine De Saint-Exupery
49. The Time Traveler’s Wife , Audrey Niffenegger
50. Invisible Man , Ralph Ellison
51. Unbearable Lightness of Being , Milan Kundera
52. Bell Jar , Sylvia Plath
53. World According to Garp , John Irving
54. Middlemarch , George Eliot
55. To the Lighthouse , Virginia Woolf
56. The Poisonwood Bible , Barbara Kingsolver
57. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban , J.K. Rowling
58. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix , J.K. Rowling
59. Old Man and the Sea , Ernest Hemingway
60. Ender’s Game , Orson Scott Card
61. Bleak House , Charles Dickens
62. Beloved , Toni Morrison
63. Great Expectations , Charles Dickens
64. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius , Dave Eggers
65. Fight Club , Chuck Palahniuk
66. Sound and the Fury , William Faulkner
67. Mrs. Dalloway ,Virginia Woolf
68. The Giver , Lois Lowry
69. The Master and Margarita , Mikhail Bulgakov
70. Blindness , Jose Saramago
71. Life of Pi , Yann Martel
72. Madam Bovary , Gustave Flaubert
73. Where the Wild Things Are , Maruice Sendak
74. Chronicles of Narnia , C.S. Lewis
75. Odyssey , Homer
76. The Da Vinci Code , Dan Brown
77. Franny and Zooey , J.D. Salinger
78. A Wrinkle in Time , Madeleine L’Engle
79. Everything is Illuminated , Jonathan Safran Foer
80. The Picture of Dorian Gray , Oscar Wilde
81. The Handmaid’s Tale , Margaret Atwood

Suggested reading list:

• The Iron Dragon’s Daughter , Michael Swanwick
• Hammered, Scardown, Worldwired, Dust , Elizabeth Bear
• Interpreter of Maladies , Jumpa Lahiri
• The Great Gatsby , F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Lady Oracle , Margaret Atwood
• Memoirs of a Geisha , Arthur Golden
• Hannibal , Thomas Harris
• Typical American , Gish Jen
• Dragons of Babel , Michael Swanwick
• Wicked , Gregory MacGuire
• His Dark Materials series , Phillip Pullman
• Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister , Gregory MacGuire
• Jane Eyre , Charlotte Bronte
• Rebecca , Daphne du Maurier
• poems , T.S. Eliot (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, and The Wasteland)
• Replay , Ken Grimwood
• Scar Night , Alan Campbell
• The Invisible Man , Ralph Ellison

Academics

• understand UC Berkeley’s CS70 Discrete Mathematics and Probability Theory notes
• watch Stanford’s free iTunesU iPhone coding lectures

CS related

• go through Facebook puzzles, USACO challenges
• study for Microsoft’s Dreamspark free certification testing
• get comfortable with vim

Readings

• read Nanshi
• read through my book list

Misc.

• watch through my movies list
• get started with learning Japanese
• build an iPhone app
• learn how to play a guitar
• read Strobist’s Lighting 101
• play around my new 2-umbrella set

With the code “777″, I switched from NearlyFreeSpeech.net to DreamHost today. You might remember my rant a few months back about running my 10 or 20 MB blog for 3 cents a day (or $10.95 a year). Now, I have unlimited storage and bandwidth for $9.24!

Woot!! Thank you, Memorial Day.

Well, the White House launched an official collection of photos depicting Obama’s first 100 days in office today, and Pete Souza, the photo journalist for Obama, tells a really good behind-the-scene story, so to speak. It’s really interesting to browse through those photos, and they also made me wonder what Pete’s life is like. I kinda envy him – one for getting paid to take pictures, two, for owning a 50D Mk II, three, for getting so up close and personal with the most important person in the world, and lastly, for getting a free ride on Air Force One.

Damn you, Pete, haha.