The Rantings of Larry W. Hui

I do not use desktop wallpaper. My reasons for this are fairly unknown, except for the following that I came up with just now:

Practicallity. As most wallpapers are pictures, I find it weird to have windows icons over pictures. What if the My Documents icon covers an eye? What if my fake mustache icon gives someone… well, a fake mustache? Too weird.

Habit from Windows. Remember Window’s active desktop? I had no idea what it was at the time, but apparently it was some sort of internet explorer imbedded into your desktop, giving you a changing wallpaper in the form of news, time, or whatever you wanted. Anyway in my experience, whenever IE would crash (often), the active desktop would too, turning your wallpaper into a giant error screen. When you restored it, you’d have to configure it again, a time consuming process. So eventually I gave up and used the default blank background. And today, I still prefer it.

The only feasible wallpaper would be a small (non stretched to the edge of the screen) picture or clipart. In fact I used to have the Calvin and Hobbes snowman looking at a snowball. However whenever I’m actually on the computer, I have a window open thus covering the wallpaper. The whole thing seemed pointless so I quit.

I mention this because pretty much everyone at work has their personal wallpapers. Maybe it’s a car, picture from space, Chicago skyline, or whatever. It reveals a bit more about the person than I would like if the positions were reversed. But maybe I’ll have a fun one.

The only one that really comes to mind right now is something Batman related. Maybe one where he’s standing on the Sears Tower overlooking Gotham/Chicago. However I don’t think this picture exists. Too bad, because I want everyone to know I like Batman.

With no more wedding to plan, I find myself with free time. Not as much as I’d thought, but still a lot. When I’m not at Bed Bath and Beyond, Home Depot, or various other home stores, I’m usually at home with a myriad of entertainment options. I use myriad in the bad sense, there’s loads of things I want to do but only can devote myself to one item at a time. It feels like when there are two things you want to watch on TV, but you only have one set of eyes (and no picture in picture). It’s a terrible feeling. The lineup:

TV (broadcast): olympics, but it’s fairly boring now. also there’s no bball at night which sucks.

TV (dvds): Tiffany and I are currently blowing through Scrubs, having just reached season 4. This happens to be what I usually end up doing because it’s A. something we can watch “together”. Collective groan from all single people, and B, each episode is a compact 20 minutes. The show is sufficiently funny and ridiculous. I still hate Zack Braff though. I also have some movies from blockbuster online (currently Insider, Gangs of NY, and The Sting) but we haven’t found time to watch them due to the 2+ hour commitment for each. Sad. Coming soon, House M.D. season 4.

Books: I started the first couple pages of Jordan Rules, but haven’t made any progress in a long time. There’s loads of other books I want to get to but again, no time. A side note, I forgot how enjoyable reading is but I rediscovered it on my honeymoon. Of course back there I had pretty much nothing to do but read and get sunburnt. Nowadays, way too “busy” to open a book.

Audio: Recently started listening to Flight of the Conchords, a most ridiculous group (look it up on youtube). Obtained their CD yesterday, couldn’t really listen to it because their work (it’s not quite music) requires your full attention to appreciate their humor. Went through some of it during my commute today, they are much better live/acoustic/on youtube than in the studio album they put out. Aside, they are a rare talent where I listen to them and realize I could never do what they do. I have a very unjustified high opinion of myself, so this sentiment is quite rare. Also I am backlogged two of Pastor Dan’s sermons from when I was getting married/honeymoon that I want to get to… they’re on my mp3 player for the drive home (after I finish the Conchords CD).

Videogames: Team Fortress 2 just released the Heavy update. I got Neverwinter Nights because I want to play a good rpg. Still have some PS2 games I want to get into too (MGS2 and 3 again, Odin’s Sphere).

Theater movies: thankfully there’s nothing out or coming out soon that I really really want to see. It’s been a good summer of movies though.

So that’s it. Any suggestions on how to tackle this dilemma? Or maybe recommendations to add to my pile.

So it is the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and I am curiously fascinated with the whole thing. In the past I’ve been fairly disinterested but this time around I’m actually watching the stuff. Missed most of the opening ceremony but other than that I’ve been watching or reading to keep up.

First, the opening ceremony. I guess it was good but everything felt like it went a little bit too long, like for example the sky running/lighting of the torch. Did the dude really have to run that long, it was cool for the first couple minutes but after that, let’s face it it’s a guy suspended by cables doing air running. Also I guess it’s been revealed that China is up to some shenanigans for the broadcast, with CGI fireworks and lipsynching little girls. I laugh because they got caught, but I’m cautiously optomistic about what this means for future ceremonies. Hopefully in Vancouver the whole opening ceremony will be CGI, pretty much like a Pixar movie (or at least like Space Chimps).

As for the events, I guess they’re all somewhat fun so far.

Basketball. The game I saw vs. China, I wasn’t too impressed. The US defense is terrible. However with the olympics being on NBC, I was thrilled to hear the old Roundball Magic NBA on NBC theme. Like abnormally excited, I’m actually a bit worried about myself. John Tesh must be thrilled about the money he’s making.

Volleyball. Being a former IV volleyball champion, I feel I could contribute to this sport. But honestly when vball is on, I find myself wishing they’d show anything else, like maybe a basketball game.

Gymnastics. The scoring makes no sense to me. Also what doesn’t make sense to me, how the Chinese team is awesome, but based on their training regimen, I’d expect them to be way beyond awesome, especially compared to the lazy Americans. Instead they dominate, but watching their routines, I’m only occasionally blown away.

Synchronized diving: Thankfully, the event moves fast. The scoring is way too nitpicky and I hope my kids never become competitive divers.

Swimming: They are like fishes in the sea. It baffles me how anyone (Phelps) can be that much better than anyone else in swimming. Are other people not training enough? I don’t get it.

Fencing: they had a highlight video with Pirates of the Caribbean theme music. Glorious.

Thus far my personal favorite moment is when the US Men’s gymnastic team “won” Bronze. I use won loosely because I watched the event and going into the last rotation (the horse), they were in line to get silver. Then their first 2 gymnasts choked away their lead and the last guy saved the day. Then in the interviews the team was all like “yeah, USA, that’s how we do it”. I found this hilarious because A, they were being cocky about getting 3rd place, and B, they could have had silver medals but they blew it. I guess that’s the USA though.

So as swimming dies down I can’t wait for track and field to start. I also hope that in the future, they give us more information as we’re watching the event. For example, I’d like to see how fast the swimmers are going like they do in NASCAR. It would make me feel a little more complete and I could say stuff like “who cares, I walk faster than that”.

Actually, I probably couldn’t. And that’s why the olympics are great, the people that are in it are the best the world has to offer. Sadly most of the events I can only care about a little bit, so good thing it’s only once every 4 years (or 2 years if you include the winter games).

Caution: another long post, in fact even longer than the last.

Let’s talk about the honeymoon. It was to the magical Caribbean island of Antigua, and in fact my first visit to a tropical type destination. The philosophy behind our honeymoon was that airfare is expensive, and most beaches are the same. Tiffany had already been to Hawaii so that was out (and too touristy, maybe). The Fiji, Tahiti, and Bora Bora (more like boring boring) were ruled out because airfare was expensive and the travel time was way too long. Thus Caribbean. In looking for a place, most places were kinda cheesy looking but eventually we found a place called Hermitage Bay and ran with it. Original cost was a but much but I found some British site that had a lower rate.

So the place was all-inclusive so the rum was flowing. Actually the thing with all-inclusive is that while you’re there, you feel like you’re getting everything free, but in reality you’ve paid for everything and the place is still making a profit. In any case, the trip there involved going to San Juan, Puerto Rico. When we took off, Tiffany and I had a whole row (seats DEF) to ourselves. A little bit into the flight, some lady who is in a full row decides to move and take our aisle seat. First of all, my fault for not sitting in the aisle (Tiffany wanted window and I was in the middle, sitting next to her). But why would this dumb lady move, she’s moving from a full row to another full row. She is a jerk face.

Read the rest of this entry »

Caution: this post got OOC and is really long. it was written over the course of 3 days and doesn’t have a lot of flow. It’s also over 1,000 words, most of which are probably important to only me. To conserve some space on the front page, this is the first post ever to have a “more” tag.

Well it’s been awhile and I’ve about finished my due diligence regarding the grandest event of my life, the wedding (and honeymoon). So without further delay, here’s what I thought.

Most people say it was a good/great wedding. Of course they would say that, it’s not like they’ll tell you it sucked. But then according to some people who I’m pretty sure wouldn’t pull their proverbial punches, they also said it was good/great. So I guess it was good/great by most metrics.

I myself also thought it went well, but in a sense, it had to. Planning for the wedding (and honeymoon) was a fairly stressful stretch of my life, as it was doing something I was not accustomed to: paying for quality.
Read the rest of this entry »