Turn around, bright eyes

Once upon a time there was light in my life
Now there's only love in the dark
Nothing I can say
A total eclipse of the heart

Wednesday, February 20, 2008.

Total. Lunar. Eclipse.

And I actually watched it this time. The next total lunar eclipse won't happen again until 2010, although there will be another lunar eclipse later this year.

More photos I took of the event available here.


Edit: On a side note, while I was taking these pictures, one of my neighbors (or perhaps a neighbor's friend) walked by and inquired what I was doing. He then related to me that, as he works for the fire department, he has noticed that during the nights with full moon, they would often get more calls of people causing disturbances and whatnot... however, he had noticed that the night before, knowing that it would once again be a full moon, there weren't as many calls as he anticipated, and perhaps the eclipse was the reason.

People have often associated the phases of the moon with the madness, hence the word lunatic (luna = moon); I used to think such an association was more in the realm of urban legend, but hearing first-hand anecdotal evidence like this kind of takes away the "friend of a friend" requirement of urban legends.

Shake it like a Polaroid picture

Years from now, when the children of our current generation grow up, if they listen to the music of our day, they might be prompted to ask what "shake it like a Polaroid picture" means.

Not because you don't actually need to shake the Polaroids for the instant pictures to appear, but because Polaroid is shutting down its two US film production plants, and other out-of-country plants will follow suit. In short, Polaroid is getting out of the film business.

I'm sure this doesn't come as a surprise to anyone, really... With digital cameras becoming so cheap and widespread, just about anyone can take quick snapshots, and see the results instantly--faster than Polaroid's fastest instant film. What's more, you don't need to keep buying expensive instant film that you cannot reuse for this convenience. (Currently, you can get 20 Polaroid exposure films for $25, and 40 exposures for $52 from Amazon. That's $1.25 per photo for the cheapest Polaroid picture! And.. um.. why would you buy the 40 exposure package when the per photo cost is more?)

The last time I went to Little Tokyo for Shabu Shabu, I noticed this group of people walking around, taking group photos--with a Polaroid camera! I was certainly surprised that anyone would still be using it. Then I noticed that a few people in the group also had their own digital cameras, and they went on to take pictures with these digital cameras. I wonder... will the owner of that Polaroid camera be sad to be out of instant film next year?

"Strange" ads in Taiwan

The dachshund is also sometimes referred to as weiner dog, hot dog, or sausage dog. In Chinese, its official translation means "sausage dog."

That brings us to the above sign, which is hung underneath the store sign of a pet store in a row of pet stores. Roughly translated, the sign reads:

"Racing class long-haired sausage"

(Racing class, racing grade, or whatever. I'm not up on dog breeding vernacular.)

When my sister saw this sign, unaware of its surroundings, she commented, "Ew! Why would anyone want to eat hairy sausages?"

Context is important, folks.

Want a mail-order bride, but don't think you can afford one? Look no further. The sign above promises to get you a Vietnamese bride, with the security of a contract and inexpensive fees. Just call the number below.

In remembrance

From the first three years of our lives, both my brother and I were raised by my grandmother--part of the reason was that, when my brother was born, my grandfather had just passed away, so my brother could keep grandma company. When I was born, it wouldn't have been long before my brother had to start kindergarten, so I would also be able to keep her company.

Back then, grandma lived further away, in the countryside of Yilan. Afterwards, she moved closer to Taipei, and both my brother and I would visit her almost every weekend, as well as vacations (spring break, summer vacation, winter vacation, etc.); it's a safe bet to say that if anyone knows how I feel about grandma, it would be my brother, and vice versa.

Grandma always took good care of me, and always prepared my favorite food for me--my love for certain vegetables is in no small part thanks to her cultivation of my tastes.

When we came to the US, the person I missed the most was my grandmother. I found out from my aunts that at the airport, she kept a brave face in front of us, so that we wouldn't make a fuss and not make our flights, but as soon as we got out of sight, grandma wept. The thought of this always makes me cry.

My only comfort now is that when she passed away, it was peacefully in her sleep, and that she did get to spend time with her first great-grandchild--Kaelyn, my niece.

Apparently, I bought two award winners

Joanne (one of Lynn's bridesmaids) bought a Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-T200 last month, and it is now somewhat broken not quite right, since she's been clubbing a lot, and because of the alcohol, people invariably drop it or hit something with it. So she asked me if I knew anything about the life-cycle of Sony's digital cameras, specifically regarding how often they release new versions of their cameras (which in turn would affect how quickly their prices may drop).

In looking up that information, I found out that the T200 apparently won a 2008 International CES Innovations award. Which reminded me that I saw a sticker on the box of my TZ3 for an award, too.

Of course, I had to look that up. It seems to have won the 2007/2008 European Imaging and Sound Association (EISA) Award in the "Compact Camera" category. From the same place, SanDisk's Extreme III SDHC cards also won in the "Memory Card" category. Good to know, I guess.

Also, judging from the layout of their websites, it looks like the T200 is Sony's current flagship in the area of ultra-compact digital cameras, while the TZ3 is Panasonic's current flagship in the area of consumer digital cameras.


The photo above was taken with the TZ3 at 10x optical zoom (click on the image for full-size). Compare with photos I took using the Minolta DiMAGE X50, and the Panasonic DMC-FZ1. The difference is quite staggering... although I haven't been able to take a decent version of the moon at night yet. Will have to play with the settings a bit more.

I've lost my favorite person in the world

My mom called me this afternoon to let me know that my grandmother has passed away.

Jim Steinman/Meat Loaf

I was listening to Total Eclipse of the Heart (Bonnie Tyler) the other day, and decided to look up more info about it. Then I found out that it, along with Making Love (Out of Nothing At All) (Air Supply) were both written by Jim Steinman, who had given these songs to Meat Loaf, his long time collaborator, first.

Apparently, the two have had a troubled relationship, and when they reconciled in 1986, he gave the song It's All Coming Back to Me Now to Meat Loaf to use in his then new album, but they decided to use I'd Do Anything for Love (but I Won't Do That), instead, putting it on the backburner for another album further down the line in the future.

As most of us know, it became a hit for Celine Dion when she recorded it in 1996. And as you can see, Meat Loaf did eventually record his own version in 2006, as a duet with Marion Raven (formerly of M2M).

Since all of these songs have been made famous by other people, it may be kind of hard to imagine Meat Loaf singing them. But listening to I'd Do Anything for Love (but I Won't Do That), I get it--they're all power ballads, which Meat Loaf does pretty well. What exactly is "that" which he won't do? It's actually all there in the lyrics...

Total Eclipse of the Heart... do some parts of the video seem a bit too literal to you? It does to me.

Making Love (Out of Nothing At All) is lyrically similar in structure to I'd Do Anything for Love (but I Won't Do That); in Making Love, the singer lists the things he knows, or the things he can do, then follows them quickly by something he doesn't know or can't do ("I don't know how you do it, making love out of nothing at all"). Likewise, in Anything for Love, he lists the things he'd do, then follows them with things he won't do ("But I'll never forget the way you feel right now, no way")

SDHC

My SanDisk 4GB Extreme III SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) arrived today. Well, technically, yesterday, since it is now technically "Saturday morning." I did not get it from Dell, as mentioned in my earlier post, however. Apparently Dell had trouble getting the card in stock, and after needing to delay the shipment a second time, they informed me that they must obtain confirmation from me to keep the order, or they would have to cancel it, due to some law or regulation. As I also did not want to keep waiting for who knows how long, I placed an order from J&R on Wednesday, who I've ordered from before through Amazon, and opted for the 2nd Day Air shipping method.

Why "Extreme III"? Well, it has a transfer speed of 20MB/s, or 133x. For recording videos, Panasonic recommends a card with at least a transfer speed of 10MB/s, and SanDisk's next class of SD cards are "Ultra II," which are 10MB/s--10MB/s read, 9MB/s write. That's pushing it a bit close for me, so in my opinion, it's better to go high than low. Plus, with a 7.2 megapixel camera, the pictures will mostly be larger in size, so having a higher transfer speed never hurts.

With the transfer speed, there's something important to note--Officially, SDHC cards have three class ratings--Class 2 for at least 2MB/s, Class 4 for at least 4MB/s, and Class 6 for at least 6MB/s. Anything faster than that are all Class 6, which is why you see a "6" enclosed in a larger "C" printed on the card. It also means both the "Ultra II" and the "Extreme III" are "Class 6" cards. Which is why the "Class 6" rating doesn't hold too much meaning these days. If you need a certain transfer speed, it's better to find a card that either lists the megabytes per second rate, or a multiplier rate (such as 133x, where x is "multiplied by 150 kilobytes per second"). If neither values are available, and you need a card that transfers faster than 6MB/s, move on.

Incidentally, SanDisk is not the only manufacturer that has these high speed SD cards. At present, I know of Panasonic and Transcend SDHC cards that are 133x and 150x, respectively. Have not yet found an 8 GB SDHC card with that transfer speed, however.

You'll also notice in the picture that the card came with a "MicroMate" USB card reader. That's because SDHC is a new standard, so while devices that support SDHC can use either SDHC or SD, older devices that can read SD probably can't read SDHC cards. So the USB reader fixes that problem. Plus it's USB 2.0. For some strange reason, Panasonic did not deem it fit to equip the SDHC-supporting TZ3 camera with USB 2.0 compatibility when connecting to the PC.

The card also comes with a neat little carrying pouch for the USB reader, a case for the card, and SanDisk's RescuePro software, which can be helpful in trying to retrieve data from a corrupted card, or accidentally deleted data.


I've only taken a few pictures with it, but I like it. The transfer speed is fast, and the USB reader makes the card (or any SD/SDHC card) double as a flash drive.

The curse of the just-washed car

So after the rain last week, I waited for the weather forecast to confirm that there won't be more rain in their extended forecast, and finally washed my car last night.

And wouldn't you know it? Just after I got back from buying lunch, a bird (or birds) have dropped not one, not two, but three bombs on my car. I even purposely parked away from trees and power lines. Ugh.

New camera

I ordered a new camera last weekend, and it just arrived today. This makes it my fourth digital camera.

I've wanted a new camera for a while, ever since I've had need to have better optical zoom from my ultracompact Minolta. The Minolta was a big compromise for me, since I really liked having a powerful telephoto lens like the 12x (35-420mm equivalent) I got from my Panasonic DMC-FZ1.

I originally got the Minolta (DiMage X50) for two reasons:

1. The FZ1 was too big to carry around, and I wanted a camera I can take with me everywhere.
2. The FZ1 was only 2 megapixels (compared to the X50's 5mp)
   

I figured that since I rarely had the opportunity to make use the ultra-zoom I got from the FZ1, I wouldn't miss it all that much. Well, I kinda did. Plus despite its lower resolution, the pictures I got from it typically looked better than the X50's (when sized-down).

So I began looking for a middle ground--something that was more compact, but provided a higher zoom than the 3x optical found on most digital cameras. Eventually, I decided on the Panasonic DMC-TZ3, a compact (though not ultracompact) 7.2 mp, 10x optical zoom camera (28-280mm equivalent).

Here we have a size comparison with my very old, regular-sized Olympus camera, and my ultracompact X50. As you can see, it's a good size bigger than the X50, but still much smaller than the average point-and-shoot camera. The FZ1 was much larger than the Olympus, so lugging it around was no picnic, although there are plenty of larger cameras out there.

This should help put it into better perspective--compare the sizes with a "credit card."
(It's actually a refrigerator magnet that looks like a credit card, courtesy of American Express.)

Obviously, it's also not as slim as the ultracompact cameras. Still, it's not bad, especially considering that it has 10x optical zoom. The lens does extend out once you turn it on, and will extend even more when you push it to the full 10x, but the point of a compact camera is so that you can carry it around with you with more ease, which means the "off" position is what you'll have it on while you're going from place to place... so the extended lens size wouldn't be a factor.

Now, compared to the FZ1, it may not be as noticeable from the front how much larger the old Panasonic is...

...but if you look from the different angle (or see them in person), you can immediately tell the difference. Even when turned off, the FZ1 has quite a long barrel (compared to traditional telephoto cameras with the same amount of zoom, however, it was quite small).

Even when fully extended, the TZ3 is still slimmer than the FZ1 when off. With both fully extended...


Along with the camera, I also ordered an additional battery (from the same site), a 4 gigabyte, Extreme III SDHC card (from Dell), and a carrying case (directly from Panasonic). The camera is the first to arrive, the carrying case is on its way, and the memory card has not shipped yet. Normally, this is the part of the blog where I start bitching about the online store's service, but not this time. See, this time, Dell was very prompt in informing of the shipment delay, so I know exactly what to expect. The other stores I complained about never bothered to let me know of any shipping/stock issues, leaving me in the dark regarding the status of my order--that's what I was really complaining about.

So for now, I'll be using my older, 2GB Ultra II SD card in my new camera.

Christmas, Santa Claus, etc.

It's that time of year again... when we ponder the age-old question: "What does Santa Claus have to do with Jesus?"

What will it be this time?

Decided to get lunch earlier today... and wouldn't you know it? My car won't start. Cranked it several times, it just won't turn over. There was a faint smell of burnt plastic coming from under the hood. Never a good thing.

Can't be the battery, as I had just gotten a new one a few months ago, plus all the electronics in the car still seem to work fine. It's might be the starter, but that was also just replaced only a few months prior to the battery...

I guess it might be the alternator? I've had the battery and oil indicators flash on and off from time to time while I was driving, and I'm told that such is the typical indication of a bad alternator.


I'm gonna have to jump it later and pray that the car starts. After that... I hope the car shop is open tomorrow.

Last-minute Christmas shopping

Did my annual last-minute shopping today.

First, I went to Fry's Electronics. Long line of cars waiting to turn into the parking lot was really the only thing that was markedly different from usual, and an indication of other people also doing their last-minute Christmas shopping. I was able to find a good parking spot almost immediately after turning into the lot, so things were good.

I didn't find the exact things I was looking for, but acceptable substitutes were available, so that was that. The checkout line was only slightly longer than usual, thanks in no small part to them opening up many more checkout stands than usual.

Next stop, Bed Baths and Beyond. Not as many people come here looking for Christmas presents, apparently. Although I've pretty much been getting the same things for my mom and my sisters for the past three years... without any real idea if they actually like these gifts or not. Hopefully they do. Luckily, we mostly subscribe to the idea of "it's the thought that counts," so no major problems there.


So, despite getting my shopping done at only a few days before Christmas, it was relatively painless. Whee.

On the Run

These are music videos for Jay Chou's recent album, "On the Run" (literal translation is "I'm very busy").

1. 牛仔很忙
2. 彩虹
3. 陽光宅男
4. 我不配
5. 扯
6. 最長的電影
7. 青花瓷
   

Jesus in the Himalayas

I caught part of this documentary on Discovery HD yesterday. It seemed interesting enough, so I recorded it on DVR, and watched the full program today.

It investigated the possibility that Jesus may have travelled through the silk road to India and Tibet before he began his ministry, and after his crucifixion. Nothing conclusive was reached, but it offered up some possible evidence, chief among them were:

1. A tomb in Kashmir purported to be the tomb of Jesus after his crucifixion, because a small cross was found within it, and there was a food sculpture that seems to depict wounds on the foot that could correspond to Jesus' wounds from the crucifixion.
2. An ancient manuscript that detailed the life of Saint Issa, whose story was very similar to the life of Jesus as depicted in the Bible (except the part about traveling to India and Tibet).
3. The similarities between the Buddhist prayer beads--the Japa mala, and the Catholic rosary beads. Both have 108 beads, and these are the only religions with prayer beads.
   

The most important of these arguments is the ancient manuscript, according to the program. Unfortunately, it has long since vanished, not long after its translation was transcribed by Nicolas Notovitch. This document is what sparked the idea that Jesus went to India and Tibet. Without it, there is no way to prove that any of this actually happened. I don't know that even with it, would it offer irrefutable proof that this Issa is the same as Jesus.

The problem I have with the tomb theory is that it had a cross. The cross didn't become associated with Christianity until the second century AD, so there's no reason why Jesus would be buried with one.

The program then states both the Japa mala and the rosary have 108 beads. But this is not true--while the Japa mala traditionally does have 108 beads, rosary beads typically have 150.

It then further states that Christianity (Catholicism) and Buddhism are the only religions to use prayer beads, implying that Jesus brought the idea of using prayer beads to his followers due to influence from Buddhism. Yet this is also untrue, as there are several other religions that use prayer beads. Also, it is said that rosary beads were brought to St. Dominic by the Virgin Mary, not Jesus.