history

I was having a conversation with a friend today, which involved topics ranging from the recent rise of the Chinese economy, to World War II and its aftereffects, the American Civil War, and feudalism in the Middle Ages.

It reminded me of how hard it is to study history; it's a non-linear subject that we often try to fit into a one-dimensional timeline, and you can always find additonal factors that may have affected the course of events.

A thought that occurred to me during that conversation, is that history is what happens when you let human nature run amok. We all know how complicated human nature can be.

chinese cooking update

Over the past couple weeks, I tried out a couple of stir fry recipes that came out so-so, but managed to pull off Mu Shu Pork reasonably well. Next up, stewed pork and eggs. It will be my first attempt at slow cooking, ever.

too many travel plans

I think I'm going to be very sick of travelling in a few months.

So far, my travel plans for the rest of 2006 consist of:
- a 2-week vacation in Eastern Europe, in mid-to-late September
- a 3-day conference in San Diego, followed by a wedding in Los Angeles, in early October
- a weekend trip to Vegas, in early November
- yet undefined Thanksgiving travel plans (likely New York or Houston)
- a week in Taipei visiting family, over the holidays
- a wedding in Honolulu over New Year's, followed by a 1-week vacation in Kauai

Did I mention that I'll be spending a fortune on plane tickets and hotels this year?

Katamari

Two winters ago, when I was in Taipei, my brother bought a game called "Katamari Damashi" which was only available for the Japanese PS2 at that point.

Basically, the goal of the game is to roll a ball around and pick up objects to make the ball bigger. Only objects which are smaller than the ball can be picked up, but as the ball grows, you can pick up larger and larger objects, until you can pick up people and cars and buildings. It sounds like a silly game but is actually horribly addictive.

Anyway, my cousin, my sister and I spent about 8 hours one night and finally beat all of the levels. We had to take turns because we found it was possible to get motion sickness from playing for too long, and because our hands started to cramp up.

Why am I writing about this now?

Last weekend, I was at a wedding, and as the groomsmen were walking down the aisle, I heard some strangely familiar music. It only took me about a minute to realize that it was the theme to one of the early Katamari levels. I think about 20-25% of the audience recognized the music, and perked up. The other 75-80% were probably wondering what was with the tinkly video game music.

Then, this morning, as I was walking through the parking lot at work, I saw a license plate reading KATMARI, with a holder entitled "THIS IS HOW I ROLL". This is probably less funny to other people, but I was very amused.

annual bbq

Last weekend, I invited some friends to my parents' house for a BBQ/pool party and games night sleepover. I've done this every summer for a few years now, and it's not a particularly difficult event, coordination-wise, but it's always nice to plan for something to be fun and then to have it be fun.

Games played (not all by me): Power Grid, Arkam Horror, Puerto Rico, Goa, Deflexion, Settlers, Mastermind, Scrabble, Mario Kart, Super Smash Brothers.

another new project

I sometimes feel like my life is a bit unbalanced. Although I enjoy theatre and music and art, I usually spend most of my time around computers, and I mostly interact with other engineers.

So, I'm going to be attempting another new project (in addition to the Chinese cooking experiment). I will attempt to write actual book reviews of books that I've recently read (or re-read), and I will post them on this blog. We'll see if I can actually remember how to write.

cooking

The cafes at work are really good, so I only cook maybe once or twice a week. When I do, I usually end up cooking Japanese, Italian, American, or other Western cuisine. For some reason I can't seem to do regular Chinese food at all.

I recently dug up an old recipe book that my mom had given me. It's written in Chinese and English with photos, and has instructions for making a bunch of simple Chinese dishes. My new project (starting this week) is to master at least a few of these recipes. So far, I've tried three of them, with varying degrees of success. Anyone know how to properly tenderize meat?

jolie

Yesterday, while some people were over, I was flipping through channels and ran across one of the Lara Croft movies. We only watched it for maybe ten minutes, but even in that short time, I found it interesting, how many people have emphatic opinions about Angelina Jolie.

One person pointed out how she likes to watch Jolie's movies because she feels like indirectly, she's doing something good (1/3 of Jolie's income goes to charity). She mentioned Jolie's hands-on charity work with international refugees, and her adoption of two children from "Third World" countries.

Another person criticized her for having broken up Brad Pitt's marriage to Jennifer Aniston, and for having previously broken up other relationships.

A third person didn't really care about her personal life, but thought she was hot, and a fourth person promptly disagreed and said she was too weird looking.

As for me, I think she's a good actress in some cases (Girl, Interrupted) and bad in others (Gone in Sixty Seconds). I admire what she has done for charity, and how she appears to care very little about public opinion.

Perhaps it's that a strong personality that elicits strong reactions, in which case, I would imagine she is quite happy with her public persona.