Friday 29th September 2006

Albino Man

I've been bumping into an albino lad for a few times on my train rides home. It's hardly difficult to recognize him when he is always wearing the same cap and jacket. Being a sucker for coincidences, I'd like to note down here the excitement of spotting him again on my last trip.

It's so rare to find an albino around, it's like meeting a mystical creature in my part. I mean, from a rascist point of view, won't an albino be the ultimate superior race since there is literally no colour pigments on their skin? Then again, I wonder whether he/she would actually like the idea of being a mystical creature or just be an ordinary person like everyone else. Hmm....

Currently reading: (1) Proven Guilty (Book 8 of the Desden Files) by Jim Butcher: As a Warden of the White Council, Harry need to solve 2 problems this time round. One is to talk the Winter Faeries to help fight the Red Courts and another is to figure out and eliminate the Dark Magic users.
Iknow, this is not non-fiction. AAaahhhhh :P
(2) Monolithic integration of EAM and DFB laser for 10Gb/s TX by Zhao, et. al.

Just finished reading: (1) High-performance InP-based optical Modulators by Yamanaka et. al.
(2) Novel Way to improve dispersion-limited transmission distance of EAM lasers by Kim, et. al.

Monday 25th September 2006

happy song (:))

Recently bought myself the soundtrack of Gong (Princess Hour). This is one of my fav. songs. Everytime I listen to it, I feel like bobbing my head. hehe...

1st song in the 2nd CD of the Princess Hours OST. I think the title means something like stepping into love .

Currently reading: Uncooled performance of 10Gb/s LM with InGaAlAs-InP & InGaAsP-InP MQW EAM int. w. SOA by Frateschi, et. al.

Just finished reading: (1) After weeks of torture, I finally finished 1 chapter of THE book and after another few weeks, the last paper ref. to in the book. Theoretical Design Optimization of MQW EA WF M by M.K. Chin
(2) Enhanced Performance in TWEAM based on UEAW by Y.J. Chiu, et. al. (the acronyms are killing me too.)

Friday 22nd September 2006

heat this

Why do they always make waterheater switches with such poor designs? Almost all the switches I use end up spoilt. Either it's because of the lousy material or it's me. I much prefer thinking it's not the latter. I mean, how can one actually spoil a switch unless the switch itself is problematic?

How I handle electrical problems at home:
(1) Buy a replacement (light bulbs, switches)
(2) Find someone to witness me doing something useful (unless nobody is at home... bummer... consider delaying it to another day.)
(3) Start unscrewing all visible screws.
(4) If it involves a switch, then, switch off the main power. (Not really necessary, but I don't fancy testing my body's electrical grounding capabilities)
(5) Start trying to memorize how everything look beforehand and proceed to dismantle (my fav. part)
(6) Put everything together again with the new part (throw in some grunts and sweat wiping gestures if witnesses are around)
(7) If stuff still fails to light up, call electrician. (preferably, after audiences hv departed)

Wednesday 20th September 2006

website pasting

Muah-haha, was asked to give a talk on one of my hobbies and so gave a short guide on designing website, or, more accurately, spreading the art of "cut-and-paste" (with enough changes to make it not quite illegal).

Hopefully, I may have turned some of my friends to the proliferating dark side. *witch's cackle...*

Monday 18th September 2006

ebay agog

Have recently started selling my old Korean, Taiwan & Japanese dramas & HK movies on ebay. The initial responses were so poor, I was quite disheartened, considering my prices were about 90% cheaper than everyone elses. But, happily, after a week or so, things started picking up, and now most of the dramas I put up have been sold off. The HK movies are still given the cold shoulder though, so I hv decided to start giving them away to all those nice buyers.

It is quite time consuming selling stuff on ebay. Hehe... needless to say, I have wasted many hours almost daily, answering queries, updating the status of the transaction, posting up new items and queing up to post some of the items. :P Not something I wanna relive once I get rid of everything.

One of the best parts of selling stuff is to see the bid prices go up on items that I have enjoyed watching. The more bidders there are for an item, the more excitement there seems to be. & meeting the colorful bunch of people who bought the stuff face to face are quite fun too. hehe... I guess this is wat's called cheap pleasures.

Wednesday 9th September 2006

Going White

Too rushed to dabble anymore today. So, here's a new colour finally, after months of sticking to the striking pink.

Well, in the research front, after weeks of playing hide and seek with my boss, he finally caught me. So, here I am again, doing something with a tinge of usefulness after weeks of aimless pinball-like banging into the walls of blankness.

& once again, I'm shutting down one of my personal entertainment centres: my storybooks-reading-habit for indefinite period of time. Hello text books!

Currently reading: Chapter 13 of Physics of Optoelectronic Devices by S. L. Chuang - all about the exciting world of electroabsorption modulators. Delve into the beauty of Franz-Keldysh & Quantum Confine Stark Effects. A must read for everyone who loves quantum physics and unfundamental maths. :P

Just finished reading: (1) Is That A Moose In Your Pocket? by Kim Green - about a girl who went to Montana to work as a reporter after getting fed up for not getting the promotion she deserved. Another one of those chick-lit.
(2) Hex & The City by Simon R. Green - About John Taylor, the guy whose mom is an unknown entity. There are so many characters in the book, it got abit confusing for me.
(3) The Ancient Legacy by Mitchell Graham - A sequel to The 5th Ring. Not very nice.
(4) Contract With An Angel by Andrew M. Greeley - honestly, after reading this book, I was really looking forward to reading my text books. Yes, it was that bad. *Eugh*