Saw this on 43things.com. It’s voted by people like us.

Complete list at IMDB Top 250 movies.

Bold means watched.

1. The Godfather (1972)
2. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
3. The Godfather: Part II (1974)
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
5. Shichinin no samurai (1954)
6. Schindler’s List (1993)
7. Casablanca (1942)
8. Pulp Fiction (1994)
9. Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
10. Star Wars (1977)
11. Buono, il brutto, il cattivo ll (1966)
12. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)
13. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
14. Rear Window (1954)
15. Cidade de Deus (2002)
16. The Usual Suspects (1995)
17. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
18. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
19. 12 Angry Men (1957)
20. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
21. Citizen Kane (1941)
22. C’era una volta il West (1968)
23. Memento (2000)
24. Psycho (1960)
25. Goodfellas (1990)
26. North by Northwest (1959)
27. Fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain, Le (2001)
28. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
29. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
30. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
31. Sunset Blvd. (1950)
32. American Beauty (1999)
33. Fight Club (1999)
34. The Matrix (1999)
35. Vertigo (1958)
36. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
37. Apocalypse Now (1979)
38. Taxi Driver (1976)
39. Paths of Glory (1957)
40. To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)
41. The Pianist (2002)
42. Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001)
43. Se7en (1995)
44. Léon (1994)
45. Untergang, Der (2004)
46. The Third Man (1949)
47. Chinatown (1974)
48. Hotel Rwanda (2004)
49. American History X (1998)
50. Boot, Das (1981)
51. Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
52. Requiem for a Dream (2000)
53. The Maltese Falcon (1941)
54. L.A. Confidential (1997)
55. M (1931)
56. Rashômon (1950)
57. Million Dollar Baby (2004)
58. The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)
59. Modern Times (1936)
60. Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
61. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
62. Alien (1979)
63. Sin City (2005)
64. A Clockwork Orange (1971)
65. All About Eve (1950)
66. Saving Private Ryan (1998)
67. Reservoir Dogs (1992)
68. Double Indemnity (1944)
69. Raging Bull (1980)
70. Some Like It Hot (1959)
71. Metropolis (1927)
72. The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
73. Crash (2004)
74. The Shining (1980)
75. Vita è bella, La (1997)
76. The Incredibles (2004)
77. City Lights (1931)
78. Aliens (1986)
79. Amadeus (1984)
80. The Great Escape (1963)
81. The Sting
82. Touch of Evil (1958)
83. Rebecca (1940)
84. On the Waterfront (1954)
85. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
86. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
87. Kill Bill: Vol.1 (2003)
88. Ran (1985)
89. The Apartment (1960)
90. Jaws (1975)
91. Sjunde inseglet, Det (1957)
92. Strangers on a Train (1957)
93. The Wizard of Oz (1939)
94. Nuovo cinema Paradiso (1989)
95. The Great Dictator (1940)
96. Donnie Darko (2001)
97. Braveheart (1995)
98. Forrest Gump (1994)
99. Fargo (1996)
100. Finding Nemo (2003)

Remember when the Internet bubble burst? Well, it’s back and better than ever. The new hot trend is called as a Web 2.0 that is a mixture of dhtml, CSS and Ajax. They are well-designed, functional and useful, well, for most of the time anyway.

Gone are the days of walking to a Best Buy store, taking a stroll in the software aisle, and getting your greasy hands on a plastic box that wraps the software inside and then you carry it under your arm to a checkout. Oh wait, that’s prehistoric, during the Windows 3.xx/95 time. I mean get a broadband connection, find files to be downloaded, install them, only to find that you have successfully infected your computer with thousands of viruses or malware. Now you’re clueless because you’ve thrown away your $99 Windows Setup CD in the trash with that annoying AOL promotional CD (remember them?). Either you will have to walk back to Best Buy and buy another Windows CD or be stuck with a $2,000 computer that runs slower than Altair 8800.

Well, I’ve got good news for you. You don’t have to set foot in Best Buy or download malware files. There are applications that are web-based and all it requires is a web browser—I highly recommend Firefox–and you’re all set.

For calendaring, I use 30boxes.com.

For social bookmarking, I use del.icio.us.

For photo storing/sharing, I use flickr.com.

For planning or organizing trips/events, I use basecamp.com.

For online banking, I use bankofamerica.com.

For to-do lists, I use rememberthemilk.com.

For TV listings since I don’t have a tivo yet, I use evoketv.com.

For reading newspapers, I use news.google.com.

For emails, I use gmail.com, the world’s best email.

These are good to keep your life organized and to touch bases. Best of all, they are FREE. If you need a more specialized software like Adobe Photoshop or a decent HTML editor, well, you’ll need to install them.

Now, who needs iLife?

How come no one told me that it was broken? Didn’t realize it wasn’t working; looked at the codes, found why, and fixed it. :-D

Now, my sidekick is having some plms sending pics to Flickr…

You know what? my car never went away. True, 2005 was the last year they made the EP platform, in which my car is based on. It didn’t fare too well here in the US, due to its hatchback design and Americans prefer coupes like Mustangs, Corvettes, or Camaros (have to say this for someone, ;-) ). But it sold well in other areas like United Kingdom, because it comes in a Type R model with a better engine. They were afraid that if they imported the same car, it would hurt RSX sales. Well, that’s the brief history.

The new 2006 Civic coupes are already out and I’m sure you have seen a few of them. I’ve seen more than 10 new Civics so far. What about UK? coupes? Nope, they are selling hatchbacks and it will look like this:

My car never went away.

Ricey or not? you decide.

There are two redesigned logos. Gmail and Yahoo! Look below:

I thought the headphone with nano can’t be toppled till I saw this.

Now, where will the cord go? People can still see the headphones in the ears. Hmm.

Wanted to post this for Jason as I feel he deserves more attention to his works. Speaking of being at the right time at the right place, Jason happened to see one police officer riding on top of the police cruiser’s hood. That’s right, on top of the hood, as if it was a roller coaster or something. Immediately, he took his camera out and snapped some photos and put them up on his blog. With the series of photos in his hand after shooting his camera in a burst mode, he was able to figure out the timing and determined that the police cruiser was moving at 26 mph. Then, that next day, he woke up to the knocking of a NBC news reporter and a cameraman. He later found out that, according to his older brother, they had been waiting 5 hours before he finally answered the door. I’ll stop at this point and let you read his blogs. He has such a way of writing that cracks me up. Very vivid writing!

http://jasonlamberton.com/blog.htm

http://www.nbc4.com/news/6224845/detail.html

His experience with the police actually made to the front story on the NBC News channel. But they sensationalized the story by saying that the cruiser went 26 mph above the speed limit, which would be crazily 52 mph and went on to call Jason a math whiz for calculating the speed. Crazy media.

After reading about his experience, I now understood how the media can really hype up or spin a story. Jason only thought it would be cool if he could snap pics of the cop surfing on a hood ‘cuz it’s not everyday you see that happens. He had no intentions of getting the cop suspended (six cops involved in the incident got one month without pay and two of them lost rank) but the media captured his story, put up on the TV, and soon thereafter, someone posted a threatening comment on dcist.com.

All for a few snapshots on his digital camera and this whole thing reminded him of his old friend who once did the same thing, got himself hurt, and his skull partially fractured and suffered a minor amnesia. Jason’s wish was not to see the cop get hurt but instead, he got a threatening letter and he really really wanted to obtain a firearm (a shotgun is legal in DC) to protect him from the blacks surrounding his home, not just because of the letter but the police would take forever to come to his rescue and the only thing they will find in his house is blood being splattered all over and his two cats sniffing around his body.

It’s funny because the other day Jason and I was having a chat, discussing how much things have changed since we first met in 1996, how we’re using our blogs to “document” our life because once we leave this world, all they have are our ideas, feelings, thoughts, experience being stored on some hard disks and possibly papers if they decided to print what we have typed. Well, Jason, you certainly got some.

Last night at the bar, several friends and I were chatting till we fell onto this topic: Audism. For those who never heard the word before, it means a notion that one is superior based on one’s ability to hear or behave in the manner of one who hears. It also means implying stereotyping that deaf people cannot be successful or cannot drive a car. We had a great discussion and I feel like I want to do something so I went to the wikipedia to see if there was an article on audism. There was one but it needed some work and editing so I worked on it.

Audism on Wikipedia

If you feel something is missing or need to be added, please feel free to contribute!!

Wow, I’ve been living here for 25 years. It seems only yesterday that I made this post, then somehow, Time fast-forwarded one year later and I’m 25 today. Yikes.

Ever since I was in elementary school, I knew I had the same birthday with George Washington, the first President of the US, so I was curious who else has the same birthday.

Michael Chang – famous tennis player
Drew Barrymore – actress
Vijay Singh – #2 world rank golfer
Julius “Dr. J” Erving – probably the only NBA player with a Phd
Robert Baden-Powell – founder of Boy Scouts
Steve Irwin – Crocodile Hunter on Animal Planet channel

I believe Chelsea Clinton’s birthday is tmw too. So I share the same birthday with cool people. :-) Ofc, Michael Jordan and Abraham Lincoln (my fave president, Bill Clinton is second) were also born in this month.

I remember when I was growing up, I was worried whether my birthday was authentic or not because I was adopted and I know some adopted friends whose birthdays were guessed. So that means I could be one year older, or one year younger till I found my family in Korea and one of the first questions I had was my birthday. They told me that it was the right one so I was relieved to know that my birthday is accurate and authentic. I even found out what exact time I was born, at 3 o’clock afternoon. It’s also nice to know that we all are two years apart—my sister’s 29, my bro’s 27.

Now, I’m thinking about trading my car for an S2000.

*drooools*

Technology is certainly on our side.

Know these self-serve cashiers at Wal-marts? Looks like Taco Bell/KFC is the first fast food to come with a self serve cashier.

Taco Bell/KFC photoset on Flickr

Saw this in the discussion thread on shopping for a car.

“If you want to bargain really hard, come to the dealership on
Saturday, 2-3 hours before it is supposed to close, take it for a test
drive, come back and bargain with your checkbook in hand. It can take
until 9 pm, but salesman’s “manager” will go home, and people that are
left will be willing to go home much more than you.”

“Even better, do this on the last day of the month. Car Dealerships are
taxed based upon the number of cars on the lot on the 1st of each month.
They have an added incentive to see you drive away in that new vehicle
before the 1st.

Also, leave the check book at home. If they think your going to finance,
they’ll cut a deal on the vehicle thinking they can make up the profits on
the loan. Just make sure there’s no early repayment penalty and pay it off
the following day.”

http://ask.yahoo.com/20060215.html

So it seems some police departments have quotas, and some don’t. As for when you’re most likely to get a ticket, we recommend doing as we do with our Dodge Stratus: Drive carefully at the end of anything — shift, day, week, or month.

I am 90% postive that they DO have quotas, no matter what they say. They know 9 out of 10 drivers speed, so all they have to do is to pick a spot that is hard to see, like hiding under the bridge, or on the turn that you can’t see them till right to the last minute. I’ve had a fair share of driving, like driving 21 hours in two days and have driven to Rochester and DC countless times (six hours drive one way). I have come to the fact that if you got pulled over, it wasn’t because you were being a bad driver for speeding. You just got caught at the wrong time and in the wrong place. My secret for speeding is simply hiding behind a car, not necessarily following them but to use them as a sheild from the cop’s radar gun. It’s hard to singularly pick up a car at two or three miles away if the car is right next/behind a car. Not only that, a cop cannot pull over both cars; he has to pick one unless he’s sure that both cars are “racing” at 100 mph or faster, then he’ll call for a backup and nail the other car. The chance decreases with more cars speeding like bikers in a peloton. If your car is the only car out in the middle of nowhere, DO NOT SPEED. You are as vulnerable as a gazelle prancing out in the field and the lion is ready to nail you down. Slow down, put 5 mph over the speed limit and set it to a cruise, turn on some music, enjoy sightseeing, talk to yourself till you have some car company coming up on you.

There are some factors to think about like congested traffic is less likely to have cops out, bad weather, time of the day, and where you are. It helps to know what is the state’s budget on police enforcement like NY state has more budget than PA or MD, thus, NY has more police, so ease off the pedal if you find yourself in NY. Also, cops are looking for cars that speed more than 80 mph because it means higher fine, just like a bigger deer to kill. So it’s not worth it to speed at 100 mph, 80 mph is good enough and u have a chance to slow down 10 mph back to 70, which is pretty harmless, to the 65 mph speed limit.

Happy speeding and safely. =)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/4712446.stm

Washer, dryer, and iron all in one.

I’m gonna have one of these someday. Ah, I truly love technology.

While doing research on the cochler implant technology, I had a flashback of this book, called “Flowers for Algernon” by Daniel Keyes. I read this book in high school and was one of my favorite books. What’s cool about this book is that it’s written in the first-person narration when the main character, Charly, was asked to write a progress report. Since he was mentally retarded, he wrote on a elementary-level grammar writing and would misspell words. After he got a surgery, his grammar improved, so did his IQ and at one point, he was smarter than the scientists who did the surgery. But his emotions could not keep up with his rapidly growing intelligence, like finding out about who were his real friends as they would tease him when he was mentally retarded, and ofc there was a love plot as he fell in love with one woman. The book cannot be a book without any kind of drama, that his intellect was only temporary and he slowly drifted back to where he was before the surgery.

This book is one of my fave books I read in high school.

The idea of becoming the next Darth Vader is one step closer.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.11/bolero_pr.html

I find this article enlightening not because the guy could enjoy music again, with the upgrade of 121 channels in his cochlear implant but this one paragraph that explains it all, of what my current hearing is. Let me explain a bit.

For all my life, my friends weren’t the only one who give me a funny look whenever I turn on my mini ipod and start listening. Their expressions say “Huh? I thought you’re deaf.” or “Give me a break, you can’t hear! Stop trying to look cool or be like hearing people.” As I try to explain my hearing, only to realize they weren’t only one that were baffled or puzzled. I was too.

That’s till I read this paragraph.

“Music depends on low frequencies for its richness and mellowness. The lowest-pitched string on a guitar vibrates at 83 hertz, but my Hi-Res software, like the eight-channel model, bottoms out at 250 hertz. I do hear something when I pluck a string, but it’s not actually an 83-hertz sound. Even though the string is vibrating at 83 times per second, portions of it are vibrating faster, giving rise to higher-frequency notes called harmonics….

….The engineers haven’t gone below 250 hertz because the world’s low-pitched sounds – air conditioners, engine rumbles – interfere with speech perception. Furthermore, increasing the total frequency range means decreasing resolution, because each channel has to accommodate more frequencies. Since speech perception has been the main goal during decades of research, the engineers haven’t given much thought to representing low frequencies.”

That’s it! That explains why I could hear low sounds better than higher pitches like vowels and consonants, why I have more RB songs than rock metallic songs on my ipod. I can understand the vowels fairly well but become lost with some consonants, like C, D, N, and T.

One reason why I was aback of getting a cochlear implant in the first place is because of its limited 22 channels, which is being vividly expressed by this: “When the device was turned on a month after surgery, the first sentence I heard sounded like “Zzzzzz szz szvizzz ur brfzzzzzz?” My brain gradually learned how to interpret the alien signal. Before long, “Zzzzzz szz szvizzz ur brfzzzzzz?” became “What did you have for breakfast?” After months of practice, I could use the telephone again, even converse in loud bars and cafeterias. In many ways, my hearing was better than it had ever been. Except when I listened to music.”

I feel it was not worth the implant to get only 22 channels because that is like only 10% of what a human is capable of hearing. I want to be able to hear what a person hears, not like “Zzzzz szz” or that alien-like language. Now, the latest cochlear implant can process more than 100 channels, giving much more range in the ability to hear.

Don’t get me wrong. I was born deaf so I will always be the Deaf person that I have come to know. I view this as a way of tool to communicate with people, like you would buy a Sidekick to keep in touch with ur friends. But never to change my identity as a Deaf person.