They even engraved on the styrofoam.

My newest toy! Courtesy of Google.

It’s been a while since I have last looked at my web statistics. My total hits has experienced a huge surge since I embedded Wayne Betts Jr.’s video clips. I use Firefox browser all the time, so I thought my website would be viewed most frequently with Firefox because in the early days, I was probably the only one looking at my own website, ha. But now, it’s totally reversed and Internet Explorer dominates more than 80% of all traffic to my site. Sigh. It’s forcing me to cater to IE’s design rules so my web audience can view my site properly. Looks like I’d have to overhaul my coding and bow my head to IE. :s

All gone!

My daily intake. Daily.

Some meme on five random quotes from here that I think reflect who I am or what I believe in.

Post idea taken from kottke.org, which was taken from Rivers are Damp.

– “Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.” –Henry David Thoreau

– “Be a first rate version of yourself, not a second rate version of someone else.” –Judy Garland

I always liked this quote that I once saw in a restaurant. “It’s nice to be important but it’s more important to be nice.” Anyone knows who said this? According to Google, seems like it’s John Lennon but I’m no music buff. :-)

Gotta love this spam!

Ah, MNF. Monday nights were never the same without you. Welcome back!

What I learned today is that a bonsai is not a plant, it’s a tree.

After realizing that someone special is having a birthday in three days—August 31st, I better do something quick before it’s all too late and a potential long night.

One of the important things to remember about buying a gift for someone’s birthday is the amount of recognition it can ignite. If you could buy a gift that costs a few dollars but it attracts a lot of attention and bring people to say “oh, I didn’t know today is your birthday! Happy Birthday!”. The gift becomes priceless almost instantly—no matter how little you paid for it. On the other hand, if you bought a gift that costs like a grand and it brings zero people to say happy birthday, well, the gift won’t be more than it is.

So, I decided I’d send her flowers at her internship in New Jersey with Kraft Foods Co. Surely, someone would see the flowers and say happy birthday to her. That’s what I’m talking about, the recognition.

Knowing that Google not only ranks websites based on their revelance but also their popularity, I simply typed “flowers” into the search and I would probably only bother to check out the top five sites. Interestingly, I knew FTD is a well-known flower delivery service but is ranked at #4; however, it does have an ad box out on top. Clearly, it has paid for that top ad placement. The first one to come out is 1800flowers.com. So I clicked on it and I can immediately see why it has the top rank. Clear, visible layout with a nice color scheme to match the “flowery” feeling. After browsing around, the pictures of flowers are nicely taken but I found the prices to be a tad high. So I put that website on hold and check out the top second website, virtualflowers.com. It has a simpler, less bold looking layout and the prices are a little lower.

I was initially planning to send her flowers but the images of flowers or roses came back to remind me that it wasn’t my first time getting her flowers and that all of them have withered, dried, and then died. I do recall that one time she said “maybe you should have gotten me a plant. I’d love to take care of it.” Bingo, time for me to get her a plant.

So, which plant? I looked at the plants and found nothing that seems to suit her taste and lifestyle. Most of them would look like a good choice for someone who’s in a hospital. Like if that person has a terminal disease and it wouldn’t be a good idea to send that person flowers ‘cuz they probably would die before s/he did.

I thought of what she’d like and what would be suitable for her office cubicle. Bingo, I know what kind of plant to get her. It’s a bonsai. So I quickly looked around and found some. Oops, it’s not a plant. It’s a tree! A bonsai tree. I quickly read about its history on the wikipedia to be a little more educated than I was ten seconds ago. I knew she would love it. She likes miniaturized, simple stuffs and a bonsai tree certainly falls into that category or at least I think so.

With this tree, she should have a soothing time looking at it and perhaps take a few minutes to cut a few shrubs from the little tree. I should know that ‘cuz she likes to cut my nails—both fingernails and toenails.

I started the checkout process and whew, if I order it tomorrow, it’s going to cost me 20 extra dollars to ship the tree. Instead, it’s 10 dollars. Fine with me. Now, if you’re still reading this, remember the recognition I mentioned earlier in this post? I feel that this tree alone is not going to garner a lot of attention so I decided to add a happy birthday balloon to it so that it can hover above the walls of cubicle world. It costs 5 dollars and hopefully more than 5 people will come to say happy birthday to her. :-)

Just so you know, Bonsai is a tree, not a plant.

The king of sodas. Nothing tastes better than in a can.

Abstract:
The incidence of rape in the United States has declined 85% in the past 25 years while access to pornography has become freely available to teenagers and adults. The Nixon and Reagan Commissions tried to show that exposure to pornographic materials produced social violence. The reverse may be true: that pornography has reduced social violence. –ANTHONY D’AMATO

The link – Porn Up, Rape Down

This reminds me of one book I read, Freakonomics. The book says the crime rate has declined not because of increased policing or better economy but the decision by the Supreme Court to allow pro-choice in abortions.

I don’t find it surprising at all. I remember one guy told me a story that in some european countries, he saw 12 years old kids reading porn magazines while rapes there are almost non-existent. Makes sense to me.

3 bottles of heinken and 2 burgers of mcdonalds do not mesh well.

Anyway, here’s a happy friday to you!

Sriacha Hot Chili Sauce,

My fave condiment; it’s like a ketchup to me.

Here’s some pics from the wedding. Kevin is the kind of person who would be picked last or second to last in a PE class and here he’s getting married ahead of his classmates and is only second to Johnny Harper who got married last year. He’s in the pic too, with the “Dale Earnhardt” mustache.

Kevin was smart to provide a free keg at the reception. We, KFQ bros, sure trained him right! ;-)

Oh yeah, like, for the first time ever, people actually clapped when I was doing some break dancing, instead of putting their fist close to their mouth and laugh. Back in high school, I know no shit about dancing!

Right now, I’m in the O’Hare airport in chicago and am typing this one to kill some time before I board on the flight to Springfield.

Am going to my classmate’s wedding and spend some time with my parents and grandma. I am finding out that going to your classmate’s wedding is a lot like a class reunion. It’ll be interesting to see them again, some I haven’t seen since HS graduation.

My dad just bought a flat display 40′ Sony Bravia and ofc he’d need my help to hook it up. Lucky him. Maybe I’ll play games on the big screen, haha.

Oh yeah, I just became a full timer at Google, so I’m one happy man. :-)

posted from a sk2