Orkut & Uncyclopedia

I chanced upon Orkut icon on my Google toolbar and out of boredom joined the community. It works like any other online friends community (MySpace etc.). The style is quite minimal and there're many fan groups to join so I consider it a plus compared to some names I've already forgottten. It's affiliated to Google and friends on your Orkut list could be automatically added to Google Talk. Nice integration (can be annoying too). All you need is a Google account to join.

And when I was browsing a cowboy bebop thread in Orkut, I saw something called 'Uncyclopedia'. It's simply... hilarious.

You try click on 'Uncyclopedia:About' on Uncyclopeida webpage, a totally rubbish irrelevant article on bicycles pops up. The irrelevancy and slapstick nature is in essence what Uncyclopedia's about. Anyway here's a Wiki explanation on Uncyclopedia.

They have a funny logo too.

Uncyclopedia, "the content-free encyclopedia that anyone can edit," is a satirical parody of Wikipedia.The site was launched in January 2005 by Jonathan Huang and an unnamed counterpart.The Uncyclopedia logo is a hollow potato named Sophia, a parody of Wikipedia's globe logo.

----------

And here's the cowboy bebop page on Uncyclopedia.

Cowboy Bebop (ドラゴンボール Z) is an anime series that tells the story of how Spike dies.[3] Many fans enjoy watching the series, only to find out that Spike Spiegel, the main character,[4] dies. First time viewers may wonder just how he dies, and will have to watch the entire series until viewing the last episode, in which Spike dies. Otherwise, there is no hint that Spike dies,[5] except for times when he is about to die. Regardless, one should not skip to the final episode, where Spike dies, as it would spoil the rest of the story.[6]

:: Characters ::

Spike Spiegel[7] (aka the titular Cowboy Bebop)
A cowboy who, up until his death, drives cattle across the galaxy. He dies at the end of the show.

Jet Black
A Black man who isn't really black at all. A descendant of the 20th Century Earth theif Daisuke Jigen, he is a cowboy and Spike's partner. He is still alive at the end of the series, unlike Spike, who ceases-to-be quite gruesomely.

Faye Valentine
A woman who dresses like a prostitute and, seeing as she lives on a spaceship with two single, unrelated men, probably is. She was Spike's heavily-implied-sometime-lover, until he died at the end of the series. Faye did not die, unlike Spike, who perishes when he falls down some stairs.

Man Faye
Faye's totally sexy doppelganger. Like Faye, but now with 150% more body hair.

Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky IV.
A seven foot tall, 10,000 year-old ex-basketball player, Hindu guru gay alien. Also a cyborg, called "The One", capable of controlling any computer. She went missing as of late 1998, and was last seen in the company of two shifty looking men. Alive at the end of the series, unlike Spike, who meets an untimely end.

Ein
The WonderDog™. Was stolen property confiscated from a Bandito by Spike, who decided to keep it instead of returning it to its owner. Was named "Ein" because that was the name on the dog food dish that Spike bought for it. Is still animate at the end of the series, unlike Spike, who is dead as a door nail.

Vicious
The main villian of the series. In the end he kills Spike, by chopping open the man's chest. Vicious himself also dies, just like Spike who dies at the end of the show.

Julia
She dies by breaking her neck when she slip and fell off a wet roof due to weather conditions, she dies in the same episode that Spike dies; Spike's original lover.

Spike's corpse
A new character introduced to the series when Spike dies.

无拘束

搬回到单人房后再次出现一觉睡到天明的现象，早晨起来电脑还开着，MSN对话窗橘红成一片，挤在屏幕下方质问我的神秘失踪。昨晚回来后全身酸麻，饭都不想搞了但肚子又饿出人命。草草吃了两根香肠半根黄瓜，查收email，读新闻，然后像鬼上身般的倒头便睡。还算有公德心，倒下前随手把灯关了。我是千斤重的佛，隐隐约约从眼缝中瞅见床头墙上贴的星星月亮，还是“乔迁新居”时同学送的，听说是荧光的但贴上后从未留意。果然是发光的，我就带着这模糊的想法逐渐睡死。

Bic Runga的That's alright，AIR的universal traveller，听来都那么抚慰人心。心里想着that's alright, that's alright. 很快就会好的。

4月13号的formal night，需要件晚装。和Sherry去Yorkdale逛，试了很多件，不是太筒了就是颜色太恶。到头来一事无成，在American Eagles看到内裤减价，俩人合买5条拎回家了-.-!!

某同学说最好就是穿皇帝的新衣，想想也是。

高嶋上総

三年没有更新，三年！！然后昨天突然发现有新迹象，我当她彻底挂了（估计在生小孩？），起死回生啊。唉，再看一遍彩图作品还是那么出色，幽默，童趣，帅气。色彩的感觉，人体解剖比例的协调性。。。要好好学习学习。。。



高嶋上総 | Takashima Kazusa
居住地：北海道
生日：10.23
血型：B
网站：maxmaximum (http://kazusa-t.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/)
email (kzsusa-t@mbr.nifty.com)

喜欢：ADIEMUS，白饭（饭桶么？），茶等
讨厌：肥肉，无聊，拘束

如果明天地球就灭亡了最想吃什么？ 用煮熟的饭捏成的饭团子。

:: 主要作品 ::



ハーレムビートは夜明けまで 1-3册（Harem Beat：直到黎明）
vol 1(eng) | vol 2(chn) | vol 3(chn)

来自地狱的王子和他的宠物猫逃到人间为了寻找点fun，王子他爸得知后大怒，派出僵尸+吸血鬼+人狼三人组去擒获王子回巢。唯一的线索就是王子背后的地域刺青（因为到了人间后模样都变了，身体缩小），所以只有让他脱。。。然后就是一串搞笑事件。



宅配戦隊ハコブンジャー （送货上门队Hakobunja）
连载中，NO单行本 Part 1 | Part 2 (link & scanlations by east27)

来自天堂的superpower四人组，到地球上解决人间的各种麻烦事情。（似乎是按金木水火分的，每个人都有一只超可爱的宠物）

BL作品
■ ラストクライアント（Last Client）：职业杀手和男妓的爱情故事，连载到第7章高嶋竟然不画了（没能赶上截稿期所以退出了，似乎是这样。漫画家之耻啊！），晕。这算是她唯一有情节的故事了（因为剧本是另一个小说家写的），画的很精致，分镜也很讲究。也许太精益求精了才交不出稿！（Link and Scans by Shiran : 1 2 3 4 5 6）

■ ワイルド.ロック（Wild Rock）：单行1本 | 两个原始部落间的羁绊，情节0。。。

■ 短篇无单行：Dragon Boy, 犬も歩けばフォーリンラブ（如果狗能直立行走 1 2 3），また、夏が来た（夏天又来了），ピンポイントラヴァーズ（Pinpoint Lovers）etc... | scans & link by
Shiran

这个比较强，某叫香代乃（图左）的漫画家大抄高嶋（图右）>> 罪证

GALLERY SELECTION
(All pictures copyright Takashima Kazusa)

暑中見舞所用插画



随笔画


残暑見舞所用插画


月刊Asuka封面 | Harem Beat


BEXBOY GOLD封面 | Last Client


BEXBOY GOLD 封面 | Dragon Boy

Meiji hard candy

Food recommendation time!

I actually found a post while image googling 'meji sweets'. Take a look. I'm amazed anyone could write such a long review on a tin of hard candies. So far I could only tell mint, pineapple and melon. Never noticed the rest. Melon (green) is my fav. It's always fun to watch my friends grumbling in despair when the white (mint) ball dropped into their palms after they so arduously shook the tin box. 'I want fruits not mint!' Sorry guys, no second try. And heck, I bought it for $2.99CAD. Things are cheaper in the States!



Original review Typetive

Name: Sweet Candy (Fruit Drops)
Brand: Meiji
Place Purchased: Mitsuwa Marketplace (Little Tokyo, LA)
Price: $1.99
Size: 3.8 oz
Type: Hard Candy

Ya gotta love anything that comes in a swell flask-shaped tin in this day and age.

Made by Meiji, this tin contains, simply put, fruit hard candies. As far as I can tell the flavors are something like lemon, orange, strawberry, grape, pineapple and melon. But there’s also a curious opaque white one that’s peppermint (quite a shock when you’re expecting pineapple). The candies are nicely flavored. Tart but not overly so. The lemon and pineapple are particularly good.

It’s a fun little stocking stuffer or something to keep on your desk. After you’re done, you can even put change in the tin - though the largest coin that will fit through the opening at the top is a quarter (but if you’ve got more money, what are you doing saving it? you should be out buying candy).

Rating: 8 out of 10.

And I cant help quoting the first 3 comments... Hilariously sentimental.

Comments

1. i bought this candy after watching an Japanese anime called ‘Grave of the Fireflies’. It’s a very sad anime about 2 brothers in Japan during WWII. The younger bro had a candy tin very similar to this - even the colours of the candies look identical. whenever i see this candy on the shelf it would remind me of the movie and the story of the 2 brothers.

   Comment by johnz on 4/29 at 5:19 am

2. Ummm, the younger one is a girl…

   Comment by someguy on 8/14 at 2:05 pm

3. I bought a tin of sweets that is exactly the same as the one in the film, it even has a picture of the little girl on one side. The tin also has a chocloate flavoured sweet. The shop is called Globally Sweet in Aberdeen, the sweets were just over £4 for the tin.

   Comment by Ali on 8/22 at 5:25 am

Happy B-day to GARNET CROW!

离第一张单曲Mysterious Eyes的发行整整七年了。七之年都走下来了，继续辉煌！

五周年纪念演唱会上冈本翻场的crystal gauge，很有感觉！


Crystal Gauge

La La tu lu Rah Ta
从翠绿的树中洒下阳光
如果闭上双眼
你是否能感受到所有的关联呢？
彷佛遗传因子一般cosmic world
tu ta la ta ta......wave

You-la 摇啊 我的心摇晃着
在孤独中折腾着
你买走了我的心
消失得无影无踪 It's cry

我感觉到浩瀚宇宙的边缘…
I 试着重新考虑过啊…keep on heart
请用冷静的破坏力
将那扇门打开
潜入更深更深的地方 stay
tu ta la......
寻找那永无止尽的泉源

只要一伫足 就能看见一路走来的轨迹
一回头 可看见的足迹
只有举目环视程度的道路 我们曾走过
tu ta la ta ta tu la la ti-la stun

收集我所有能想象的 mind
想到达的并不是某处的「一个地方」
而是不管到何都不会动摇的 ideology
善恶的基准并不适用于每个人
false image?
enigmatic smile?
缓缓地消灭 leave me

明天见喔…没有确实的东西
让我们相爱吧…对于只能分享的部分
请不要急…只要解放就好
Crystal Gauge tu ta la ta ta......

forever love will remain
La La tu lu rah ta
just like a gentle breeze
La la tu lu la ta
cleanup time for my soul
God, will you lead me...
tu ta la ta ta ta ti la la ti la-La

New Sty

Officially settled in my new sty. I'm a heart broken cynical pig in a Russian den. A girl introduced herself as 'Anya'. I smiled, extended my hand to shake with hers and thought secretly: Look, another Anastasia from the Romanov =)

Lights off. Slideshow time.

Welcome to the cafe terrace by night. Audrey smiles at you 24/7.


Desk crew's dissembled and resembled. Not much's changed eh?


My bed light. I name it Love Psychedelic Shooting Star ~


Guess what. A huge Amelie poster on the kitchen wall! Therapeutic just by staring.


Some other funny photos we took during biochem lab. We found a plastic ball labelled 'cat testicle'. Right size, right shape.


Here's Dr. Iselman, our lab course coordinator. Frowning and scratching his backhead is a signature pose.


A cozy corner at the back of storage room. Soaking up the sun, in lab.


Metropolitan Toronto, taken around campus

闷

这下真成April Fool了，Jady，4月我还是要搬啦。小孩子翻脸不认人很容易么？我斗胆说完要搬家浑身都止不住有点抖。原来是这样的，做了决定后第一想到的是，以后估计再也见不到了吧。很难过。原来是这样结束的，明明是自己的选择却完全无法预计。总有一步猜不透的棋。

那么多天没看过你的脸，唯一正视时一脸迷茫，然后就是决裂。我怎么那么闷骚包子呢，可是很累，进进出出的没力气开门了。但一切最终是我的病。不爱的人是无辜的赢家。

然后说，如果人生只若初见，那个人一直在哼安室的Can you celebrate？，我也只是早上偶尔会和她一起吃顿饭，这样就好了。我是个不知趣的不知足的神经有点过敏的闷骚包。

我似乎记得见到桂子第一面，她留着马桶盖的乖乖女头。

很奇怪的是，我经常记不得她的声音。哪怕经常在一起，努力在脑海中重播的时候仍然抓不住，试着想爸妈叫我小名的声音，Jady说"atrocious!"的声音，许多人的声音一一回顾过，还是想不出她的声音，好像不存在似的。去年夏天我第一次注意到这件事，后来也没想起来。

手机上的黑狗挂件断了，算不算是clue?

是不是无论跟谁走的近了都会这样？我还是有问题的啊。

O How I wonder...

From MSNBC

Science paying attention to not paying attention
Why is the mind wired to wander every chance it gets?



NEW YORK - Researchers are studying a pervasive psychological phenomenon in which oh man we’ve got to finish doing the taxes this weekend ...

C’mon, admit it. Your train of thought has derailed like that many times. It’s just mind-wandering. We all do it, and surprisingly often, whether we’re struggling to avoid it or not.

Mainstream psychology hasn’t paid much attention to this common mental habit. But a spate of new studies is chipping away at its mysteries and scientists say the topic is beginning to gain visibility.

Someday, such research may turn up ways to help students keep their focus on textbooks and lectures, and drivers to keep their minds on the road. It may reveal ways to reap payoffs from the habit.

And it might shed light on attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which can include an unusually severe inability to focus that causes trouble in multiple areas of life.

Too common to ignore
More generally, scientists say, mind-wandering is worth studying because it’s just too common to ignore.

Michael Kane, a psychologist at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, sampled the thoughts of students at eight random times a day for a week. He found that on average, they were not thinking about what they were doing 30 percent of the time.

For some students it was between 80 and 90 percent of the time. Out of the 126 participants, only one denied any mind-wandering at the sampled moments.

Prior work has also turned up average rates of 30 percent to 40 percent in everyday life.

“If you want to understand people’s mental lives, this is a phenomenon we ought to be thinking about,” Kane said.

Mostly harmless, occasionally hazardous
Of course, a lot of mind-wandering is harmless, as when you think about a work problem while munching a cheeseburger. The problem comes when it distracts you from something you should be paying attention to.

The result of that can be tragic. Kane noted the 2003 case of a college professor who drove to work in Irvine, Calif., one hot August day, parked and went to his office. Whatever was going through his mind, he’d lost track of the fact that his 10-month-old son was in the back seat. The boy died in the heat. In 2004, virtually the same thing happened in Santa Ana, Calif.

A more common task that demands concentration is reading. Even here, people’s minds wander 15 to 20 percent of the time, said Jonathan Schooler of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. And they often don’t realize it, he said.

He and colleagues had college students read passages from “War and Peace” and other books. The volunteers pushed a button every time they noticed their thoughts straying, and that happened regularly, Schooler said.

But more surprisingly in such experiments, when the volunteers are interrupted at random times and asked what they’re thinking, “we regularly catch people’s minds wandering before they’ve noticed it themselves,” Schooler said. And these stealth episodes appear to hamper reading comprehension, he said.

In Kane’s study, scheduled for publication later this year, volunteers carried devices that beeped at random times and asked questions about their thoughts. Most of the time when caught mind-wandering, the students said they’d deliberately stopped focusing on what they were doing.

Everyday worries
Their wandering thoughts trained more on everyday things than on fantasies, and much more than on worries. That’s similar to what previous studies have found. “A lot of what they’re reporting is ... mental to-do lists,” Kane said.

But what leads to this?

“The mind is always trying to wander, every chance it gets,” Schooler said. In his view, the mind has not only the goal of achieving whatever task we’re focused on, but also personal goals simmering outside of our immediate awareness. These are things like making plans for the future, working out everyday problems, and better understanding oneself. Sometimes, one of these goals hijacks our attention. And so our mind wanders.

Brain-scanning evidence links mind-wandering to basic operation of the brain. Malia Mason of Harvard’s Massachusetts General Hospital and colleagues recently reported that mind-wandering taps into the same circuitry that people use when they’re told to do nothing — when their brains are on “idle.”

Schooler, who’s studying brain-wave activity associated with mind wandering, welcomes what he sees as a surge of interest in the topic. He and others say there’s plenty to learn.

One goal is finding ways to help people realize when their mind is wandering and bring it under control, Schooler said. He plans to test whether meditation training might help.

But there’s even a more basic question, he said. Why is the brain wired to wander? What could possibly be good about that?

Living on autopilot
“Mind-wandering is probably more often helpful than harmful,” Kane said. For one thing, the cost is low: despite notable exceptions, life usually doesn’t demand our full attention.

“A lot of human daily life is autopilot,” he said. “There’s a whole lot of what we need to do that we can do without thinking about it, from driving to eating .... We do occasionally miss that turn on the way home, but we get through the day pretty well.”

Given that, a mechanism that encourages us to devote some idle brain capacity to planning and solving problems “seems like a pretty good use of time,” he said.

Schooler is exploring the idea that mind-wandering promotes creativity. “It’s unconstrained, it can go anywhere, which is sort of the perfect situation for creative thought,” he said.

Mason points out that just because the human brain wanders doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a good reason for it. Maybe, she said, the mind wanders simply because it can.

But even she sees an upside.

“I can be stuck in my car in traffic and not go absolutely crazy because I’m not stuck in the here and now,” she said. “I can think about what happened last night. And that’s great.”

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

崖の上のポニョ

News from Ghibli World

You can subscribe to their news feeds here



Credit: photo from Ghibli World

Summary: Hayao Miyazaki announced the next Ghibli film '崖の上のポニョ'(Gake no ue no Ponyo, or Ponyo on a cliff) to be released in 2008. It's a story about a 5 year old boy Sosuke modelled around Hayao's son Goro and a goldfish princess named ponyo. The setting is based on 鞆の浦 (tomo no ura), a little town on the bay. Producer Suzuki said 70-80% of the story revolves around sea. They adopted watercolor and pastel like medium for the movie.

The story's interesting and the medium is also refreshing. I adore the watercolor approach in 'my neighbor the yamadas'. I have a feeling the movie's gonna be a whole new concept and Ghibli always does a brilliant job in landscapes.Remember the sea in Spirited Away or the enchanted forest in Princess Mononoke?

In previous interviews I read from Nausicaa.net, it's rumored that Miyazaki includes at least one の (no) in the title, like a spell that ensures the movie's gonna succeed. Princess moNONOke, Sen to Chihiro NO Kamikakushi(Spirited Away), Tonari NO Totoro (My neighbor Totoro), Majo NO Takkyuubin (Kiki's delivery service), Hauru NO Ugoku Shiro (Howl's moving castle), Kaze NO Tani NO Naushika (Nausicaa the valley of wind)...haha, funny old man.

Maybe his son should rename 'Gedo Senki' as 'Gedo no Senki', just a thought...

It's show time!!! Photos I promised.

Biojeopardy bakery competition. Our cheese cake didn't win but I'm confident to say it tastes best =)



We went out for Vietnamese dinner together.Next to me are Susanna (red hoodie) and Rueben. Daryl across, Fred, Sally etc.



A mini watermelon I bought from Dominion. Gone in 60s. (movie with same title?)



My daily meals comprise of: afternoon tea downstairs in the greenery, salad dinner before sunset and a super late supper of sausage,egg and plum. When I was chewing on the plum, I remembered that line 'It's a very plump..plum'. Can't help smiling sheepishly. But no I'm not the English patient and my plums are hard as rock.

异类？

因为很久没有回房睡，一直都霸占着厨房的沙发，上上个星期同宿的新加坡人终于忍不住问我原因，那时搪塞说经常要夜赶实验报告所以就顺便睡沙发了。显然这个理由在数周后渐渐立不住脚，她们看我的眼神也有些异样。两点多进厨房看见我端坐在沙发上用电脑，眼睛眯起来不知该不该打招呼。我又不是外星人，我也想有个好床好睡谁他妈想一直睡沙发，早起时经常腰酸背痛，但这也比回去那个死人房的好。所以大家请睁只眼闭只眼吧，我也觉得很恶心了。

听GC的千言葉，每个字都唱的如此饱满，言语撑破音符所允许的空间。有股子气在回荡似的，震的骨膜有些麻，但格外空旷寂寞。可以就这么躺着听一个小时不用做事也很享受。

现在很不能接受歌手lip sync，就算是有特殊原因，比如说主办方很猪头硬要玩假的，或是歌手本身带病不在最佳状态。拜托在演出前的日子里要格外照顾好自己的嗓子啊！

Spread the word - i'm

Add codes to your live msn display name and you can earn money for charity.



I'm is a new initiative from Windows Live™ Messenger. Every time you start a conversation using i'm, Microsoft shares a portion of the program's advertising revenue with some of the world's most effective organizations dedicated to social causes. We've set no cap on the amount we'll donate to each organization. The sky's the limit.

So any time you have an i'm™ conversation using Windows Live Messenger, you help address the issues you feel most passionate about, including poverty, child protection, disease, and environmental degradation. It's simple. All you have to do is join and start an instant messaging conversation. We'll handle the donation.

i'm starts with you. When you start an i'm conversation you start giving.

How it works
First of all, download live msn

1. From your Contacts window, click the arrow next to your name and select "Options".
   
2. Next to your name, type one of the following codes, including the asterisk, for the cause you'd like to support.

   Text Code	Cause
   *red+u	American Red Cross
   *bgca	Boys & Girls Clubs of America
   *naf	National AIDS Fund
   *mssoc	National MS Society
   *9mil	ninemillion.org
   *sierra	Sierra Club
   *help	StopGlobalWarming.org
   *komen	Susan G. Komen for the Cure
   *unicef	U.S. Fund for UNICEF

3. Click "OK" to complete the sign-up process.

继续

有的时候觉的真不可思议，爱一个人有多少就可以同样恨多少。鄙视，自嘲，痛彻，烦人，不想管了，不想理了，那影子却蔓延至每一处细节与小习惯。忙碌时并无察觉，身处deja vu之地了，发现日常生活中的小缺失了，又开始想有的没的了。发了毒誓再周旋这鸟事就无聊到死，可还是无法完全抹杀，最后苦笑发誓的最终原因就是证明自己有多伪君子，有多纠缠不清。可是恨又从哪里来，可以砸玻璃炸飞机，可以拿叉子狠戳牛排，可以狂奔一万里消耗掉自己的胫骨血肉。明明很多事都是划不清界限的，明智的愚蠢的，对的错的，真的假的。既然不喜欢模棱两可，就要干净的赶尽杀绝，为什么选择活的那么清楚。我想象有人拿把剃刀，打开我的大脑把那肿瘤一刀一刀的刮清爽，然后用强压水龙头冲个彻底。像eternal sunshine，留下空白如初，我就能大大方方的走到你面前欣赏你的尊容，心里想着这人面善，也许能做个朋友。萍水相逢何不为快。那位说爱情卑贱到尘土里开出花儿来，我只会烧自己的头发，让这灰越积越厚，厚到可以挖坑自埋。但八成没有力气爬进去，就小坐一会儿虚度光阴，意识到自己守着谁留下的坟了，又恨恨唑口痰悻然离去。再呆一秒钟都是罪。

为什么要活的那么明白，为什么不能谅解，为什么那么难看。为什么阿你有病吧我说，快点忘记吧快忘了吧。然后他妈又想起来那人喜欢唱“记得要忘记，忘记。”我的娘。。。太没天理了！！

晕

头晕。

你别看我睁大了眼死盯着lecturer，其实若干分钟前就开始脑死亡，前两页slides还略微做了笔记，到了后来笔就架空在手指间不动了，人逐渐麻木，麻木。。。最近几天怎么那么累。。。

随时都能睡。。。

难不成是阴虚。。。

又开始下雪，前两天还宛如春天，变态多伦多。

Fido电话充值服务阳巅峰来着。拨#46, 女声录音说“Hi I'm Andria. I'm here to help you with your prepaid service.” 说yes，然后输入密码，然后选择5块10块20块30块还是50块，这都很顺利，然后女人开始说“Please wait while I update your account.”平时无需数秒就ok可以挂电话了，今天竟然把我转到customer service representative。我想是不是机器太忙终于还是要有血有肉的人来插一脚，然后等啊等啊，听了无数广告，绵绵不绝的夏威夷度假桑巴音乐，无数的“we're sorry. you'll be attended to shortly.”，打了无数哈欠最后受不了挂了。

小睡去了。

Artists look different

From Cognitive Daily

Vogt, S. & Magnussen, S. (2007). Expertise in pictorial perception: Eye-movement patterns and visual memory in artists and laymen. Perception, 26, 91-100.

These two pictures represent the eye motions of two viewers as they scan a work of art with the goal of remembering it later. One of them is a trained artist, and the other is a trained psychologist. Can you tell which is which?



How about for this picture?


Art teachers have noted that when beginning students attempt to draw accurate portraits, they tend to exaggerate the size of key features: eyes and mouths are too big relative to the size of the head. Trained artists learn to ignore these temptations and draw the world as it really appears. Even world-famous artists such as Leonardo da Vinci have had to resort to tricks such as looking at their subject through a divided pane of glass in order to render proportions accurately. As you can see from the two examples above, even when looking at a picture, artists look differently. So which is which? I'll let you know at the end of the post.

Stine Vogt and Svein Magnussen showed 16 pictures including these two to trained artists and non-artists (psychologists) enrolled in Norway's top graduate programs in their respective disciplines, using eye-tracking cameras and software to monitor where they looked. The viewers were unaware of the purpose of the test -- they were told the study was about pupil size and response to pictures. In the first phase of the experiment, viewers simply looked at each picture in random order, and in the second phase, they were asked to view the pictures again, but to concentrate in order to remember them.

Vogt and Magnussen defined key areas of each picture -- small regions around focal objects such as human bodies or faces. This graph shows how often artists and non-artists looked at these areas:



In both cases, non-artists spent significantly more time looking at these key areas than artists. Interestingly, even artists spent more time looking at these areas when trying to remember the pictures.

So who was better at remembering pictures? At the end of the study, participants gave unprompted verbal descriptions of as many of the pictures as they could, in any order. Overall, the artists remembered more details from the pictures, but surprisingly, non-artists actually remembered more of one type of pictures: abstract pictures with no recognizable objects. Artists were able to change their viewing strategy to remember the non-abstract pictures, but with no recognizable objects in abstract pictures, there was no change in strategy.

So why do artists look at pictures -- especially non-abstract pictures -- differently from non-artists? Vogt and Magnussen argue that it comes down to training: artists have learned to identify the real details of a picture, not just the ones that are immediately most salient to the perceptual system, which is naturally disposed to focusing on objects and faces. With this in mind, there's little doubt which pictures above show the artist's eye movements -- they are the ones to the right, which sweep across the whole picture, not just the human face and figure.

Death in Venice...

From wiki


Björn Johan Andrésen (born 26 January 1955, in Stockholm, Sweden) is a Swedish actor and musician. He is most famous for playing the fourteen-year-old Tadzio in Luchino Visconti's 1971 film adaptation of the Thomas Mann novella Death in Venice.

Eager to dispel the rumors regarding his sexuality and to shed his "pretty boy" image, Andrésen thereafter avoided homosexual roles and parts which he felt would play off of his good looks, and was angry when feminist writer Germaine Greer used a photograph of him on the cover of her book The Beautiful Boy (2003) without first obtaining his personal permission.

Thomas Mann's wife Katia recalls that the idea for the story came during an actual holiday in Venice, which she and Thomas took in the spring of 1911:

All the details of the story, beginning with the man at the cemetery, are taken from experience … In the dining-room, on the very first day, we saw the Polish family, which looked exactly the way my husband described them: the girls were dressed rather stiffly and severely, and the very charming, beautiful boy of about thirteen was wearing a sailor suit with an open collar and very pretty lacings. He caught my husband's attention immediately. This boy was tremendously attractive, and my husband was always watching him with his companions on the beach. He didn't pursue him through all of Venice — that he didn't do — but the boy did fascinate him, and he thought of him often … I still remember that my uncle, Privy Counsellor Friedberg, a famous professor of canon law in Leipzig, was outraged: "What a story! And a married man with a family!" [1]

Mann himself mentioned this story in a letter to his friend Phillipp Witkop on 7/18/1911, as he was working on it:

I am in the midst of work: a really strange thing that I brought with me from Venice, a novella, serious and pure in tone, concerning a case of pederasty in an aging artist. You say, "Hum, hum!" but it is quite respectable.

Akeboshi - Yellow Moon

有浪子的感觉，网上的中文翻译超怪，参照日/英歌词自翻了一下。



Yellow Moon
Song/Lyrics by Akeboshi

昨天一整天我的手机call sign
时不时没信号
走音的fuzz guitar
在奇怪的公园里

骑上motor bike
超越风速
我的上空
一弯明月已成history
地球是我的goal line
狗和雄狮
共朝着维纳斯moving on
禁不住让人生厌

Yellow moon，现在，一直数到
三，然后张开眼
Shadow moon
梦还未醒

看着我，看着我
我们背朝着对方站着
看着我，tell me yes or no？

Every day every night
用爱的话语
我想立刻告诉你我有多爱你
Every day every night
用可接收的正常信号
我想告诉你这逐渐失控的情绪

和你在一起时的幸福
在金色的教堂里我们手牵手

Yellow moon
月在夜空中逐渐黯淡
它再次在今晚微笑

看着我，看着我
我们背朝着对方站着
看着我，tell me yes or no？

Everyday everynight
用爱的话语，我想立刻告诉你
Everyday everynight
我有多爱你

Every day

Yellow moon，现在，一直数到
三，然后张开眼
Shadow moon
梦还未醒

看着我，看着我
我们背朝着对方站着
看着我，我们什么时候才能相见？

Every day every night
用爱的话语
我想立刻告诉你我有多爱你
Every day every night
用可接收的正常信号
我想告诉你这逐渐失控的情绪

魔法的编码变了
在这不眠的小镇
Jazz guitar弹奏着温柔的小调
曲子每天都在变

Vanilla apple white tea

继Lipton Sri Lankan Tea后的新欢，苹果香草的味道（估计是桂皮），很清爽嗒！

From Official site
Ingredients: Organic white tea, organic jasmine green tea (green tea, jasmine), organic orange peel, organic licorice, natural vanilla and apple flavors, organic cinnamon, organic chamomile, organic apples and organic lavender.

听Norah Jones的Butterfly，背景里有个老男人的声音问着“Who are you and what were you before?” Paranoic man!

喜欢Young Pilgrims，节奏变化很自然，歌词也很开朗，贴过来欣赏。为什么很多punk/rock乐团都能写一手好歌词呢？



Young Pilgrims
The Shins

a cold and wet november dawn,
and there are no barking sparrows.
just emptiness to dwell upon.

i fell into a winter slide,
and ended up the kinda kid who goes down chutes too narrow.
just eeking out my measly pipes

but i learned fast
how to keep my head up
cause i know there is this side of me that...
wants to grab the yoke from the pilot and just...
fly the whole mess into the sea

another slow train to the coast
some brand you glory-eyed from way on high
i sink and then i swim all night.

i watch the ice melt on the glass,
while the eloquent young pilgrims pass,
and leave behind a trail...
imploring us all not to fail

of course i was raised to gather courage from those...
lofty tales so tried and true, but
if you're able
i'd suggest it cuz this...
modern thought can get the best of you.

this rather simple epitaph can save your hide

fate isn't what we're up against
there's no design, your flaws are fine
there's no design, your flaws are fine

but i learned fast how to...
keep my head up cuz i...
know i've got this side of me that..
wants to grab the yoke from the pilot and...
fly the whole mess into...the...sea

班上有个叫Emily的女生，原来也是RJ毕业的。在多伦多碰到新加坡人没什么新奇，10个新加坡人有3个是RJ毕业的，那也没什么新奇。也许是同学三年没说过话，所以难得搭上话了觉得很特别。很可爱很顺眼的女生，头发卷卷的编成碎麻花，眼睛并不大但很温柔，完全是我喜欢的类型。很搞笑的是，我们核对是不是同一年入学的，偏偏我们两个都不记时间。就像问路的问不出个东南西北，只知道标志性建筑物，冷饮店旁边或公园门外之类的。我们开始回想JC两年发生的各种事件，比如谁是学生会主席（我说是个高的，她说是矮的，可都忘了名字），生物老师是谁，课外活动内容，云云。结果还是达不成任何共识。我暂时认为她比我早一届。一个星期后的实验课她跑来我们桌子接水，突然说“我还是觉得我们是同一届的。”然后又开始绞尽脑汁想些标志性建筑物。如果当年新生欢迎会校长走上讲台时摔了一跤，那我们就能哈哈大笑说，果然是一届的。不过一米九的校长还健在，像我们学校的常青树。。。

One fine day...

Sunshine was graciously abundant today. It was the kind of day that made you dreamy, delirious and almost convinced humans were once born in fire, delighted by its passionate warmth. So there I was, walking my usual 15min walk to lab 4pm on a 'silver dust lane'.

And it was also one of the strange days for no reason at all I attracted perverts and commoner-looking passers-by who attempted to flirt with me saying 'how ye doing', 'pretty warm eh?'. Usually I walked straight on keeping a stern face and wished they stopped trailing me but today I politely replied 'pretty good' and must have smiled wryly.

Someone's already in lab when I walked in the door. He's a new-comer who sadly doesn't win favors from the ladies. It all started the day our prof invited him over for an interview. Wanyi disliked him at first sight (talking about 'love at first sight', there you have 'disgust at first sight' just to complete the picture). She hated the way he walked with back slightly hunched, the way he talked mumbling under his breadth and slurring his speech, or the way he bothered her with questions he could've researched on his own. Nothing about him is right. There isn't strictly an 'anarchy' system officially established here, but Wanyi being the head of gossip and loud-speaker has a profound influence on the way things should go in the lab. She never stopped complaining about the guy and soon everybody held a distance from him. Even if there IS some inherent unlikable aspect in him, it gets amplified and exaggerated to a super unwelcomable extent which almost calls for basic sympathy, from me at least.

I side-tracked. The guy goes by surname 'Gong' but our prof pronounces it 'Gone'. One day prof said he was going downstairs to fetch a coke and asked Gong to wait for him. When prof came back, Gong wasn't there anymore. In dismay prof shouted across the room 'Where's Gong?!' (Where's Gone? the way he said it.) Evaylo, the taciturn, replied 'He's gone.' I never knew Evaylo had such a warped humor before. We got the pun and laughed hysterically.

So today when I was pipetting loading buffer into the tube, Gone extended a hand across the shelf and asked me 'Do you know what it is?'. I inched closer and saw what closely resembled mouse shit residing at the bottom of an Eppendorf tube. 'No...' (but it looks like mouse shit) Before I could voice my hesitation in bracket, he told me it was roach's egg which could give you a lovely cockroach, and asked me whether I'd like to take it home and see the whole developmental process. On top of that he advised me to poke a hole or flip open the cover now and then to give it enough oxygen. Taking it home was obviously way beyond my sensibility but I agreed to stick the tube on lab shelf and promised to watch its growth. What a weird day.

Am reading a book titled 'No Logo'. I remember we used an excerpt for general paper back in junior college. If you want to know more about globalization the underworld of corporate expansion, this would be a good read.

A funny excerpt on the title itself
The title No Logo is not meant to be read as a literal slogan (as in No More Logos!), or a post-logo logo (there is already a No Logo clothing line, or so I'm told). Rather, it is an attempt to capture an anticorporate attitutde I see emerging among many young activists. This book is hinged on a simple hypothesis: that as more people discover the brand-name secrets of the global logo web, their outrage will fuel the next big political movement, a vast wave of opposition squarely targeting transnational corporations, pariticularly those with very high name-brand recognition.



From Wiki:
No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies is a book by Canadian journalist Naomi Klein. First published by Knopf Canada in January 2000, shortly after the Seattle protests had generated media attention around such issues, it became one of the most influential books about the anti-globalization movement and an international bestseller.

No Logo official web

春天要到了吧

以上是鸭子说的话。去年四月初还在下雪，春天来时太过突然，纵然而逝。多伦多这个地方，春季只占pie chart的百分之十。今天晚上夜游去实验室，路过冰雪覆盖的大草坪惊讶的发现以成了一汪水，不知什么时候偷偷化了。偎依在草坪旁的几棵树像是在湖中扎的根，这个景象经常在杂志上见到。春天快要来了吧。

医学系每年一次的Biojeopardy比赛就是生化，免疫和基因系的三国大战。Biochemistry, Immunology, Genetics，合称BIG，在多大算是有点小名气。每年轮流主持，今年轮到免疫学的人主持，出题出的那个偏。我们本来就没拿多少分了，还特爱插嘴胡说。就见主持人（某免疫男）不亦乐乎的给我们往死里扣，倒数第二轮的时候竟以历史性的负一千八的积分告终。最后一题说若是答对了就给我们正一分以资鼓励，不过就是一张达尔文的大头像，白痴都能认出是谁吧。最后我们群体欢呼，Biochem总算也拿了一分。（Immun和Genetics的一个1500，一个1600）

Quotes of the day:
Explorer Bill Stone: "The traditional approach to space exploration has been to carry all the fuel you need, and to carry everybody back in case of emergency. But to prime the pump that will take us beyond, boldness is required: the first expeditionary team must travel to the Moon without the fuel to come back, and produce it there. It can be done in 7 years, and I intend to lead that expedition. There was a time when people did bold things to open new frontiers. We have collectively forgotten that. Now we are at a time when boldness is required again."

Babel,Perfume & Pilobolus

Longest journal entry ever... should've split them into three. I scribbled whenever I was in the mood and it sprawled over 3 days...

Splitting cracking throbbing headache. Want to write short reviews on the two movies I've watched.

Wake up on Day 2. 12 hours of sleep, with one hour dinner and one hour reading half way in between. That was my Saturday.

In the book 'the stone diary' (or is it 'diaries?'), she described the tension in Mercy's chest as 'an accordian held sideways', fans out, heaving and held stagnant. I liked that description, making me a little hard to breathe. On the road a scene came in mind. She turned and saw a woman moving towards her, her dress dark like dried blood. Then she realized she was staring in a mirror. It was a vivid red satin she was wearing that night. I can't recall where it came from, maybe 'life is elsewhere'? Not quite.




- Links -
Wiki
Movie Official Site
Director Tom Tykwer's Homepage

Trailer


The movies. Thanks to gang who's a real movie reservoir. I wanted to watch 'Perfume' in cinema. It might have been a great experience. The screenplay was based on a 1985 classic horror novel by German author Patrick Süskind. The story's set in 18th century France where the protagonist Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was borne to a fish monger mother who had 5 still births or semi-stillbirths before. The opening scene depicts a revoltingly filthy wet market filled with low-lifes and rich with stench (you could imagine) and meat slashing sound by butchers gutting pigs and wretching out their intestines. Grenouille's equally filthy mother felt a sudden pain in her stomach and the next second she laid down on dirty floor and virtually 'ejected' Grenouille, cut the cord with a fish knife and went back to business. I watched that with wide open eyes, what??! That's how you labor?? Okay...

Spoiler-free synopsis: Grenouille's a freaking prodigy who knows all the scents in the world. His nose is sharper than dogs but the only weird thing is he doesn't have a scent of his own. Driven by the desire to preserve all possible scents including that of humans (pheromones), Grenouile's apprenticed to a perfumer Baldini who fails to satisfy his quest sadly but suggests he go to Grasse where Grenouile learnt the techniques of maceration and enfleurage (ie. extracting plant oils by absorbing and distilling fats). That's where a series of murders begin...







Perfume reminds me of 'Girl with a pearl earring'. The antique colours and artistic settings are similar. The soundtrack is splendid. You can feel its brilliance throughout the movie. The ending is, well, unexpected and exaggeratingly black humor. It's sad to see the magic of his mastery in scents could 'conquer' the whole world but brings no satisfaction to himself eventually.

The director also directed 'Run lola run'. Now you make the connection. More connections: The song "Scentless Apprentice," by the American rock band Nirvana, was inspired by Perfume. It appears on their 1993 album In Utero. The band's singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain often described it as one of his favourite books.

Switch gear to Babel.



- Links -
Official Site
Babel @Wiki
Director Alejandro González Iñárritu @Wiki

Trailer


Babel is a smart, montage-like film that pieces together different geographical stories which weave one whole story in jumpy temporal frames, like putting together jigsaw puzzles spelling out a warning to us 'You need to LISTEN' (that's the theme and tagline). The origin of the word 'Babel', from Wikipedia, is the name used in the Hebrew Bible for the city of Babylon (Akkadian Babilu), notable in Genesis as the supposed location of the Tower of Babel.According to Genesis 11:1-9, mankind, after the deluge, traveled from the mountain where the ark had rested, and settled in 'a plain in the land of Shinar' (or Senaar). Here, they attempted to build a city and a tower whose top might reach unto Heaven, the Tower of Babel.The attempt to build the Tower of Babel had angered God who, in his anger, made each person involved speak a different language which ultimately halted the project and scattered and disconnected the people across the planet.So you get the idea. 'Babel' signifies failed communication and how disconnected people have become.

*Spoiler warnings*
The story started out rather innocent (or maybe not). Two Morocco brothers played with a hunting gun and the younger one accidentally shot a woman on an American tour bus. You can imagine the huge uproar in the States where the name 'terrorism' is promptly coined to address the severity of issue. Being trapped in a remote village where both transportation and the freedom to verbally communicate with the locals are rather hopeless, the woman (Kate Blanchett, Brad Pitt's wife) was dying from blood loss. I forgot to mention the couple was on bad terms with each other, on the brink of a divorce it seems. Political interference delayed proper medical attention and help from American Embassy came rather late. Possibility of death and eternal separation however rescued their desperate love. So far so good for the Americans. But look at the Morocco family. The police was brutal either due to this 'terrorism' pressure or they were just like that (I doubt). I shall not elaborate...

The above was the central story which took place in Morocco. The other three took place in America, Mexico and Japan. The babysitter of the couple's kids is a Mexican. It was her son's wedding but she was told to stay and take care of the kids. A chain of events led to her being permanently expelled from America. The Japanese side of story shared the least link. The hunting gun was originally from a Japanese business man who gave it to the local guide as a gift. The story however is based on his mute & deaf daughter who desperately wanted love.







Overall the movie shouts a negative tone on the Americans. Arrogant and selfish. Or is it my own impression...

Pilobolus...
Is the name of a dance company. Too many vowels that conjure up a funny sounding name, just like their innovative,gymnastic dance style that has some humourous elements in the movements.I got to know them from this TED video here. Recently Pilobolus performed at 79th Oscar.They imitated movies behind a big screen. The effect is stunning.