riddle and song

First Snow Of Winter

Yup, there it is! It’s a little late (I took this picture in the afternoon, after much of the early morning shtuff had melted away), but this is the first day we’ve had it this winter. According to NPR, it picked a pretty good day to arrive… the 1st of December is the official first day of winter.

I’m blogging using Windows Live Writer now, which is a rich client sitting on my desktop that I hooked up to this Blogger account, so now it feels easier to just throw up a post whenever I feel like it. The program has taken some getting used to… I realized too late a couple days ago that when I tell Windows Live Writer to delete a post, it’s deleting it from my blog as well, not just from my pc. I lost a whole hour’s of work that way! Anyway, that post was mostly just me testing out Windows Live Writer and talking about some first impressions of Windows 7.

Right now, I just realized Windows 7, by default, doesn’t tell me directly when I get IMs over Pidgin. It just plays a notification sound and I have to figure out myself which program threw that out there. I much preferred it when the chat window interrupted me. Then again… I suppose most people would prefer NOT to be interrupted until they are ready. It just goes to show, you can’t please em all!

And Now I Know…

… how David Copperfield did his Portal illusion. Or at least part of it. Here’s what I’m talking about:

The part I mean is where he shows up in Hawaii with the tattoo on his arm and the photo he just took moments ago in front of a live audience.

Now I suspected the first time I saw it that there was some digital imaging trickery involved, but I’d never seen it done for myself in such a speedy manner. Now I still don’t know exactly what the technical aspects are behind this tech, but I’m pretty sure David’s illusion uses something similar to this:

It takes a minute or two to load, but once it does, it’s hilarious!

As for the part where David and his friend vanishes into thin air from that little platform, well that’s still pretty slick. Thanks to David McDarby for pointing this out!

Birth Month Wishes From Street Fighter

October was Kyeonghi's birth month (she claims the whole month as hers since her birthday is on the 1st of October), and one thing I did was this little ditty on GoAnimate. It only took 3 hours!

GoAnimate.com: Street Fighter by greyhoundbus

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

The Self-Annotating Oxford Trip Video

Self-annotating... I wish!

A couple weeks ago we flew to Oxford, MS, which was Kyeonghi's college hometown for a few years, to attend the wedding of Bill Mackenzie's daughter. Bill was Kyeonghi's spiritual mentor while she was in Oxford, and I've also known Bill for a long time since he is heavily involved with the Navigators International Student Ministries. I like to call Bill the manliest man I know, seeing as how he built the beautiful ranch he and his family has lived on for decades from the ground up with his own bare hands! Ok, he might've had some help, but I like to think he did it with his own bare hands.

Anyway, here's the vid =)

The Late Late LATE Wedding Dinner Photos

Well... what can I say in my defense. I've been hitting that tournament mode in Street Fighter IV pretty hard! I'm still a scrubby G2-level competitor though, so unfortunately I have little to show for it.

That said, here are some pics from all the way back in late June. Mom and Dad organized a Chinese wedding dinner for us. Friends, family, lots of people came. Unfortunately for me, I was gone too long to be in touch with many of my old school mates, but I was more than blessed to see some folks from SIB and Metropolitan college. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of the SIB folks (Rodney, Paige, Kevin, and Adele) who came. The photos are somewhere out there, but for now they are sorely missed!

Many thanks to Jason Koay, who brought along this ridiculously huge camera to take these pictures. I saw a lot of people carrying things like those around while in Malaysia, though. Apparently it's a fad >_<

Our dinner was held at the Oversea Restaurant at Subang Parade. This is the stage they set up for the occasion. Rarely has my name been writ in such large, purple letters.

This is another view, this time closer to the champagne bottles and the glass tower... thing.

And a closeup of the top of the fake wedding cake! Mmmmmm, fake wedding cake.

Dad was briefing us on what to do when it was time for our entrance. He's explaining the traditional Chinese high-five I had to give everyone on the way to the bride and groom's table.

...... not really.

Here is me and my Kyeonghi, all dressed up and ready to greet our wedding guests! About half of the guests just walked past us, which is fine, because I probably should have been dressed in a tux or something more groom-like. It did save me a lot of awkward conversations with people I don't know.

Here's the photographer, Jason Koay...

... and here's the rest of the Metropolitan College gang. I was surpised how little they had changed, though I guess J.C. (far right) did look very different with short hair.

This is us walking in after our introduction. At least one table appeared to be completely clueless and remained seated. That's what I get for not wearing a tux.

Fake cake, mmmmmmmm...............

I think this us and my parents just before the wedding toast, and I have *no* clue why we have those expressions on our faces. I'll blame Mr. Koay for this shot. Actually, I blame him for a lot of things.

Here we are, being led in a toast by my cousin, Paul Ng (far right, in the green plaid shirt). I must say the Ng family is pretty good at drinking AND roaring.

Paul, me, and my sis, sharing a family moment.

And finally, here's a shot of me doing the rounds of toasting at each table. Kyeonghi must've been worn out at this point because she's not in the picture. Mom was there to pick up the slack, though, good 'ol mom!

It was a really good time, overall. A little bit of culture shock for Kyeonghi, maybe. I'm not sure... I've never been to a Korean wedding. Maybe they're as raucous as we are. I can say from experience they don't have any problems holding they're liquor either! I guess I'll just have to wait and see :)

I'm So Bad At This

And by this I mean keeping up with my blog. I need to stop playing Street Fighter and post those wedding dinner pics from Malaysia. Here's something my sister Carol posted a while back... part three of her pics while we were in Malaysia. This time she documents our old haunts in Ipoh. A lot of it has to do with eating. Heh.

The Amazing Ipoh Trip Part 3

Street Fighter IV Modding Fun

I created a skin modification for the pc version of Street Fighter 4: Spider-Cammy! It's based on the black suit Spider-Woman.