ChapterTwo

Our teenage rookie center, Andrew Bynum, had his biggest game tonight. In 12 minutes of play, he scored 16 points, had a 100% field goal percentage, grabbed 4 rebounds, stole he ball once, and gave out 1 assist. Good job, Bynum!

Chill Out, Buster

Originally uploaded by Fintan.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of another Chinese/Lunar year. This year will be the year of the dog (check out the cool dog picture I found on flickr!).

This morning me and my parents had an online conference with my relatives in Taiwan and China. First, we used MSN video conference, but we discovered that you can only have one video conference at a time. I guess Apple’s iChat AV superior in that it can do a 4 people video conference. We switched to Spype afterwards. The sound quality was pretty good and there were very few interruptions. I did not partake in the conversation long since I did not know what to talk about and my Chinese is getting less fluent . Not to mention, it was 6:30am! Nonetheless, it was still pretty awsome to virtually spend some time with my relatives from across the Pacific.

Happy Chinese New Year, everybody!

“He’s the human joystick of basketball.” - rookie teammate Andrew Bynum commenting about Kobe’s 81 points performance.

“I’m trying to learn as much as I can from him, trying to soak everything up like a sponge. He’s teaching me everything from black history to post moves, footwork, how to play defense.” - Bynum commenting on being coached by Abdul-Jabbar.

Regarding the exchange with O’Neal, a Lakers star from 1996-2004, Bynum said: “It meant a lot. It’s something that will stick with me. It was pretty exciting, I was able to make a big move on a very, very good center in the NBA. I kind of became an overnight celebrity.”

I just read a great article on Kobe from LA Times by Bill Plaschke. Here’s the link to the article. But in case they pull it off their site in the future, here it is…

There’s Still a Lot of 8-Hate
Two days after the most incredible individual performance in the history of the NBA, and here came the flagrant fouls.

Pat Riley shrugged at reporters.

“It’s remarkable, the execution and the efficiency, but we’ve got a lot of guys in this league, if they took 70 shots, they’d score a lot of points,” he said.

Vince Carter preached to reporters.

“The only bad thing about it is young kids, whose minds are easily warped, are going to think, ‘Ohhh, I am going to go out there and do it’ instead of the team concept first,” he said.

Shaquille O’Neal refused comment to reporters. Of course.
Read the rest of this entry »

Do we, as consumers, want products with the best value anymore? From the recent trends, it looks like we care more about the “emotions” that a product brings. Look at the sucess of Apple and Motorola. They are successful because they were able to create products that people lust. And most of the lust is generated by beautiful designs. Are we so spoiled that value is no longer the most important thing to us when we shop?

That said, I still must give kudos to Apple and Motorla for forever changing how we feel about our electronics….

UPDATE: Maybe we are not so superficial. Maybe we are just victims of emotional branding

I just finished my first homework assignment that I’ve had in 2 and half years. And I have to say it actually feels pretty good. Check back on me in a few monthes. I will probably sing a different song then.

O, and this morning I had a good drive to work. Actually, the best part was the end where I downshifted to 4th on the freeway and got up to XXXmph, made a couple lane changes, heel-toed several times as I take the exit ramp, apexed perfectly off the ramp in second, and blasted away with a couple clean upshifts. Hmmm, that was gooood Awsome way to start the day!

81 is the number of points Kobe Bryant scored tonight. EIGHTY-ONE POINTS?!?!?!?!! That is the second most points that ANYBODY has ever scored in NBA history. He scored more than Jordan, Kareem, or Shaq ever did! Wow, what a performance… GO LAKERS!

I was at WalGreens grabbing some stuff when I realized there was a whole section on the shelf for men’s products. I had no idea there are so many products catered specifically for men. I don’t recall ever seeing a product say “FOR WOMEN”. Why is that? Is it just implied that all the products that don’t specify gender are “FOR WOMEN”? Does that mean I’ve been using women’s shampoo all my life?!?!?

Wow, time flies. It’s almost been a month since I’ve had the Razr V3c. Here are my thoughts about the Razr in no specific order…

1. It still amazes me how thin the phone is!
2. It’s pretty. It is almost like a piece of jewery.
3. The phone is still laggy trasitioning between windows. I’ve memorized some of the key strokes so I can press them all at the same time. To get to my todo list menu, I would press ‘Menu’ ‘Right’ ‘Right’ ‘Ok’ ‘4′.
4. Why can’t we customize all 4 of the soft-keys? That would save me the trouble of memorizing some of the key strokes and almost make me not care about the laggy-ness.
5. My upper keypad is a little loose.
6. I like the iTap. It is predicting my text very well.
7. Reception is still pretty awsome. It is better than my LG VX7000.
8. Don’t pay full price like I did. Worst case, if you start a new line then cancel it, it’ll still be cheaper than paying for it in full.
9. Photo quality varies. In dark areas, the photo gets blurry (perhaps I am not holding it steady enough)? And it cannot do any macro shots.
10. Battery life is not bad. I don’t have to charge the phone everyday.
11. Why can’t I delete the stock photos?
12. V3c is pretty rare out there. I’ve only seen 1 other person have it.

All in all, Razr is a solidly built phone. It is no surprise why the Razr is such a popular phone. I am still highly recommending it despite some minor nuisances.

If you have not read my previous Razr V3c review, click here.

These pictures are from the Lakers game last night against the Miami Heat…

First, our 18 y/o center got dunked on. Note that Shaq got away with a foul there…

Then, the next play, Bynum fakes Shaq out of his shoes and dunks over him…

Followed by Bynum giving Shaq a friendly nudge. Shaq didn’t like this and elbowed him back. They both received technical fouls. Shaq should’ve been thrown out for that elbow.

These pictures are taken from Yahoo and LA Times.

Overall, it was a good game. We got good production out of everybody. We played decent defense through out the game. We finally defeated Miami since we traded Shaq. WOOO!!! GO LAKERS!