Wide Angle Lens

Wow. I am tall, and my arms are buff!!! Well, not really, the picture was taken by Milton's Tokina 12-24mm lens at the widest setting. Wise purchase Milton! I love the angles and the effects you can get with this $500 glass. Imagine the architectural or scenery shots you can capture with this puppy. Maybe someday I'll invest in a wide angle too, but until then, I'll be borrowing it from Milton quite often.

Wine = $$$

According to our insider informant from Yahoo!, wine web ads generate the most ad revenue per click. After I installed adsense, this proved true. On Monday, my ads attracted 4 clicks generating 7 cents of revenue. However, yesterday when Google put some wine ads on my blog, a mere 3 clicks made me a whopping 64 cents. I must become a wine aficionado and start writing wine review to generate more ad $$$.

Here goes.... McWilliam's cabernet sauvignon 2004. Currently the only bottle at my humble apartment. The sign at Lion's supermarket advertised the brand won some award at some obscure wine festival, so I decided to take the $7 hit and bring the Australian wine home.

Since I'm utterly unqualified to comment on the aspects of the wine that stimulate taste buds or olfactory senses, I will make a few statements on the appearance of the bottle. Professionally looking, the cab employs classic styling with attractive labels. The opaque style conjures a mysterious feel luring you to drink the liquid inside. Overall, while the price tag says proletarian, the look is pure bourgeois. Highly recommended.

Chinese Learning Website

As most of you who would be reading this would know, I'm an avid Chinese learner. Unfortunately, I find all th Chinese learning websites to be inadequate. zhongwen.com doesn't support simplified language well, nor does it have a good search. dict.baidu.com and dict.cn are excellent dictionaries but they lacks pronunciation tones. If you want to learn local dialects, there is nothing meaningful out there. I read in the April 2006 issue of Wired magazine that there are currently 30 million people learning Chinese as a second language increasing to 100 million by 2010. A decent web site in the area could represent an excellent financial and social opportunity.

So, I'm currently building my Chinese learning database site. I'll post the URL here once it goes live. Let me know if you have any good ideas.

Snow in the Bay Area.

Coldness pervaded the Bay Area recently. The snow covered mountain tops provided for an interesting hiking experience, so we decided to hike up Mission Peak to enjoy the view, the exercise, the cold, and the powder. Even the cows are doing the same thing.

Hello Kitty on a STi

Saw this a few weeks ago. Notice the hello kitty logo on the hood and also on the pink pillow strapped to the front seats.

Few guesses as to who the owner might be.

1. Gay sports car enthusiast.
2. Guy totally whipped by his GF.
3. Racing chick.
4. Someone with a serious identity crisis.