Oh no, not hackers... should I say, script kiddies?
Why are there people who have nothing better to do other than going on random people (that you don't even know)'s journals and try to hack into their server? Even sadder is, you're just downloading scripts elsewhere and pasting them straight into my comment box. Do you even know what the code does? A script kiddie is a script kiddie.

Not only do I have your IP address and everything now, but also the actual script you tried to use to break into here. I'm actually surprised my blogging script was able to catch that, I guess my own work is more secure than I think it is. Yes buddy, I wrote the code for this blogging script myself, so stop trying your generic attacks that work on commercial blogging scripts out there.

Script kiddies, get a goddamn life for god's sake. A computer, my weblog, all mean nothing to me, I could care less if you break into here and destroy everything. Why does a computer matter so much to you? I only write here for my friends to read, and my friends read here every day or every other day. Once past that, all of this is meaningless to me. If I ever want all this text back, I save a backup copy on my computer anyway.

Figure it's time to update. With the last entry being on the top for so long, those who want to read it should have had enough time to read it by now (yeah I know it takes an hour to read it). And those who don't, probably won't anyway.

Tetris DS and New Super Mario Bros got my life. Sorry, no time to play Jump Super Stars yet. Push mode in Tetris is a genius invention, and only possible on the DS too... great stuff, Nintendo.

5/19 – Friday night

So I never even realized that Deannie’s commencement at Berkeley was 19th of *May* instead of June. Turns out I am going to her commencement the same night I get on my flight, as I just realized about 2 days before this. :D

There was rain, so the Greek Theater wasn’t the best place to be at the beginning. But the rain stopped soon and it was nice after that. Deannie took a lot of pictures with everyone. I couldn’t eat with them and hang out with everybody else afterward because I had to catch my flight. It was such a rush; I hope I didn’t forget anything to pack. But then, for everything else, I can buy them in HK. I just had to make sure I brought the things that people have asked me to bring to HK for others.

Right now I’m on the flight, arriving in HK soon. Looking at the flight path it seems like we are right at the southern tip of Taiwan at the moment. The flight was ok. I finally got to watch Narnia. It wasn’t even as good as I expected. There were a couple other movies I wanted to watch here but it hurts too much to watch movies on the plane. I played a while of DS, read some stuff, slept a bit…. I don’t know how long did I sleep actually. I think it was about 6 hrs total, with the first 3 or 4 hrs being not really fallen asleep but kinda waking up and getting back to sleep again cycles. The last 2 hrs or so (I’m guessing – I hope it’s that much!) I totally fell asleep (at an awkward position though so I woke up soon). I hope that sleep session had been at least 2 hrs, because I don’t want to waste any time to nap on Sunday when I first get to HK! :D

Never been so excited about a trip for a long time. This whole week I’ve been thinking of what to do in HK all week. Places to go, people to see, and all the familiar streets I’m going to get to walk through. Too bad it’s only for a week. I’m so sure by the end of the week I won’t want to come back. That’s it for now, I’ll probably write some more tonight before I go to bed.

5/21 – Sunday

Right, it jumped to Sunday right after Friday. I got on the plane at the end of Friday, and when I got to HK it’s the beginning of Sunday in HK time zone.

Let me just start by saying, today was one of the happiest day for me in a long time! Got out of the airport around 7am. Came back to Grandma’s place and went to drink early tea with grandma and father. I feel happy to be able to have chances to eat with Grandma. Got my phone SIM card and Octopus from father. Ready to roll in HK, but it’s only almost 10am – which is way too early for doing anything in HK at all. (most shops open after noon; most friends wake up after noon) I tried calling people anyway and woke up various people such as Ho Yin and CKW, and didn’t reach various people like Jay and June. I decided to head out alone for a walk anyway because I missed the feeling of walking through streets of MK too much. Once I went out to MK the rain got heavier like crazy.

I was going to go home for a while first before my first “meeting” with Winky and June. Then I remembered I should probably finish my errands today. I called Angela’s mother to meet up, and then I went to Kowloon Bay MTR. I had a nice chat with Angela’s parents, they are really nice! They even invited me to eat at their home. After that I went back home to sit for a while before lunch time.

Lunch time came and it was time to meet Winky and June! It was a super happy moment for me! ^__^ Being with these two girls again reminded me of why I put them as first priority for the 3 months they were in the US – because being with them just makes me so happy that it seems worth it to do anything as long as they are there. Since after Jerry arrives we are not going to have a lot of chances for wonton noodles (he planned too many various meals), I decided that for today I need to eat wonton noodles, so I wouldn’t have to wait till the next Saturday. We went to TWO tea restaurants in Prince Edward/Mongkok CONSECUTIVELY to eat two lunches. I ordered a bowl of wonton noodles in each. Chat Hei has the better one I think. In between the time we went up to Winky’s home for a short while. It was really pretty and neat even though it wasn’t big (but it’s just because I am used to US home sizes – it was actually not that small for an HK home). Their bathroom is really nicely designed and decorated. So then Jacky joined us for the 2nd tea restaurant lunch, as well as dessert place after 2nd lunch (so… 3rd lunch?). After that we departed.

This was around 4pm. I met up with CKW to give him my brother’s disc. There completes the 2nd of my 3 errands. Had some brief chats with CKW since I haven’t seen him for a long time too. He said I looked more like my brother now (to which I was like -__-“). At this time Ho Yin just called me, at exactly the right time. So I asked him to come out to Yau Yat Sing where I just met up with CKW. (oops sorry… I was supposed to have called you for lunch earlier). We went up for drinks at the food court and walked around the mall a lot and talked a LOT. We had tons to catch up as we haven’t talked ever since I left HK in 2004. It is actually pretty rare for me to have a friend where I could talk a lot with after not seeing for years. With him, it worked in 2004 when I hadn’t seen him for 6 years, and it also worked now when I hadn’t seen him for 2 years. We talked about all the things in these 2 years with me, and all the things in these 2 years with him.

Was going to come out with him again after dinner (I’m supposed to go home for dinner with Grandma and father – ate at Bun Heung Lau near Grandma’s place). Turns out we were both too tired after dinner so it’s now, 9pm~ and getting ready to sleep. Absolutely one of the happiest days for me in a long while, thanks to everybody involved in my day today including Grandma, father, Angela’s parents, Winky, June, Jacky, CKW, Ho Yin!

5/22 – Monday

Another very happy day today! It all has to do with one thing – shopping! :D

Today started out bright and early for me as I woke up around 7am. Jerry was supposed to arrive at that time, I was hesitating whether to pick him up at the airport or not and it turned out I didn’t have to anyway.

I was waiting for him to get ready for breakfast and our first HK day, waiting for a long time… so then I finally decided to visit maternal grandma first, as it was one of the things I had to do this trip. :) Might as well do that now. Went to Hung Hom and had my tea restaurant breakfast there and visited grandma.

After that Jerry called and this was already around 10~11am. We went to the factories area in MK to get our vision check and glasses-making. I got a new pair of glasses, but it’s one of those more serious ones that I’d probably just wear for work. My vision didn’t get any worse at all, zero degrees of change.

After that we met up with June and Winky for lunch! We went to this Japanese place in Yau Ma Tei. The funny thing is, this place is literally right next to where I used to live when I was born (until about 5 year old). Pretty good lunch.

And then our crazy shopping day started. Or more like *my* crazy shopping day. Ho Yin joined us some time in the middle of the day as well. Since I am lazy to write so much details, let me just summarize what I’ve bought: new glasses, magazines, 2 DS games (Jump Superstars and Tetris DS, so cheap!), Eason’s concert VCDs, movie OST for bro, movie DVDs for bro, a pair of new shoes, and birthday presents for some friends, and more.

Dinner was awesome Korean BBQ *buffet* at Hon Wo in MK, with just Ho Yin. Jerry left for dinner with Chris at his place. I was so full. We went walking around some more after dinner, and didn’t really get to watch a movie (wanted to watch Election 2, but wasn’t showing).

5/23 – Tuesday

Feeling too tired to write anything at all, but still wanted to take a record of what I did today.

Woke up and had congee and deep fry ghost as breakfast, and then had my haircut. Apparently I should’ve paid tips for haircut but I didn’t... Jerry should’ve reminded me earlier. So after that we just went around walking, going to places in Prince Edward, Mongkok, Yau Ma Tei, Jordan, all the way down to Tsim Sha Tsui.

Met up with June and Winky at Tsim East and Jerry departed; and then we went Karaoke for... 6 hours. Yep. Lunch was beef egg sandwich at Neway CEO. After that it was dinner time, we went to have hotpot at Ling Kee in TST. Great hotpot.

Then we went back to MK to buy a new bag to use (didn’t buy the pink one even though the guys all persuaded me to; I listened to June for once and bought the white one). After that I went to New City mall again to try to find something/someone... didn’t find it again, so that’s that. Played a game of Guilty Gear XX Reload at the arcade there, and left for home.

5/24 – Wednesday

Today we were originally planning to go over to Macau for a day trip. That didn’t happen because the friends we were going with/meeting there aren’t available/can’t be reached... so yeah. We ended up going to Lok Fu, which was a good choice because I got to eat two of my wanted list items/classic food, East East Wonton and St Anna egg tart. We also bought lots of stuff from Jusco and other random shops there.

In the afternoon we went to Kowloon Tong to shop some more first, and then went to La Salle Primary School and La Salle College for visits. At night we met up with Jerry’s friend at Tsuen Wan and ate dinner there, and that was basically the night since we talked for a long time. This was probably the first time I’ve ever gone to Tsuen Wan...

5/25 – Thursday

Another pretty fruitful day. The special thing about today was that I didn’t enjoy any of the food all that much. This was a long story.

So we went to HK Wetlands Park in the morning/afternoon timeframe. It was one of those national park kind of place where you look at birds and stuff and there’s a museum there as well. It was 5 of us (guys) so it was more boring than otherwise. :P After that we went to eat what Jerry wanted to try – Poon Choi (Tray Dishes) but it wasn’t really something I liked. In fact I think it looks kind of ugly, but the taste wasn’t as bad as I thought, so I guess it’s ok. I didn’t eat that much though, because I had to save room for dinner. Also I saw Mike, who I haven’t seen for a long time, at the lunch, because he brought Winky here.

Soon after lunch (this was around 5pm) I had to go to dinner (7:30pm). Before that Jerry and June and I went to Yau Yat Sing to walk around Log-On for a bit. We laughed like idiots at that little chicken that squeaks... way too funny. :D

So for dinner I met up with Jay and Jason and their friend. We went to this Portuguese/Macau restaurant in MK. It wasn’t that good, or maybe I just didn’t like that cuisine in particular, but it’s okay because my purpose is just to see Jay, not for the food.

At night I came back from dinner and showered and everything, and was in the middle of writing this journal. Then Winky called and I went out for dessert with Winky and William (who came back to HK for a few days for interview), and Jerry later joined. Then that was the night.

5/26 – Friday

A super happy day again – Ocean Park!

Ocean Park is the original theme park of Hong Kong (before Disney). We went through all kinds of rides there, and I was probably the one who went on the most ones in our group. I got kind of stomach sick after all that rides after lunch, and for a while I wanted to throw up. I was fine later on. I won/bought lots of stuff from Ocean Park, including a $300 HKD Nissin lamp that is really cute. I am going to have trouble transporting this back to the US, but it was too cute to miss.

After that we took bus back to Kowloon and had more friends joined to have dinner together. We ate at this expensive Japanese restaurant at Harbour City mall, which wasn’t even that expensive in (my) US standards. I literally ordered the most expensive item on the menu (Eel dinner set) which was about $87 HKD and THEN a dessert which was about $37 HKD, it was still just $130 HKD after tips and everything total. This is less than $16 USD which equates a regular (crappy) Applebee meal or something.

In other news, my Octopus ran out of money today again (after $50 replenishment yesterday, due to going to HK Island and using Octopus to play booth games at Ocean Park) and my cell phone ran out of charges also. I’m going to need to recharge both tomorrow morning before I meet up with everybody.

5/27 – Saturday

Today was probably the day I slept the most in the whole week. I got up around 10~11. This was also the only day I went to Causeway Bay. Met up with Jerry and we went to Causeway Bay for lunch. We tried to go to that really good wonton noodles place that I went to 2 years ago, but turns out it’s gone for good. We went to another one which actually had very good wonton noodles as well, and I had 2 bowls here. We then went to Gold Star arcade (main fighting game arcade in HK) and Wonderpark arcade (major girl-based arcade) to play for a while.

Then Jerry and his friends decided to go to the beach or swimming pool to look at girls in swimsuits (and well, swim). I think I’ve probably turned gay because I didn’t feel interested in that so I decided not to go with them. I went home for a while and around 5pm I went out with Winky to Olympian City mall to walk around. We browsed through the whole mall and looked at lots of shops, and had high tea at Sin Jung Lam. Pretty good garlic chicken wing and tapioca milk tea there!! I saw a few things I really wanted to buy there, including a Subway (the movie) cell phone stand, and a super cool hoody shirt for Chihuahua.

Finally at night we met up at MK MTR station and went to a traditional Chinese seafood dinner place for seafood dinner. Very good fish. At night we went to LKF (Lan Kwai Fong, bar street in HK) – my first time there. Didn’t really do much though, just sat and drank for a while. Majority of the girls there are older white girls and there was not much difference from American ones so I was disinterested. We ended up going home around 3pm. First time riding a taxi in this trip.

5/28 – Sunday

Very tight schedules today. Woke up pretty late (~9am) and cancelled our early tea plan immediately (at least my part). I wanted to visit maternal grandma once more before leaving as well as Aunt Mable. So I went to Hung Hom once more this morning. I visited them both so it was worth it. They are the only maternal relatives I have seen in this trip. If this trip was only a couple of days longer I would meet up with the other guys too.

After that I went to Tsim Sha Tsui to try to meet up with the guys for lunch. But I didn’t manage to find the restaurant (Sugar Dynasty) and it was time for us to leave, to go to the movie theater, to watch Election 2. You know I had to see at least one HK movie in theater in an HK trip. It was okay, probably not as good as I wanted it to be but good enough. After that we went to a nearby tea restaurant for my lunch (and their high tea).

Then I was already late for Jay’s appointment so I took taxi home. This was necessary because my shoes, socks, shirt, etc. are literally all soaked because of how heavy the rain was just now, and how I walked around the streets in the rain for an hour+ trying to find that restaurant. $43 taxi ride from TST back home, this was probably the most luxury thing I did in HK this trip.

Then I met up with Jay and Jason and walked around Telford mall, went to the big arcade there to play a lot of games, then went to APM in Kwun Tong. Another really nice mall. I didn’t really spot anything I like though in any of the shops, so I didn’t buy anything. I kind of regret I didn’t buy the things I liked yesterday in Olympian City mall.

For dinner, Jerry and Winky and I went up to June’s new house in Tseung Kwan O to eat. June’s mother can cook REALLY well! This was some of the best stuff I’ve tried. They were all really really good, especially the two fish. Jacky also came later on. We then watched my HKSA Sing Con DVD. :) That was the night. Mike came to pick up Winky later on. Today would be the last time in a while that I would see Jason (earlier), and then Jacky, and then Mike.

5/29 – Monday

The last morning in HK. Woke up pretty late at 10~ when Jay called. It turned out that he was busy at work today so we were going to miss our lunch. As I thought I wouldn’t see him before leaving, I just went out myself, thinking to walk around MK a bit and eat something. As soon as I walked out Winky called, so we could meet up and go buy some last minute things before leaving. I was supposed to meet up with Winky at Prince Edward MTR – where I actually bumped into Jay. :D So it ended up I was able to see him before I left, after all. That was really good.

Then Winky and I went to eat at a tea restaurant because the pet shop we wanted to go to wasn’t open until 12. I ate my last bowl of wonton noodles in this trip. Then we went to the pet shop and bought a puppy clothes. After that we went back to grandma’s place and picked up our luggage to get ready to go to the airport. First by taxi to MK A27 airport bus stop, met up with the others (Jerry, June, and Ho Yin who also came).

I was actually feeling a bit upset as we travel to the airport, since I really didn’t want to leave. We ate at Dai Ga Lok for lunch at the airport, it was pretty good too. I didn’t want to cry, just a little bit of tears.

This trip felt like a few weeks long one. Maybe because I did so many things over the course of one week. As I was thinking about random stuff on the flight (right now), I thought about having to go back to work tomorrow. The feeling is so weird, as if I’m leaving one world and going into another completely different one. I guess I could say I don’t want to go back to work, but it’s just a weird feeling, it’s strange.

I was reading Manda's entry about Leadership and AACF, and came to think about something kind of unrelated. At the end she mentioned getting a job in Sacramento.

The problem with Davis is that students, after 4 years of being in this city and this campus, came to love Davis, UC Davis, and this area in general. I was one of such people.

People who didn't originally come from this area (most likely from Bay Area instead), start to look for a job in this area after they graduate because they miss here too much, and do not want to leave. They want to move to Sacramento or something because these 4 years of college life in this area is nothing but happiness! It was the greatest 4 years in their lives. I know quite a few people who think this way.

The problem is a lot of people, too, are leaving Davis after college. And soon they'll realize that everything they love about Davis, is because of the people. People are so friendly in UC Davis (compared to say UC Berkeley and others, this is from listening to true first hand experience). You can make such great friends here. Many people give out their honest, true hearts to new friends they meet. Many people, myself included, met some of the most important people in their lives from Davis during these 4 years.

After a year or so of staying in Sacramento, they'll then realize that everybody they loved here had left. They are now left with a city, Sacramento, of nothingness. What IS there in Sacramento? Nothing. Like almost every other city in America, there's nothing here of fun. Chances are, if you came from Bay Area, or worse, if you came from anywhere in Asia countries, ANYTHING less than Bay Area means the most boring shit life ever.

Now that they realize all the happiness from the 4 years of Davis came from the people, the college life.... NOT about the area at all... they are going to want to move elsewhere.

I went through all of this first hand, so for all of you graduating from UC Davis sooner or later -- do you really want to stay in Sacramento?

Read tons of web surfers comments about Wii, the games, the control, and everything lately. Filtering out the "OMG I LOVE IT" and "OMG IT SUCKS" stuff, seems like most people's opinions are basically along the lines of.... I like Nintendo for trying, I think they will seem appealing at first sight and the first few hours of play, and they are probably fun for parties, but am I going to sit there for 5 hrs playing Wii Tennis? No.

I think that's a little narrow of a view. First of all, I think people shouldn't assume every gamer is one of those guys that spends 10 hours a day playing video games. I admit to be an avid gamer myself. But I have a day job and a whole lot of other things to do in my life, and I never really get any 5-hour gaming session in my life now. I believe there are a lot of others like myself. To me, a system like Wii is the literally most exciting news I've ever seen in the gaming industry. (other than the time when I first discovered video games when I was a kid) Practically, the ONLY time I still ever have for playing video games would be either party time (or random hangouts with friends), or probably short 1~2 hour gaming sessions at night myself. To me, Wii is the perfect system to buy. What is better than coming back home from work, wanting to relax a bit, and turning up Wii Tennis for a couple of games before I get to dinner? I KNOW I'm not alone in thinking this.

Honestly, Nintendo is opening up gaming to a lot of new people, and to some old people again. The reason I haven't been into home gaming in the recent years is that I start to have too many things to do in "real life" to be playing video games all the time (even before when I was still a student). I never said Resident Evil is boring, I just don't have the time to sit in the room for 5 hrs to make some progress in playing the story. I never said Final Fantasy, after 8, was any bad at all, but I didn't buy them because I know I don't have 40 hours to spend on a game. That doesn't mean I don't like video games. Video games are still one of the best things to do at a party/hangout.

And I strongly believe Nintendo will be able to make it worth it for the more hardcore gamers too. I've never seen Nintendo mess up on a major console even once. (major console means Virtual Boy doesn't count) NES, SNES, GameBoy, Gameboy Advance, N64, GameCube, DS, which one wasn't successful? Worst comes to worst, if Wii doesn't appeal to the hardcore gamers, at least it now has a MUCH bigger audience than the narrow group of those guys -- you can be sure guys like me, older/busier gamers, will for sure buy a Wii over PS3 and Xbox360. You can be sure people who've never gotten into video games before will buy a Wii and not a PS3.

In other news, I heard that PS3 and Xbox360 lose money on each sale of the console. I heard that for Xbox a long time ago, I didn't know this was happening for Xbox360 either, and even the PS3. I find it kind of sad that game console companies have to resort to this. No matter how you think you are going to make back the money with games, accessories, etc. It is still a sad thing when you lose money for each product you sell. It is particularly sad because the PS3 system already costs $600. So how much does the PS3 actually cost to make? $700? $800? It's scary to think -- doesn't that mean they are supposed to sell it at $1000 in order to make any money? The thought scares me that video game consoles nowadays cost up to a $1000. Just the last generation, GameCube, was still just $100. If the technology is not mature enough yet to make a product at a reasonable price, the industry shouldn't do it. They care too much about competition. Like, come on. Intel and AMD can probably make processors run at 8ghz speed, but the chips would probably be twice as big and would require 4 times as much power and 8 times as much cooling. But do they do it? It'd probably cost $1000 each. They need to look at the markets. Really now, who's going to buy a $1000 video game system? Even at $600 it's already well past my limit line. And I'm not even poor. I could certainly afford it, but I wouldn't buy it because it's not worth it. That $600 is much better spent elsewhere, whether that means a Wii and 10 games, or a trip to Hong Kong, or whatever. At that price tag, the ONLY people who would even think about buying a PS3 are the hardcore gamers, the ones I mentioned above. They are reducing the audience range for themselves.