Merry Christmas!

A few days late, but one of the more entertaining iPhone/iPad videos this year!  Merry Christmas and a Happy Two Thousand and Eleven!


North Point's iBand from North Point Web on Vimeo.
Thanks Joyce!

TV Shows - 2010 So Far

In no particular order...

• Top Gear (rated top show in U.K.! check out the 60 Minutes episode and the overtime web segment)
• 60 Minutes (very good news show)
• The Daily Show With Jon Stewart (very best "fake news" show with real news)
• Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations (best travel show, with food ;-))
• Gardener's World (U.K. show, the best gardening show)
• This Old House/Ask This Old House (best home improvement show and home improvement DIY)
• Good Eats (still the best cooking show)
• Mythbusters (most entertaining "science" show)
• Dirty Jobs (do not watch while eating, ever)
• Chuck (going strong in season 4, story arc is still moving along OK)
• Misfits (U.K. show, season 2, very good and realistic about limits and downsides of superpowers)
• Bones (season 6, getting stale)
• Caprica (storyline got bogged down, canceled, too bad)
• Dexter (still going strong, but saving up episodes to watch all-in-one-go due to too much suspense)
• Doctor Who (first season with a new Doctor, pretty good so far, a few too many "I'm The Doctor and baddies should just fall at my feet" bluffs/moments though)
• Eureka (cringe at the fake science, still a bit fun, but once they started down the time travel plot, usually signals boredom for me)
• Fringe (too slow moving for me, compiling to watch all at once)
• Human Target (just started season 2, pretty good)
• Haven (not bad but borderline)
• No Ordinary Family (new, not bad)
• Spartacus: Blood And Sand (started a bit weak, but now a full blown epic)
• The Walking Dead (new, lots of zombies, pretty good)
• The Mentalist (season 3, starting the move the story arc forward again, finally)
• Stargate Universe (season 2, finally getting somewhere)
• Sherlock (slick remake on Sherlock Holmes in modern setting, will keep watching)
• True Blood (fast forward through a lot, but the storyline is interesting)
• White Collar (slick, not overdone, quite good)
• Weeds (going strong)
• V (yawn, skipped 6 episodes to the season finale and didn't feel like I missed a thing)

Saving up for a slow weekend, maybe:
CSI
CSI: New York
Nikita

To Watch:
Broadwalk Empire
Lost Girls

Abandoned:
Covert Affairs (weak backstory)
Criminal Minds (got stale)
Hawaii Five-O (yawn)
The Event (FlashFoward wannabe)
Warehouse 13 (too campy, the concept had so much promise)

Movies - 2010 So Far

Arranged in alphabetical order within each rating, since I can't decide. (edited Nov. 27)

Excellent
Alice in Wonderland (wonderful adaptation of the classic tale, good acting and set design)
Inception (shades of Matrix, in a very good way)
Iron Man 2 (a bit too much angst in the middle, but great beginning and ending)
Red (star power with lots of action)
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (definitely a movie for the computer game generation)
Toy Story 3 (great wrap-up of the series)


Pretty good
Kick-Ass (surprisingly good, but somewhat slow in the beginning)
Salt (action is over the top)
She's Out of My League (surprisingly good)

OK lah
Book of Eli (slow, but the twist at the end made this memorable)
How to Train Your Dragon (predictable but nice animation)
Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time (enjoyable)
Splice (somewhat disturbing)
The A-Team (I'm too big of a fan of the TV series.  Have to watch this in two 1-hr parts instead)
The American (lacks action)
The Losers (fun but typical)
The Sorcerer's Apprentice (the backstory could have disappeared and made the movie more streamlined)

Yawn
Cop Out
Edge of Darkness

Knight and Day
Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief (adaptation of a young adult novel doesn't need to mean "dumb it down"!)
Piranha (typical summer fluff)
Repo Men (unremarkable)
Resident Evil: Afterlife (obviously can't think of anything new anymore)
The Karate Kid (lame remake)

Bad! Bad! Bad!
Clash of the Titans
The Spy Next Door (when will Jackie Chan resist saying Yes to these crappy movies!)

To watch:
Centurion
Despicable Me
Predators
Robin HoodThe Expendables
Tron 2: Legacy
Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps

Car Photos - 2010 Honda Insight

On the catalogue, the colour is called "Polished Metal", to answer Lee Kiang's question.  The full name of the model is "2010 Honda Insight EX".  The alternatives being EX-Nav (with a built-in navigation system and all sorts of electronic gadgets), and the LX (the base model with no cruise control and any frills at all).  Since my Nexus One smartphone has a built in GPS navigation system, why bother with something I can't bring along with me?

Acceleration is really, really anemic, I must admit, but that is a good thing.  The highest speed limit on the roads of my daily commute is only 55 miles per hour (or 80 kilometers per hour).  So this reduces the temptation to speed since it takes so long to go past the speed limit.  And by then, another stop sign or traffic light is in sight and it is again time to slow down.

The main thing to get used to is the colour halo around the speedometer (which is a large digital display above the steering wheel, by the way).  When I am driving conservatively, that is, accelerating lightly and braking lightly from a long way off, the halo is green.  If I accelerate hard, or up a hill, or jam on my brakes, the halo becomes blue (the in-between colour is teal, I think).  It takes a bit of getting used to since driving "green" is so different from previous driving experiences in a sedan and SUV.

It is a really quiet... car

Yes, that's right.  Car.

I just replaced my 1998 Honda CR-V with a 2010 Honda Insight.  It's a hybrid car, meaning it recaptures energy typically thrown away when I brake to slow down.  Then when I'm accelerating from a stop light, it "helps" the engine move the car using that stored energy (electricity in my case), which means it uses less petrol.  Officially, it gets up to 43 miles per gallon of petrol.  Translation: I used to top up my petrol tank once every 10 days, now I can go 20 days!

Ummm, pictures.  All I have for you is a link to what a generic Insight looks like.  It's been cloudy and raining since I got it Thursday night.  So you'll have to wait a few more days for photos of the actual vehicle.  I did decide to keep my old license plate though, since it is so easy to remember.  Probably not the best number to buy 4D though ;-).

I'll try to post more soon.  It's been really busy at work since Mom and Dad went home.

Strawberry Picking with Mom and Dad

We went strawberry picking at a local "pick your own" farm (just 10min away by car) on Wednesday.  It was a cloudy day and perfect for wandering around on a field for mom and dad.

The photo on the left has the strawberries picked by dad and the one below is by mom.

Seemed to have fun.