Musings of a Virgin

I posted that I just bought a new laptop. A few days before I discovered that I would be traveling and needing a laptop, I had already ordered the parts to build my new PC. I'm a gamer and build a new PC every 3+ years.

This year's PC cost me just a bit over 2K. But given my current schedule of being at home only for 2 days of the week, its going to take me several weeks to assemble and install all the software.



PC Specs:

* Thermaltake ArmorPlus(Armor+)ATX Full Tower Computer Case
* EVGA NVIDIA nForce 780i SLI Motherboard
* Thermaltake 750W Power Supply
* Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale 3.0GHz
* EVGA GeForce 8800GT AKIMBO SuperClocked 512MB
* Logitech MX Revolution Black Laser Mouse
* Western Digital Caviar 250GB 7200 RPM Hard Drive
* 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM
* Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer
* ASUS Black 20X DVD+R
* Microsoft Windows XP Professional With SP2C
* Logitech G15

Labels: Personal

Posted by emyln at 10:23 PM | Permalink | Comments

Last week the temperature went up to the 70's. Today as you can see, its snowing. Its warm enough that the snow didn't accumulate but still.

Anyway, I survived my first week of traveling. Its a huge change to my schedule but... we all do what we have to.

Posted by emyln at 10:20 PM | Permalink | Comments

Synopsis:
An American teenager who is obsessed with Hong Kong cinema and kung-fu classics makes an extraordinary discovery in a Chinatown pawnshop: the legendary stick weapon of the Chinese sage and warrior, the Monkey King. With the lost relic in hand, the teenager unexpectedly finds himself traveling back to ancient China to join a crew of warriors from martial arts lore on a dangerous quest to free the imprisoned Monkey King.

I was so hyped for this show, Jet Li, Jackie Chan, lot of Kung Fu. The movie delivered on the Kung Fu, and the plot and story is actually quite good, especially the way they melded in the current time line and introduced an American boy as the "hero".


Most of the show is in English but some sections are mandarin with subtitles, not many though. This is definitely to cater to the American audience. And sadly this was a failing of the show for me. Jackie's english has has improved a lot but Jet Li has a longggg way to go. Still, the really bad part is all this fortune cookie dialog that they spout, what's that about? Cheng Yu or Chinese Idioms are 4 words in chinese that tell a story or have a hidden meaning, but the shit they were spouting made me cringe.

This is not another Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Its more of a Last Action Hero movie. Popcorn movie if you will. Fun if you can over look the bad fortune cookie speeches they spout.

I also wonder what the American Audience think about the Monkey King and the Jade Emperor. To those familiar with chinese mythology their use of "magical powers" is familiar but to the uninitiated, it might seem very Harry Potter like.

Oh and there is a fight scene between Jet Li and Jackie Chan, It was good. In fact all the Kung Fu in the movie is excellent, kinna expected though.


I rate this movie a 7/10. 8.5 if you like Kung Fu movies.

Labels: Movies

Posted by emyln at 8:40 AM | Permalink | Comments

I had a morning dentist visit this morning and a new spa/salon opened up beside the dentist. It was fairly empty and I decided to pop in and ask about how much and how long an eyebrow job work take.

Its something I've wanted to do for a while but never quite got around to it. My eyebrows were untidy, not quite a uni-brow but the picture below is definitely an improvement. I'll definitely do it again. Its only $20 and took about 10 mins.

Labels: Personal

Posted by emyln at 11:35 PM | Permalink | Comments

In case you didn't know, I'm a consultant. So I work for a company and get shuffled from client to client. I finished with my current client last week in MN and will now be starting a new client on Monday.

What's unique is that this new client is out of town. The last time I had to travel for my job, was in 2000. So its been a while. I found out on Thursday so had a heck of a time getting plane/hotel reservations and of course I need a new laptop because the client can't provide a PC on such short notice.

A trip to Costco and viola! I got a HP Pavilion dv9843cl. It was fairly cheap at less than $1500 and best of its powerful enough for work and still allows me to play World of Warcraft.

Labels: Personal

Posted by emyln at 11:28 PM | Permalink | Comments

There are tons of reality TV shows and a recent variation is to have the winners star in an upcoming live musical. For example Grease which I blogged about last year.

In the UK, they are currently doing one called "Oliver: I'd do anything for you" and obviously the winners will star as Oliver and Nancy in the live West End Oliver. What blows me away is that Oliver is a boy about 8-12 years old and these boys in the contest are so amazing!!! They obviously have to go through dance lessons, voice lessons every single day. At that age, all I wanted to do was watch TV and read comics.

Sigh... sadly I have to torrent the show because its only available in the UK, and they are most probably not releasing the DVD. Check out the youtube video of all the boys.

Labels: TV

Posted by emyln at 4:15 PM | Permalink | Comments

Synopsis: Nim (Breslin) is a young girl who imagines an island to be magical, basing its mystic nature on the experiences of her favorite fictional character, Alex Rover (Butler). When Nim's father (also played by Butler) goes missing on the island, Nim teams up with Alexandra (Foster), the author of the Alex Rover books and Rover himself, to save her father.[1]

I was pretty excited about Nim's Island, it looked like a fun show and had 2 of my fave actors, Jodie Foster and Gerald Butler.

I'm very happy to report that the show lived up to my expectations. There's a lot to like about the movie. A lot of my problems with the show had to do with some "unbelievable" story arcs like the ... very smart pelican. But when you consider that this movie was written for a younger audience, its forgivable.

I truly think that this is an excellent family movie and I think both my niece and nephew will love it. I highly recommend it for those looking for a fun whimsical adventure movie.

Overall Rating : 4.5/5

Labels: Movies

Posted by emyln at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments