Time to brawl in the Toyota Center...

Umm, so apparently the Rockets have traded for Ron Artest. This actually seems like a pretty good trade, on paper. Artest brings hard-nosed defense, and an offensive (literally and figuratively) touch to the SF position currently occupied by Battier. This certainly increases the Rocket's offense and if they can rotate Battier, better defense as well. Plus it adds a layer of perceived toughness to a relatively soft Rocket's team. Now if McGrady and Yao can just stay healthy the whole season....

Shut up PETA

Some people just have nothing better to do than complain. Take this article for instance. Yes, shooting animals is bad, but where else would you rather troops practice triage on live subjects? Maybe draw straws and randomly shoot the soldiers who drew the shortest straws? Civilian volunteers? Shoot POWs?
They mention a trauma simulator but nothing really simulates treating real wounds like treating real wounds. If a few wounded pigs can provide the experience to save the life of even 1 soldier, I say shoot the pigs.

The Dark Knight

Went to see Dark Knight last night. I went into this movie with extremely high expectations resulting from all the hype and reviews of the movie. I am happy to say that this movie did not disappoint. All of the actors put in superb performances and the plot was just as well-written. Special props to Heath Ledger and his Joker portrayal. While this may be a Batman movie, Ledger totally stole the show with his dynamic performance. This all leads to the question of how can you possibly find a replacement villain for the Joker in the other movies? It was done that well.
Not going to mention anything about the plot for those who haven't watched it.

Beijing!

I love Beijing! =)

Rubik's Cube

Always been interested in these little puzzle boxes. I have seen people solve them really fast so I know there are some fundamental algorithms to doing it. Hopefully with some diligence, I can learn to solve these things fast too!

Hancock

Watched Hancock over the weekend on Saturday. I really didn't have any expectations for this movie as I didn't know anything about the plot or the history of the comic. Turns out, I was pleasantly surprised by the movie. One important thing I learned was that every superhero has 1 phrase which will just cause them to blow a gasket when uttered. Overall, I think Fe-Man still holds the crown of best superhero movie.

Watermelon Lore

What could be more scary than Vampire Watermelons? This is just too amusing to me, especially the part where it states:

"The belief in vampire fruit is similar to the belief that any inanimate object left outside during the night of a full moon will become a vampire. According to tradition, watermelons or any kind of pumpkin kept more than ten days or after Christmas will become a vampire, rolling around on the ground and growling to pester the living. People have little fear of the vampire pumpkins and melons because of the creatures' lack of teeth."

Fission Mailed!! Almost

Saturday was the big Crawfish boil. Last time, there were some complaints that the crawfish were a bit too spicy so for this second round, I got the usual 30 lbs of regular and an additional 10 lbs of mild. This turned out to be a mistake because the mild ones basically had no taste. It was like eating boiled crawfish with no seasoning. On really bad thing that happened was I had invited one of my coworkers to attend this party and I had completely forgotten that the coworker did not eat seafood at all. So this led to a very awkward moment when we were preparing to eat:

Me: Okay, have a seat
Coworker: Gives me this blank look
Me: You don't like Crawfish?
Coworker: I don't eat seafood, remember?
Me: Ohhh crap...

It was particularly bad as there was no other food available except for some cookies and grass jelly drink. The coworker just ended up playing Rock Band upstairs while the rest of us gorged.

Besides that little blunder, the rest of the evening went off very well. We spent quite a bit of time playing Rock Band and Mafia. Originally, we were supposed to go Karaoking, but time constraints led us to just have a really late dinner (~10:30) at this Chinese restaurant and calling it a night.

All the pretty Horses

Borrowed from a Chinese Website: How many horses do you see?