Ted Su Random Blog

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Halloween is a very evil holiday, and I’m not talking about the ghosts and goblins. No, I’m talking about Trick or Treating as a trojan horse for socialist ideas. Why are we teaching our kids to go door to door asking for free food? Why am I expected to share what I have? I was able to work hard and buy my own candy, and I buy the good kind too like M&Ms, Kit Kats, and Willy Wonka. Everyone else should buy their own candy too. And its one thing if the whole Trick or Treating thing was voluntarily but no, those of us who value a free society are punished with rotten eggs and toilet paper for sticking to our principals thus making Halloween a socially mandated activity forced upon the individual.

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Happy Halloween, and yes, I will be handing out candy tonight just like a good socialist should. Well, thats assuming that anyone comes by tonight. Weird that every year there seems to be fewer and fewer Trick or Treaters.

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Not sure what to make of this, but lately I’ve been getting my news from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.  Seems like they have the freedom to just tell the truth because they are a comedy show.  They just lay it out there.  Sure its for laughs, but it really makes you think about how the “real” news never really gets to the heart of the matter.

Take whats been happening in Iran.  The Daily Show actually had a “reporter” in Iran during the election before any of the “real” news shows were paying attention.  Then they did a week long series showing how Iranians and Americans were more alike than different, while at the same time satirizing our collective view of Iranians as a bunch of terrorists.  Best part was that they had a hard time finding Americans that knew anything about Iran, while they had no troubles finding Iranians that knew stuff about American history and politics.  You never get this type of information on news shows plus it was funny as hell.

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Finally got a chance to the see the new Star Trek movie and I really liked it. It was great to finally see a no holds barred kick ass Star Trek without all the over-intellectualizing that the TNG movies were prone to. The action and humor really does bring the franchise back to its TOS roots. But there were some things I had issues with:

• Everything I knew about Star Trek no longer applies.  All those years of filling my head with Star Trek history and trivial is now thrown out the window.  I can no longer feel superior to casual Trek fans, but I can learn to get over it as long as Paramount continues to deliver good sequels.  So I look forward to refilling my head with new Trek history.
• Kirk making Captain of the Federation flagship without even really trying?  Come on, give me a break.  So I guess it really does matter who your father is and who you know, and you can be an over-cocky ass to boot.  This is even worse than Harry Potter being special for no reason at all other than being born to the right parents.
• Time travel and alternate universe …. not again, come on, we need new plot devices.
• Whats up with Nero?  His character development and motivation were almost non-existent.  He was reduced to a generic bad dude out to destroy the universe for almost no apparent reason.  I read the comic book prequels to the movie which does go into detail about his motivation, but the movie on its own doesn’t do a great job explaining this.
• Uhura and Spock, where did that come from?  She gets into the turbo lift and is suddenly all over Spock, who starts kissing her back.  No internal conflict or anything.  I don’t have a problem with the concept, just wished the filmmakers took more time to develop the relationship.
• I like seeing Leonard Nimoy again, but if you’re gonna reboot the franchise, lets really re-boot it without any ties to the past.  I found future Spock’s presence to be un-necessary and distracting to the plot.  The comic book prequels were even worse.  Future Spock was actually helped out by Picard, Data and Geordi before he was sent back in time.  Come on, in a massive universe, there’s only a few people that must be involved in every crisis?
• What’s up with Winona Ryder getting above the line credit for only 2 seconds of screen time?  She actually did better than I thought she would, even in those 2 seconds.  Although no one is gonna beat Christian Slater’s 2 seconds in a Trek movie.  Slater and Ryder were both in Heathers, so I look forward to seeing Shannon Doherty in the next movie.

Despite all this nitpicking (yes, I am a nerd), the movie was great.  Zachary Quinto was amazing as Spock and I look forward to seeing what he does with the character in the future.  I just need to stop going, “what is Sylar doing in Star Trek?”, every time I see him.

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Facebook is winning and my MySpace page is dead.  Thats why its been a while since I posted anything here.

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Is it me or do the self check out lines at Home Depot and Ikea seem to take longer?   Half the machine are busted or showing the BSOD.   Not to mention that people move so slow and have a hard time figuring out the scanner and credit card swiper.   So I’m standing in line today complaining in my head wondering if everyone in front of me is an idiot, and of course when its my turn I couldn’t get the darn box to scan.   Finally, the self check out helper had to come over and scan everything for me.  Now whose the idiot holding up the line?

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What started out as a simple trip to Ikea to pick up some parts for a TV console I am planning to build turned into a tour around the Bay Area.

• San Jose to Mountain View – I have got to move closer to In ‘N Out.  What was once a weekly habit when I lived in Southern California is now a special once in a while treat.
• Mountain View to East Palo Alto – When I get to Ikea, there is a security guard standing outside the parking garage making a slashing motion across his neck.  A little weird, was there a crime scene at Ikea or something?  I assumed the garage was full and went to the Best Buy to wait a little bit.  Still can’t figure out how Best Buy stays in business.  This was the second time I went into Best Buy to look at a TV I’m interested in buying and there were no sales people around.  Finally called Ikea and found out the store was closed due to a break in their water main.
• East Palo Alto to San Carlos - I decided to stop by Woodcraft which is a cool store full of woodworking products you can’t find at the local Home Depot.  Finally got the metric ruler I had been looking for.  Can’t believe how hard it is to find a metric ruler.
• San Carlos to Emeryville via San Mateo Bridge – Still needed my Ikea fix, love the Lingonberry drink, and had nothing better to do.  So I decided to head to the other Bay Area Ikea.  Don’t think I’ll be headed to Emeryville again anytime soon.  This place is a traffic nightmare.  I should have headed into Berkeley for some Top Dog or Bongo Burger, but just wanted to get home after walking through Ikea.  This time around I actually followed the shopping path instead of swimming upstream by going through the checkout lines first like I usually do.  But at least I got the cabinet door hinges and Lingonberry drink concentrate I wanted.
• Emeryville to San Jose via San Francisco – I actually wanted to get back home as quickly as possible which would have been to go down the 880.  I figured I knew my way around Emeryville, but a combination of poor planning and poor sign placement caused me to head towards the Bay Bridge.  I figured what the heck, I hadn’t seen San Francisco in a while, but 4 bucks later and a couple of stalled cars on the bridge made me regret this decision.  But at least I got to do 90 down the 280.  Still annoyed that slow cars kept drifting into the left lane.  That’s the passing lane damn it, its called the passing lane for a reason!  At least I got home without getting a ticket.

At the end of the day, it was all worth it for the Lingonberries, did I mention that I like the Lingonberries?

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I was enjoying 24 Redemption tonight wondering where the next political conspiracy or terrorist was going to pop out when I saw this scene and couldn’t believe my eyes.  Was that a film crew in the scene?  Several rewinds on DVR ensued and sure enough you could clearly see a guy with a film camera and another guy with a still camera catching the action.  Now I normally don’t get excited when a boom mic dips into the scene or if there some minor continuity issue, but this has got to be the sloppiest flub I have ever seen.  How could the producers not catch that?  Or did they not have any other choice and decided to leave it in and hoped no one would see it?  This happens in the scene right after the Jack and the kids spot the helicopter while moving along the river and they have to run into the trees for cover.  Wonder if they will leave this in the DVD.

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I’m number one, I’m number one.  After eating at In N Out for nearly 20 years I have finally achieved the number 1 spot.  Its like winning the lottery, only I don’t get millions of dollars.  My parents are so proud.

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Firefox 3 will be available soon.  Celebrate by helping the Firefox crew set a world record for the most downloads in a single day.  Go to the Download Day headquarters and sign up to get an email when Firefox 3 gets released.  All you have to do is download Firefox when you get the email announcement.

Update:  Download date is set for 6/17, get your downloading on.

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Its here!  The iPhone 3G!  Its $199 for the 8 gig version, $299 for 16 gig.  Available July 11th.  Can’t wait.  My life won’t be complete without it.

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/shop_iphone/family/iphone?mco=NjUxNTEw

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