+++ the Shins - Wincing the night away +++
+++ the Shins - Chutes too Narrow +++
~~~ Some lessons - Melody Gardot ~~~
+++ Frightened Rabbit - The Midnight Organ Fight +++


I feel so volatile. Maybe that's a side effect of being in probably the most risky phase of my life. Anything can happen when you experiment. I think there is simply too much chaos to reflect upon, and the best you can do is make the most out of the few hundred balls thrown at you.

I'm a dreamer. I think moving to Beijing will assist in keeping my perspective long.

Brand Tags

Brands are the difference between a 300USD polo shirt with a 'BAPE' embroidery and a 20USD polo with any custom embroidery of your choice.

Easy way to reset your sleep cycle: Stop eating

I know shitloads of people who have trouble with their sleep cycle...

Not eating for 12-16 hours can help people quickly reset their sleep-wake cycle, according to a new study from the Harvard Medical School. This discovery can drastically improve a person's ability to cope with jet lag or adjust to working late shifts.

Scientists have long known that our circadian rhythm is regulated by our exposure to light. Now they have found a second "food clock" that takes over when we are hungry. This mechanism probably evolved to make sure starving mammals don't go to sleep when they should be foraging for food.

The lead researcher Clifford Saper explains:

The neat thing about this second clock is that it can override the main clock ... and you should just flip into that new time zone in one day.

It usually takes people a week to fully adjust to a new time zone or sleeping schedule. To think that this new "food clock" hack can help you change your internal clock in one day is mind boggling.

Something about Us

Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem is why I heart Daft Punk



Something About Us

It might not be the right time
I might not be the right one
But there's something about us I want to say
Cause there's something between us anyway

I might not be the right one
It might not be the right time
But there's something about us I've got to do
Some kind of secret I will share with you

I need you more than anything in my life
I want you more than anything in my life
I'll miss you more than anyone in my life
I love you more than anyone in my life

L'Arc en Ciel

Yesssss. Going to their show tomorrow.

Lots of crazy things are going on in the online social networking movement lately. Never mind that nobody has really figured how to truly monetize off of social networks, we've got facebook starting to look more and more like a walled garden due to google's open social.


Found this interesting "world wide social networking market share" picture (above). Thought it would give some of us a better perspective of who the market leaders really are.

Unless Facebook pulls off something game changing. I think it's going to end up like Friendster... i suppose it's why i don't waste my time on either.

Pixel Art

I just recently bought some pixel art for my brother Edwin's apartment in Beijing. I personally like the top one (LA) more than the bottom (Tokyo). They remind of my collages, very colorful and plenty to look at it.

Nice

Twitch’s body is stuffed with a mixture of beads and stuffing. The beads give the Squash-plush teddy a bit of extra weight, so he can lie spreadeagled in his blood and gut-pool. The blood and guts and gore are made using the latest, cutting edge stuffing. It’s a special new micro-bead stuffing that gives the guts and organs a more malleable, tactile effect. It makes it more squidgy. More gross-out. You can disembowel Twitch by pulling the blood and innards through the zips that line both sides of the teddy carcass.

The body and legs and head are made from specially sourced Squash-plush material. It’s a really good quality Korean fur, and it gives the teddy a convincingly mangy pelt. The Gut-plush, as we like to call it, is a stretchy thin material that squidges and bulges under your fingers. If you’ve ever squidged a Japanese Barbapapa plush toy, then you’ll know what we mean. And the claws that protrude from each of his four grasping paws are made of felt.

GTA IV Review

I figure I'll talk about something more typical like GTA IV today.


I got the 360 earlier this week and probably checked in 15+ hours so far. It doesn't occur to me, but that's pretty incredible considering I don't normally sit in front of any one game for that long in such short period of time anymore. There is something about the game which makes me want to continue to play it, namely, the story and its characters. I must admit beyond all the extra kinks of the game (such as the cellphone, web, dating, indoors, weather system, Kanye tracks), the one thing which really kept me going on were the characters of the game. As a game designer, what makes me want to put down the control the most is usually repetitive gameplay (or in other words knowing what I will be doing and what will happen for the rest game). GTA IV has done a great job of pushing this aspect of the game none existent in the previous series.

My expectations weren't very high to start off, so I would conclude the game beat it. Driving around New York is just awesome, you don't get to muck around Manhattan until further into the game, but for anybody who has spent some time living there, it's really cool.

I look forward to GTA XIII and how it will corrupt our future generations.