serene’s posterous

P.S. I Love You : 3/5

I watched this one alone, because I doubt Eu-Jin would want to suffer through a chick flick with me.  But it is probably not a good movie to watch alone.  Erm...I know this movie is meant to be manipulative, with several scenes calculated to make you bawl.  I know I had been manipulated, but I am a sap for these kinds of things. 

Gerald Butler is charming, but the other lead, Hilary Swank, seems miscast.  Her emotional scenes are almost painful to watch.

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Mint Chocolate m&ms

I love mint chocolate m&ms, which only show up in stores during the end of the year holiday season.  (Hmm...maybe it is a good thing it is a seasonal candy)  I saw them at Target last week (and on sale too!), and could not resist picking up two 11oz bags.  The mint chocolate m&ms are a little larger than the plain chocolate ones, and significantly tastier if you like the mint flavor.  I probably should keep that opened bag far away from my desk before I eat too many of them at a go.

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Sweet potatoes

This week's NYT Recipes for Health is on sweet potatoes. I try to keep a few sweet potatoes or yams at home, but I mainly cook them with my rice porridge (稀饭).  Sweet potatoes add a great sweetness to the rice porridge.  This pot had both yellow and orange fleshed sweet potatoes.

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Thai Cafe

First time I have been to Thai Cafe in months ever since the price increase to $6 from $5 (and $4.25 back when I was an undergrad).  The line is significantly shorter now probably because there are more food options available and $6 isn't a good deal for the food anymore.  I got the peanut sauce salad (peanut sauce on shrimp with rice vermicelli and lettuce), but it wasn't as good as I remembered.  The noodles were limp and the shrimp was not very fresh.  It hit the spot, but I don't think I will be heading back there anytime soon. 

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Hellboy II: The Golden Army : 3.5/5

Enjoyable movie. Significantly better than the first movie. I loved
the sequences of the strange and fantastic creatures, such as the
scary tooth fairies and the troll market. The singing to Barry
Manilow while drunk on beer was very amusing too! Ron Perlman did a
great job as Hellboy, as you can feel his pathos under that thick red
makeup and costume. I would quibble a bit about the ending, because
it seemed like it is a plot hole, or at least somewhat illogical.

Based on the visuals of this movie, The Hobbit, by Guillermo del Toro,
when it eventually arrives in the theaters, would probably be a
visual feast.

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Queen House

Whenever we have a strong desire for comfort Chinese food, we would
head to Queen House in Mountain View and order our favorite dishes - dry cooked
long beans, 3-cup tofu, and salt and pepper fish. It is difficult to
cook Chinese dishes the same way at home because it is impossible to
heat the wok to sufficiently high temperatures on our stove. The main
problem is that the place is usually crowded and cramped, so it can't
easily accommodate groups of more than 4 persons. Tonight's dinner
was good! Well worth the cramped seating and wait. Although, as
always, I wish their white rice was of better quality.

Most times, we would head next door to Tea Era
(which is under the same ownership as Queen House) and share a large
cup of roasted barley milk tea with pearls. Unfortunately, we were
too full tonight from dinner to partake.

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Lithography

There is an amazing amount of physics and technology advancements that
go into making logic and memory chips. I read this recent IEEE
Spectrum article about double patterning lithography.

Intel is already shipping mass production 45nm technology node chips,
and is planning to ship 32nm chips by end 2009. The definition of
technology node is the half pitch of metal lines of usually a memory
product, but it essentially gives an indication of the smallest
feature size in a chip. It is quite amazing to think that with the
various lithography tricks, manufacturers are able to obtain feature
sizes of under 45nm using 193nm wavelength light.

Lithography is probably not the most difficult problem faced by
integrated circuit manufacturers. Once they figure out EUV,
lithography probably won't be a problem until the end of scaling. At
these tiny dimensions, the transistors are extremely leaky. Electrons
simply tunnel through the gate dielectric. Quantum mechanical effects
are becoming dominant. Short channel effects. Parasitics are
degrading device performance, etc. It will be curious to see what
engineering tricks Intel, IBM etc. would come up with in the coming
years to ensure performance and density improvements in integrated
circuits.

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You Don't Mess with the Zohan : 2.5/5

Admittedly, I laughed at times. But most of the time, the laughter
was in disgusted horror. I don't think a lot of the jokes worked.
Some of the scenes were almost painful to watch. But I guess you got
to admire Adam Sandler's chutzpah in tackling the Middle East tension
comically.

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Yoga-Pilates Fusion

For quite a while, I thought yoga was one of those new-agey things
that people did because it was fashionable and celebrities were
promoting it. Now that I have taken a few weeks of a yoga-pilates
fusion class, I have been almost eager to go for my twice weekly
class. All that stretching, balancing and engaging all the various
muscles must be doing some good. My posture's better, and my left
shoulder doesn't get knotted up as often. I guess this means I am now
a fan, and would be taking more of these classes.

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Heaven or Las Vegas

Cocteau twins is yet another band that my brother suggested that I
would like. Heaven or Las Vegas is probably my favorite album in
their catalog. I would say that their music is quite distinctive,
with Elizabeth Fraser's ethereal vocal styling and indecipherable
lyrics.

This is the title track off that album:

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