Random Brain Dump

So, we have a new piece of trivia: “when did Netscape Browser died out?”
Answer: “March 1, 2008”

Looks like 3/1/08 is the official date of demise for Netscape browser when AOL will cease all support for the storied browser. It’s a little fact most people don’t really care about, but it’s rather sad in perspective for a former Netscape employee like me…

Like most folks, I’ve been sitting on the sideline of the format war of HD-DVD vs Blue-ray. It’s finally over with Toshiba’s official defeat yesterday. It’s about time.

So is Blue-ray the best solution for consumers? I guess we can’t know for sure. One thing is clear: this battle wasn’t decided by consumers. There were a lot of dealing and wheeling by the manufacturers and movie studios, even some muddy financial deals between the big companies. There were a lot of stake for Sony & the likes. It wasn’t a pure consumer decision, but one format is obviously better than two for everybody.

The HD-DVD owners got burned, but most of these folks fully understand the risks of being early adopters. I’m usually an early adopters too, but definitely glad I chose to be more prudent this time. Now I can start looking into getting a player and start watching Netflix movies in their full hi-def glory. A PS3 looks like a great deal all suddenly…

I came home today to find Allison distraught, yelling at the top of her lungs. I learned that she was arguing with her sister and mis-behaving. After she refused to apologize to her sister as ordered, her mom promptly sent her to her room– she was told not to come out until she calms down. She balked when I offered my help, so I left her alone in her room.

As I walked away, I heard her screams:

Nobody loves me in this family. My sister doesn’t love me. My mommy doesn’t love me and my daddy doesn’t love me. And I don’t like anyone!

What drama princess! And stubborn. Took another 10, 15 minutes for her to calm down. I came in to sooth her and gave her a nice talk; then I carried her out to the family room. Then she did something nothing short of being miraculous; she walked up to her sister, started bawling and apologized (I didn’t even prompt her to apologize) with rivers of tears down her cheeks.

“I’m so sorry JeJe (big sister). bah…”

See what I mean about stubbornness? She refused to apologize when ordered and did it only on her own terms. Katelyn gave Allison a big-sisterly embrace, wiped away her sister’s tears– telling Allison that everything is okay. When asked why she is crying, Allison then said:

I cry because it’s very hard for me to say I’m sorry. bahh, bahhh…

Her mom & I looked at each other in total amazement. I mean total shock since we never seen an admission like this from Allison, ever. Suzanne almost cry right then & there. Me? I’m a rock!

bahhh, bahhhh….

Today is a big day for our family. It’s our Katelyn’s birthday– she turns 6. Naturally, she’s very excited. Last night, we took her to a book store to choose a book as a gift for her classroom. And this past weekend she happily went with us getting stuffs ready for her party. We encouraged Katelyn to invite anybody she wants but she indicated that she doesn’t want a big party. So we’re keeping her party small, thank goodness!

Katelyn is doing well in kindergarten; she loves singing, dancing, reading, writing, drawing and coloring. She can do simple addition and subtraction. She’s on the shy side but made two close friends in her class, always telling me things about what she & Alicia or Chaelee do in school. She’s starting to help out with simple chores– she likes rinsing dishes (let’s see how long that’ll last). She’s really into Hello Kitty this year. She likes taking pictures and asked for her own camera, so I got her a pink Kodak digital camera (Valentine’s day makes it easier to buy things pink). Can hardly wait to see her reaction when she opens the present this evening. Looking forward to share with her the hobby of photography. Who knows, we may have a young shutterbug in the making.

Overheard Katelyn to her sister this past weekend that both cracked me up and gave me a jolting reminder:

“I have a purse. I’m a woman now!”

Katelyn is a good girl, I think we’ll keep her… 🙂

Any comments of birthday wishes will be appreciated. I’ll make sure Katelyn gets a chance to read them– I’m sure she will get a kick out of them.

After putting it off long enough, I spent some time this weekend tweaking my blog.

First, I hacked some plug-in code to get the random posts in the format I needed. I had to go all the way to making changes in some SQL queries. While WordPress’ APIs are getting better, I still find myself going all the way and hit MySQL to get the necessary data. It’s not ideal because this type of code changes will break with schema changes. Oh well, it is a hack I guess… Finally, I tweaked the CSS to fix issues that had been bugging me. Some were minor issues like color and font inconsistencies; some were layout issues.

Some of results are:

• The sidebar is re-arranged around a bit. More useful data is pushed up and space efficiency was taken into account.
• The new list of random posts, with excerpts, appears at the bottom of the sidebar.
• The footer is now rendered a lot cleaner than before.
• The new list of most commented posts appears in one of the footer columns.
• More consistent link hover styles for both black and blue backgrounds.
• Time/Date is now displayed with no wrapping.

Next thing I want to tackle is to build a better Flikr widget than the one I’m currently using…

My youngest daughter Allison has a favorite pillow. It’s actually a throw pillow, but it’s made of this super soft material. She doesn’t actually sleep on it, but uses it as a body pillow. She places it on her right side of the bed every night. She really loves the pillow– so much that she’s become very protective of it. Here’s a telling episode…

We let the girls sleep with us on our bed on Saturdays– it’s a treat for them and us! A few times we’d asked Allison if she wants to bring her favorite pillow with her to our bed. To our surprise, she always declines. Odd, but whatever… So this past Saturday, Suzanne grabbed Allison’s pillow without asking. Allison objected, but relented since it was late and Suzanne didn’t want to go back and get another pillow.

The next morning, Allison got up. First thing she did was stealthily got off the bed, grabbed her pillow and put it back on her bed before heading out to the living room. Little did she realized that her sly actions were being observed by Suzanne who was already up but been laying still in bed. Curious, Suzanne asked Allison later that morning why she took her pillow back rather than just leaving it behind (she’s not the tidy type)– to which Allison replied that she didn’t want her mom to starts liking her pillow and then keeps it.

Unbelievable! So it all made sense to us now, all this time she didn’t want to take her pillow into our bedroom on Saturday nights because she didn’t want to risk the chance that we decide to keep it after we “discover” how soft the pillow is. 🙂 It’s so funny how a 4 year-old can get so paranoid & protective of their things.

Too funny… 🙂

There once was a rabbit named Miguel. His curiousness always got him in trouble. One day he smelled an unbearable essence of fresh dandelion, lettuce, and pieces of mint all smothered in acorn sauce. Miguel couldn’t take it, and ran as fast as his feeble legs could carry him to the direction of the smell. But once he got there he fell down a six foot pit, full of darkness. His scream was so loud it could shatter a human’s glass window. A wolf came up and said “Ooh, a nice plump one, I usually get skinny, bony ones. After that the wolf laughed liked a maniac. Miguel thought “Here is my chance!” He felt the energy pump through his blood and forced it to it feet and leaped! Once he hit the ground he ran home like there was no tomorrow.

When Miguel came home, he was in a sweat. When his mother, Rose, saw him she kept on asking motherly questions like “Where were you Miguel!” and “Oh, are you sick, you’re sweating!” Miguel quickly told his mother about the wolf before she put a spoon of disgusting medicine into his mouth. He shouldn’t have told her about the wolf because her worrying turned into hard, loud sobbing. Then she cried “ You could of ended up like your father!!” This caught him off guard. His mom didn’t usually talk about dad which name was Brian. He died by not paying his side of a bargain with some squirrel gangsters. Miguel pulled himself back into reality. Then he told his crying mother about his plan. She was just about to say it was too dangerous when Miguel said” It’s what father would do.” and gathered his friends into the center of Sherwood, his village.

Miguel told his friends Rocky the badger, Lightning the squirrel, Remy the rabbit, and Tuck the turtle about his brilliant plan or so Miguel said. After Miguel talked Tuck asked “ How are we going to get the fresh meat?” “ We’re going to the Sugarmen house.” This wasn’t suprising to the party of friends. They had been there when they were around six to seven years old. When they were rushing to the huge house Miguel thought “Will this work?”

When they got there , Remy asked if Rocky could open the door. Fortunetly the strong and huge badger opened the door with no difficulty. Lightning looked as cute as possible for a distraction. The others opened the freezer as quietly as they could and took a big piece of lamb chop and the escaped through the window. Lighting had no trouble escaping, he bit the family’s hands and went through the window like his friends.

When they got back to Sherwood they went back to their parents for hot supper and a colossal nap. But when Miguel came home instead of being dead beat he was full of life. He told his mom that they completed most of his plan. They had a celebration with food like roasted lettuce, sizzling corn and some fresh dandelion.

In the morning the four friends woke up very early and dug a immense hole as big as a rhino. They put the huge piece of meat cautiously into the pit. At the wolf’s cave he smelled the meat and exclaimed “ Mmm, smells good!” and took off. Just like Miguel the wolf fell down screeching all the way down. But when he jumped, instead of getting out he fell flat on his behind. Miguel and his friends all thought of a single word,”Yes!!” The friends all told everybody in the village about what had happened. Sherwood would now be safe with joy for now.

The story above was written by my 4th grader nephew Andre. His story is entitled “Miguel’s Adventure!”. I thought he did a super job so I figure I’d post it as a way to show him that I’m proud of him and his work.

Andre must be super proud since he even signed the email with his full name (I didn’t even know his middle name till now). 🙂

Hi Uncle,
Look at this story I wrote all by myself.
What do you think? Good, huh?

Your only nephew,
Andre Alexander Tan