.the gpb kids.

What Does Your Name Mean?

Posted by Jules - November 18, 2008 at 11:11:33 pm

I’ve been slacking on improving my chinese, but I’m determined to get back to that. Today, mike showed me that my macbook had a built in ability to type chinese. Woot. I’ll have to show it to my parents. In the mean time, I used my trusty resources to piece together what Mike’s name means. I used it to figure out the cantonese pronunciation as well, since he always pronounces it in mandarin. Cuz I’m biased like that. I’m pretty happy that I finally got around to figuring out how to pronounce his name though… hehe.. now I can use his chinese name when I’m mad. Right? Right?

The characters in parantheses signify verb, adjective and noun forms, respectively. Cantonese pronunciation is bracketed; mandarin pronunciation is not.  So Mike is a vibrating honor filled person? Or maybe he restores honor and glory? Hmmm.. what a bright and shiny name.

Finally!

Posted by Jules - September 29, 2008 at 11:09:23 pm

After much delay, I am happy to announce that I finally got my lap top back after three weeks. Blogging shall resume shortly. I am reminded again just how dependent on computers I am. For now, good night!

Oops…

Posted by Mike - July 15, 2008 at 10:07:18 pm

Accidentally wiped out all media content of the site including pictures and theme.

Guess I should write a script to back up the site. *sigh*

Random Englishness

Posted by Jules - June 24, 2008 at 08:06:38 am

Mike and I flew into Oakland Airport around 9:30 at night. And in slightly more than 24 hours (24 hours and 5 minutes, to be exact), we will be flying out to portland. We are the poor man’s version of jet setters.

A joke the bus guide told us at the San Diego zoo:

Question: What do you get when you cross and elephant with a jaguar (or maybe he said some other cat)?

Punchline: A sports car with a very large trunk.

So I’ve been reading this comic that roughly translates to “The Honorable Knight Child”. Or “The Chivalrous Great Child” to some people, namely yesasia. Some of my shrink wrapped copies included wrap around slips of paper that say “WARNING: This articles contains material which may offend and may not be distributed, circulated, sold, hired, given, lent, shown, played, or projected to a person under the age of 18 years.” I think they really want to cover their bases. Anyhoo, I quite enjoy this semi historical comic- even my mom enjoyed it- she blazed through the first five volumes the last time she visited me.

A few months ago, I bought a pair of Snow Peak compact chopsticks that I could bring with me to school for lunches. They are made from recycled baseball bats. Mmmm.. sweatastic. Highlights from the instructions on back:

“We now use old baseball bats as material for our chopsticks. Imagine it, right now you could be eating off a bat that busted on a high and inside fastball; doesn’t that sound appetizing?”

The final step on reassembling the chopsticks to full size: “Now you are ready. Remember to slurp loud and never ever leave your chopsticks sticking straight up in the rice. Big party foul!”

Awesome.

The Gun Show

Posted by Mike - April 2, 2008 at 11:04:51 pm

Jules and I signed up for the gym at Cal and have been going fairly regularly. I’ve been trying to go with Jordan every weekday. Jules has been trying to go three times a week. I haven’t really gone to the gym regularly since high school. I don’t think I’d go if Jules and Jordan didn’t go with me. It’s good to have people go with you and push you. I think I need to set some goals though and keep better track of what I’m doing as far as weights go. Right now I just do whatever until I’m tired. And I haven’t noticed any improvement on the soccer field yet. But soon! Oh yes… soooon.

As far as soccer goes, we’re 1-3 now. We won the game on Sunday 3-2 off a PK from an iffy call. A few minutes later they had a chance to equalize but I fouled the guy in the box. He had already beaten two defenders and was lining up for a shot. I was going for the ball… I swear. So they got a PK too, but missed off the crossbar. Booyah.

PS. Wordpress 2.5 looks pretty on the backend now. For the most part anyway.

Thai Boat Noodle

Posted by Jules - March 25, 2008 at 08:03:51 pm

While most of the other first year students are taking off spring break to go gallivanting around the world (and rightly so, because it seems like “spring break” becomes a thing of the past as soon as we join our permanent labs), I am in lab this week. Because I am a dork. But this post isn’t about being in lab, it’s about Thai boat noodles. I was craving sustenance during a late night at lab so I went out in search of food. As far as noodles go, I really enjoy eat Thai boat noodle at the appropriately named “Boat Noodle House” in berkeley. So what makes it special? It’s basically a bowl of various beef entities- braised chunks, slices, balls, maybe tripe, some veggies- sprouts, greens, and noodle of choice. What makes it special is the soup, thickened with beef blood to give it a characteristic body and taste. The soup is a dark brown/red color due to the beef blood. Perfect for warming an empty belly on a windy night. Nom nom nom.

2008 Audi R8

Posted by Mike - February 15, 2008 at 10:02:45 am

I’m not much of a car aficionado but this morning Bobby and I saw a 2008 Audi R8 driving up to the Yahoo! campus and I couldn’t help but stare at it as it passed. I wonder if someone from Yahoo! Autos is taking a look at it today.

Maybe I should get one. It’s only $100,000.

Wish List

Posted by Mike - February 13, 2008 at 08:02:45 am

I’m a pretty impulsive consumer. Most of the time I’m content to just browse a store but every so often I’ll get it in my head that I absolutely have to buy something. Sometimes I’ll have something in mind, get to the store, find they don’t have it, and buy something completely different. It’s not always little things either. That’s how I got my Nikon D50 back in the day. Originally I wanted the Canon Rebel but they were out of it at Costco so I just bought the D50.

So here I’ll make a list of some of the things I’ve been wanting for a long time. We’ll see how many I actually get this year.

• PS3

  The PS3 has been on my mind for a long time now, mostly for its Blu-Ray playing capabilities. I was totally blown away by Planet Earth at 1080p. But that’s not enough to warrant the purchase. I’m very close to getting one, I just need that extra little push in the form of a game (since it is a gaming console after all). And that push is named Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. It’s set to hit shelves in the US in April and hopefully by then I’ll have me a PS3 to play it on.

• Ninja ZX-6R

  That’s my dream bike, and one day she’ll be mine. Yesterday my coworker asked why I liked that bike in particular so much. Well, for one, I think it’s the only production supersport bike that comes in green (my favorite color). Also, it won the 2007 AMA Supersport Championship, with some help from its rider. And just look at it. I mean come on, do you really need a reason?

• Vio POV.1 Camera

  Some of the rides I go on are just beautiful. Nice windy back roads that see little to no traffic. Fields of grass and flowers, rolling hills of oaks, forests of redwoods, coastal cliffs. It’s so pretty and exhilarating. I’ve wanted to make videos of my rides for a long time. I just haven’t had the proper set up to do it. This system, while a little pricey, would do the trick.

• Apple iPhone

  What can I say? I wouldn’t call my current phone anything close to “smart” and I’ve never been a fan of PDA’s, but that iPhone. It’s one sexy SOB.

So that’s a short list for now. Other than the PS3, I don’t currently have any plans to buy any of the others. I guess that’s why it’s called a wish list and not a shopping list.

Microscopes and Bacteria and Plants, Oh My!

Posted by Jules - February 10, 2008 at 10:02:51 pm

I like playing around with microscopes, glowing bacteria, and autofluorescing plants (grape leaf petiole- that’s leaf stem to some of you). So pretty!  

Crixa Cakes

Posted by Jules - January 30, 2008 at 05:01:20 pm

So in celebration of moving on to the third and hopefully last rotation of my graduate career, I went and bought some cake (maybe it was an excuse to buy cake, now that I think about it). I bought two slices of lemon cream cake from  Crixa Cakes , located on Adeline a little north of Berkeley Bowl. Of note, 17 of the 18 customers lounging about were women. I suppose it was 4 pm. Maybe the clientele base changes a bit after 5 pm. Who doesn’t like tea and cake??! So the cake was pretty tasty- I think I shall buy more every now and again.

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