N-Viro International Corporation

This is a new company I just found out about, I'm sure it's going to be making massive waves in the future. Basically N-Viro International Corporation is all about converting waste to energy, especially municipal bio-solids and other organic waste products. I think it's awesome that they're trying to get the word out there about their activities, because with increasing awareness about the dangers of over-reliance on oil, governments around the world are looking for alternative energy sources. Unlike oil, converted waste counts as renewable energy because people will always produce waste.

This is one of the the CEOs of N-Viro:


The product I'm most excited about is N-Viro fuel, which can be thought of as a kind of clean coal: it's an alternative combustive fuel that's compatible with anything else that uses coal. Cool, right? I'll be following them in the future to see how far they can go with their environmentally-friendly efforts at opportunity fuels.

Making your blog look nice

Since I started this blog, I've been looking around for tips and ideas on how to make it catchier and more interesting. Just today I found an article on web-info called The Web Sensibility,
with a number of tips on creating a more effective blog. Here are some of the more relevant tips.

First the writer makes a distinction between the easier changes, like altering pre-existing widgets, and actually getting to the nitty gritty and messing with the CSS, etc. The most important point he makes, to me, is that web design should essentially boil down. "a focus on simplicity, where the function of a page, ideally, inspires its design." So for example a general blog like mine can look like anything, but a blog about cooking should have cooking designs, a car blog should have car images, etc. Good idea, to me.

Other helpful tips he gives include using lots of white space (always a good idea for improved readability), using bold simple type - this is definitely good - and using colors and icons instead of relying on images. Well for me an image speaks a thousand words, but I can see the use of striking colors and icons as well. So long as you don't go overboard and turn it into a Myspace-type horror. At the end he talks quite a bit about editing the XHTML of the site directly, something you need to think about before doing, if you're a newbie like me.

All in all a good article for the beginning blogger. I've been reading other articles on the web-info site as well, such as this one: Advice for the Wise Home Owner. It's never too soon to start thinking about home ownership!

Ayumi Hamasaki

Known as the Empress of J-Pop in certain circles, she is almost certainly the most successful female j-pop artist to date. She's been outsold on an album-by-album basis, but in terms of consistent success there's nobody that can hold a candle to her right now. She was actually the first artist in Japan to have an album debut at number-one for 11 consecutive years!

It's a mystery really. She can't sing that well, in fact her voice is kinda bad. She can't dance that well. In spite of lots of plastic surgery, she's not that pretty. She doesn't look very friendly or down to earth, in fact I've heard rumors of her being a bit of a diva. So why is she so successful? Search me? I'm not a fan.

Born in 1978, Hamasaki spent several months running around Shibuya doing goodness knows what before being discovered in a nightclub by famous producer Max Matsuura, and the rest, as they say, is history.

In spite of her massive success, she does nothing for me personally. I have no Hamasaki songs in either my album or mp3 collection. Nevertheless there are two songs she has that I kinda liked, Seasons and Dearest, which was used as the ending song for Inuyasha (where most western fans first found out about her). Apart from those...meh. Next!

First a mouse, now cockroaches

I posted a few months ago about my struggle with vermin, particularly one dirty, nasty, filthy little mouse. My final solution for that mouse, which is now an ex-mouse, was POISON. Yes, rat poison. I bought some yummy tinned sardines, mixed them up with poison and deposited them all around the house. After seeing neither hide nor hair of the blasted creature for a few days, I finally noticed a very unpleasant smell around my piano. Oh, ewww >___<

Like hell I was going to open that and see something gross and stinky. I eventually enlisted the help of brave relatives who took care of the offending carcass while I was away at work. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Unfortunately my refuge at work has also been invaded...this time by cockroaches. I have a pretty good idea where they came from (it involved bananas bought from the market) but what matters is where they're going now, which is the morgue, if I have anything to say about it. I'm flirting with the idea of buying a can of roach spray and spraying out my desk right before I leave work tomorrow. We'll see. I HATE BUGS!!!

Brideshead Revisited

We've had this book lying around the house for years so I finally picked it up last week. First off, I want more Evelyn Waugh. Second off, why hasn't any writer written their own version of what happens next? Does Charles Ryder ever find happiness? Does Julia ever remarry? What becomes of Sebastian in the end, does a brilliant young man like him truly end his days as a porter for a monastery?

It's such a tragedy, of no discernible cause. Why does Sebastian hate his mother so much that it drives him to drink. From all I can see his family is a bit odd, a bit eccentric, a bit cold to each other, but not to the extent that it would drive him to despair. But I guess the point of seeing things through Ryder's eyes is to show that each family has its strange dynamics that no outsider can ever truly appreciate, no matter how long they spend with the family. And so in the end poor Charlie finds himself booted to the curb and the family goes on as dysfunctionally as ever. I can only hope they found some measure of contentment in their final decisions.

I hear there's a movie and a TV series out now, but I don't think they could capture the true magic of the book, because most of it depends on the power of your own imagination. I might give them a shot one day, though.

Infernal Affairs

Quick Review
I watched this famous Hong Kong film starring Tony Leung and Andy Lau last weekend. Tony stars as Yan, a police mole deep within a triad gang. Andy stars as Lau, a gang mole high up in the police service. After a botched gang cocaine trade, both higher ups charge their moles with the finding the identify of the other group's mole. And so a deadly game of cat-and-mouse begins.

First, spoilers for the ending. Yan dies, Lau gets away with everything.

The acting is brilliant, the music is really good. Lights, action, cinematography, everything is brilliant except one thing...the plot. The characters are really too stupid for words. What bothered me the most?
1. Lau managing to get all sorts of information to his triad boss during a stakeout, with the rest of the police force sitting right by him. Eventually it's revealed that the guy next with him was in the triad too, which is why it worked, but at the time it really pissed me off.
2. Yan picking up his phone after Inspector Wong died. The first thing he should have done was trash that thing and hope the number couldn't be traced to him. Better hope he had a special phone only for Wong affairs.
3. Yan trusting Lau immediately and going along with him, all while knowing of the existence of a triad mole within the police. Dumbass.
4. Yan having solid evidence of Lau being the triad's mole and choosing to blackmail him with it instead of turning it straight into the police. THIS DID NOT MAKE ANY SENSE AT ALL! Did he have a deathwish? I can only conclude he had a deathwish.
5. Yan confronting Lau face-to-face before making arrangements to have the evidence sent to the police. This allowed Lau to get clean away with everything once Yan has been killed by a bad cop. What an Idiot!

The Lau Wins ending evidently went down pretty badly because eventually they trotted the same actors out for Infernal Affairs III (IA2 does not deserve to be mentioned) where Lau eventually pays for his sins. Yah, whatever. IA was really gripping, but now that it's over I don't think I want to watch it again. But I was impressed by both Andy and Tony, so I'll be looking for more films by them in the future.

Sumo, final day

The moment Kotooshu lost to Hakuho, the end result of this Nagoya basho was clear for all to see. Hakuho kept up his fine form, defeating Harumafuji yesterday and toppling Asashoryu today to win the tournament. It must be a welcome win for him, after losing out to Harumafuji last time and Asashoryu the time before. I'm happy for him, since I can honestly say the best man won this time round. Kotooshu needs to work on his stability, though I suspect some of it is due to his height (6 ft 3, right?) giving him a higher center of gravity. If he can conquer that and stay in good health, maybe all the hype won't have been for nothing.

I hear Bulgaria wants to honor him with their highest award, btw. Interesting.