Korean GP 2010

The final leg of the F1 2010 season is finally kicking off. I came in this year thinking this season is going to be about as boring as last year. And at the start it looked as it was. but things have really heated up in the last few month.

I have been Team Ferrari for a very long time but it has been interesting to new players coming up and bringing back the much needed excitement to the sport. Vettel, especially, has been very impressive and however things turn out he is definitely someone, me thinks, to watch.

With all that out of the way, here's to hoping Alonso takes home the price. We are down to the wire this year with only three races left. Go Reds!!

My Name is Red

"My Name is Red" by Orhan Pamuk has been an on again and off again affair for me over the last three years. The book came to me by way of a friend and finally, with a sigh of relief and triumph, I can say that I have read this gem of a book.

The book is a novel take on the classic "Whodunit" with an extremely rich narrative and, at the risk of sounding cliche, multitude of rich multi-dimensional characters.

As an aspiring writer myself it is especially noteworthy how the author brings the entire ambiance to life with subtle sentences and descriptions that immediately make the scenes and locations come to life.

Also remarkable is the attention to detail that is given to the lost art of Persian miniature or more accurately Ottoman miniature. The author would have you believe that he was actually a miniaturist in a past life with the amount of detail he gives to both the description and love the characters show for the lost art form.

It was also exciting to see the contrast of art with religion. especially the nature of art in an Islamic society and the sharp of edges of Islam that many ascribe to.

I'm probably late to the party in saying this, but if you like excellent and you need to go pick up this book.

Three Red Lights

Nothing for the first two years and now my second TRL in 6 months. Can't wait for more. I must be a glutton for corporate abuse.

Pile of Shame

I first came across the term “pile of shame” when I discovered the 1Up Yours podcast. Basically it means stuff you plan of doing but never get around to. Usually it could be the pile of books gathering dust waiting for you to get to them some day, or it could be movie you have yet to see, games that need to be played, whatever, as long as it is entertainment related. So one of my piles of shame were several Gundam kits sitting around collecting dust. well no more.

Over the last couple of weekends, I have been slowly working on three kits and getting them in good enough shape to be showcased. From Left to Right, I finished Red Astray, Blitz Gundam, and Gundam Sandrock.

The Sandrock was simple assembly, paint and lining, followed by a flat topcoat. The Blitz required some slight part mods and I put on some custom decals. Its been a while since I built a guldam kit so it was only after the fact that I remembered that you need a smooth surface to better place water slide decals and that the flat black on the blitz did not help. Last was the Red Astray. I really like the Astray Gundam for its compact design. Really am satisfied with its finished look and my choice of darker red.

Overall, they all still need some tweaks here are there but at least I can tick something off one my several lists as being done.

With these all cleared. Maybe I can attempt to dent in my reading pile of shame and finally finish reading the Camus’ Plague. I have tried several times but end up getting distracted before I get to the final quarter. Surprisingly enough I have read the fist half five times now. Hopefully this is the month I cross that bridge as well.

Windows 7 Beta

Started using the new Beta for Windows 7 yesterday. Though it is too early to form an opinion about this latest release by Microsoft, I have to admit that I am certainly impressed by the wow factor of the OS. Particularly of note is absence of the sidebar, with the move of gadgets to the main desktop. I find that more to my liking as in Vista my gadgets littered the desktop and the sidebar felt kind of useless.

Another interesting change is the revised taskbar. I find it very organic or quiet. Its very compressed and utilitarian in approach. Haven’t had time to try out the Media Center features and see how it works with the Media Extender in my Xbox but I am enjoying the changes to Windows Media Player. The Media Player, though not as cool as the Zune player is still fresh in its approach. Much appreciated is the inclusion of codecs for Xvid, x264 etc. Still had to install CCCP for some of my more obscure videos to work but it was nice to see that kind of support finally make it into Windows my default.

I hope to try out the simplified media sharing and networking soon but other than that, so far so good.

Overall, this is feels like major step in a very right direction by Microsoft.