(The car depicted is a Lexus SUV.)

To me, this picture captures nicely some reasons why those in other lands often think negatively about Americans:

1. Rampant and conspicuous consumerism.
2. An inability to respect rules and boundaries set (even by themselves).
3. An inability to correct their own mistakes.

Anger.

Currently Playing Inspiration (includes Bonus DVD) By William Hung see related

Yesterday, after lunch, I picked up William Hung's debut CD, Inspiration.

All I have to say is -- I admire William's courage, but yikes -- this is everything I feared would happen and more. The vocals seem worse than his American Idol audition (I read that they actually pitch-bended it to make it sound worse than it actually was, which I find very disturbing if true) Songs like "Hotel California", and romantic Disney songs like "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" are butchered by his accent. I wonder if William is even trying to improve himself at all -- or if he's even aware many people are laughing at him, not with him.

It's obvious that Koch is capitalizing on William's current lack of musical aptitude in this release, because were it not for William's existing cult following, it would be ridiculed and slammed beyond belief. Maybe Inspiration is a comedy act, or a musical parody, in which case it fits well. But the tracks, including sound bites of William relating "inspirational" messages, seem to indicate it's something seriously marketed in earnest.

Others have already written about the damaging potential the public's misguided perceptions of William could have on other Asian-Americans, and I agree.

I will add too, that yes, William burst onto the scene because of his musical skills, or more precisely, lack thereof. But more importantly, he became an overnight hit because of his resilience and perseverance in the face of crushing defeat. And this is the spirit of William that Koch and everyone else should be embracing. William should be developing his own vocal abilities, rather than just quickly agreeing to a record for some quick cash.

William does seem to be a very decent guy -- from the interviews I've seen/read of him, he hasn't let his newfound fame really get to him and inflate his ego much at all, a rarity these days it seems. I do believe that if he'd get his "professional training", he'd have some potential at least in a few years -- maybe singing Cantonese pop songs rather than English ones, but he'd still be a hit in Asia and amongst fobulous Asian Americans, so it would be potential nonetheless.

Well, we can take solace in the fact that it's just his first album. However, if his nascent career is to take off, I only pray he finds a better manager focused on development, and not exploitation.

I finally got off my butt and uploaded a bevy of pictures from February until now, most notably from Jimmy and Julie's wedding. Enjoy! =)

Currently Playing Inspiration (includes Bonus DVD) By William Hung see related

Yesterday, after lunch, I picked up William Hung's debut CD, Inspiration.

All I have to say is -- I admire William's courage, but yikes -- this is everything I feared would happen and more. The vocals seem worse than his American Idol audition (I read that they actually pitch-bended it to make it sound worse than it actually was, which I find very disturbing if true) Songs like "Hotel California", and romantic Disney songs like "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" are butchered by his accent. I wonder if William is even trying to improve himself at all -- or if he's even aware many people are laughing at him, not with him.

It's obvious that Koch is capitalizing on William's current lack of musical aptitude in this release, because were it not for William's existing cult following, it would be ridiculed and slammed beyond belief. Maybe Inspiration is a comedy act, or a musical parody, in which case it fits well. But the tracks, including sound bites of William relating "inspirational" messages, seem to indicate it's something seriously marketed in earnest.

Others have already written about the damaging potential the public's misguided perceptions of William could have on other Asian-Americans, and I agree.

I will add too, that yes, William burst onto the scene because of his musical skills, or more precisely, lack thereof. But more importantly, he became an overnight hit because of his resilience and perseverance in the face of crushing defeat. And this is the spirit of William that Koch and everyone else should be embracing. William should be developing his own vocal abilities, rather than just quickly agreeing to a record for some quick cash.

William does seem to be a very decent guy -- from the interviews I've seen/read of him, he hasn't let his newfound fame really get to him and inflate his ego much at all, a rarity these days it seems. I do believe that if he'd get his "professional training", he'd have some potential at least in a few years -- maybe singing Cantonese pop songs rather than English ones, but he'd still be a hit in Asia and amongst fobulous Asian Americans, so it would be potential nonetheless.

Well, we can take solace in the fact that it's just his first album. However, if his nascent career is to take off, I only pray he finds a better manager focused on development, and not exploitation.

I finally got off my butt and uploaded a bevy of pictures from February until now, most notably from Jimmy and Julie's wedding. Enjoy! =)

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Warning: another programming entry. There's an old saying, build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.

This programmer currently finds himself in need of a better mousetrap -- specificaly, a way to search for text. I'm talking about an intelligent grep that's aware of language syntax, so that I could search for text while ignoring comments in files. Or search for all occurances of a variable name, but only amongst variable names, rather than amongst all text in a file in general.

Someone's had to come up with something like that -- any decent editor will have syntax coloring of source code, so it should be a small incremental feat to be able to search text that's eg: a variable name, a constant string, not a comment.

But no one on the team seems to have heard of such a beast, and googling didn't help much, but then again, I didn't really know how to phrase the query without being too broad.

So, anyone that comes up with such a tool will probably win the hearts of millions of frustrated programmers all over the world, this one included.

Anyone?

Warning: another programming entry. There's an old saying, build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.

This programmer currently finds himself in need of a better mousetrap -- specificaly, a way to search for text. I'm talking about an intelligent grep that's aware of language syntax, so that I could search for text while ignoring comments in files. Or search for all occurances of a variable name, but only amongst variable names, rather than amongst all text in a file in general.

Someone's had to come up with something like that -- any decent editor will have syntax coloring of source code, so it should be a small incremental feat to be able to search text that's eg: a variable name, a constant string, not a comment.

But no one on the team seems to have heard of such a beast, and googling didn't help much, but then again, I didn't really know how to phrase the query without being too broad.

So, anyone that comes up with such a tool will probably win the hearts of millions of frustrated programmers all over the world, this one included.

Anyone?

@#$@#$#@

My @#$@%$@ web host is migrating servers, andthey have thus far managed to screw it up magnificently, which explainsthe downtime on my main site, markwang.com.  Oh well, I guess thisis what you get if you pay less than $10/month for multiple gigs ofdisk space and bandwidth -- something's gotta give -- namelyadministrative competency.

I've got some long thoughts on recentdevelopments, but I much prefer the Moveable Type interface to writelong thoughts, so they're on hold for now.  For now, here's anarticle I read just now on CNN -- sad and yet slightly tinged withamusing irony:

http://money.cnn.com/2004/04/19/news/fortune500/mcdonalds_ceo/index.htm?cnn=yes

McDonald's names Bell as CEO
Company names president to post after Cantalupo dies of an apparent heart attack.
April 19, 2004: 12:12 PM EDT
By Parija Bhatnagar, CNN/Money Staff Writer

NEWYORK (CNN/Money) - The board of directors of McDonald's Corp. namedCharlie Bell as chief executive after Jim Cantalupo, the leader of thefast-food chain's recent turnaround, died of an apparent heart attackMonday.

McDonald's chairman and CEO Jim Cantalupo, 60, died of a heart attack Monday morning.

Bell, 43, will continue as president; he has been serving as the company's chief operating officer.

"CharlieBell has worked side by side with Jim during these past 16 months torevitalize McDonald's all over the world. He is ideally suited andprepared to continue Jim's remarkable focus and discipline on ourbusiness," the company said in a statement.

Cantalupo, 60, was at the McDonald's Worldwide Owner/Operator Convention in Orlando, Fla., when he was suddenly stricken....

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Become a minister now!

Anyhow,here's one of the more interesting spams I just received -- the subjectline, "Re: Become a minister now!" caught my eye as I was browsing themessages in my junk folder condemned to die, and I decided to take alook.

Unlike most of the other ones I receive, this spamactually brought a smile to me, making up for my anger at myincompetent host's woes.

Found this link off of Slashdot just now.  My vision from college of Christian games becoming significant is starting to come to fruition! (of course, I don't claim I thought of it first.)  As I've oft stated before, I've got three main passions in my life now, and it's exciting to see two of them come together.

I was actually surprised it took this long for the video game and Christian subcultures to converge to this degree.  Hopefully, with more and more game developers who are making Christ-centered games from the mainstream, they'll start crossing the line into the mainstream conciousness as being high quality and exciting, rather than dull, boring, or preachy -- like Christian artists have started to do now in the music and movie worlds.

I seriously think I'll attend the conference if at all possible... just to see what it's all about, and to see how I could fit into this, in terms of what I do with my life, and how, if at all, it may mesh with my desires to work in Asia as a tentmaker.

Now, the day there's a Chinese Christian Game Developer's Association existing openly and freely in the People's Republic -- the "trinity" will be united, and I will have considered my mission in life to be accomplished... =)

CGDC Registration Opens
By David Radd -- News Writer
Published 11:12 AM CDT, April 22, 2004

The Christian Game Developers Conference will deal with "issues important to the future of Christian gaming"...

The Christian Game Developers Conference (http://www.cgdc.org) today announces their third annual expo, to be held in Portland, Oregon, on July 30-31.

"Our sponsors have been very generous this year!" says conference organizer Tim Emmerich of GraceWorks Interactive (http://www.graceworksinteractive.com)." Returning sponsors include the Intel Bible-based Christian Network (IBCN), providing a 10 workstation PC lab, Micro Forté, hosting the Saturday Dinner and Fellowship and GarageGames providing licenses to their Torque Gaming Engine.

The speaker lineup continues to be a focal point of the Christian Game Developers Conference. This year, audiences will be able to learn from industry leaders including Clay Stevens of Keystone Interactive , (http://www.KeystoneInteractive.com), Jay Moore of GarageGames (http://www.GarageGames.com), David Koch of Seraphite Media and representatives from the independent game development community will all present discussions this year.

Registration is now open and information, including the full roster of speakers and events as well as travel and lodging options is available online at http://www.cgdc.org.