I got back a few days ago from an East Coast trip with my brother. We went to New York City, Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Boston. We saw the typical East Coast attractions (e.g. Statue of Liberty, Times Square, Empire State Building, Ground Zero, etc.). In addition, we saw a plethora of priceless artifacts from the Smithsonian museum, such as Lincoln’s top hat, the Hope Diamond, Lewis and Clark’s compass, the original teddy bear, the original Barbie, etc. In all, I really enjoyed the trip.

There are some actors who always give their A game in every movie they star in. In my opinion, the vast majority of the movies these actors star in are just plain astonishing. These actors just do not pick any script, but ones they know that will amplify their talent. Hence, they have high standards for scripts that go with their high quality of acting skills. I would gladly give up $10 to watch any movie these actors star in. In fact, I would pay $20 because their movies are that great.

Here is The List in descending order:

• Al Pacino
• Matt Damon
• Jodie Foster
• Michael Douglas
• Jim Carrey
• Robin Williams

Yesterday was the Santa Clara County Fair. But while people were crunching on caramel apple and riding roller coasters that hang upside down for 10 seconds, Lynn and I were wasting our money ($60 worth) on this very frustrating booth game. The objective of the game is to bounce a whiffle ball off of the backboard and make it land into the basket underneath it. While the game sounds easy, it is exceedingly difficult! What makes this game so frustrating are two reasons: it is not rigged and the fact that the carnies can consistently beat this game. Price of the game is 3 balls for $5 (although we were given $1 for 1 ball due to our persistence). The prize: one in the basket wins you the large stuffed animal as seen in the picture (somewhat visible in the picture) and two in the basket wins you a new Sony PSP!! They will even allow you to lean in as close as you can to toss the ball.

After many tries and a trip the ATM, we were unsuccessful in getting the whiffle ball into the basket. I have never in my life given so much money to a booth game before. The reason why this game was an exception is that it is not rigged and the fact that the carnies made the ball in nearly every time! For most booth games, if the game is not rigged, it is ridiculously hard to beat and the carnies hosting that game cannot beat it (think of the ring toss in the long neck bottles or tossing a penny and having it land on a specific designated area just slightly larger than the penny itself without it overlapping the black outline). However, unlike those games, these carnies easily made the ball into the basket every time and that was what made me kept going back to them. The carny who cut us the 1 ball for $1 deal even offered us many retries due to foul shots and gave us many hints, including where to strike the ball on the backboard. Another reason why I kept coming back to play this game was because I have never seen this booth game before and I thought I could “figure” it out, including what type of arch to apply (large initial angle with respect to the ground), initial velocity (just low enough such that the ball strikes the backboard just after descending from the apex), where to strike the backboard (about six inches below the very top), and what type of spin (under spin to limit the bouncing angle from the backboard). Even with my careful analysis, I failed.

If you see this game at the carnival and can beat it, let me know your secret!

A sequel to the movie, Wall Street, was announced a few months ago. It will be called “Money Never Sleeps” and it will still star Michael Douglas as the infamous Gordon Gekko.

For those of you who do not know, Wall Street is an awesome movie released in the mid-late 80’s about insider trading. It is the best Wall Street movie ever. I have seen this movie many times and I never get tired of it. I really cannot wait until the sequel is released. I just hope that it will remain true to the legacy that Wall Street has built. However, I do have some doubts about the sequel because Oliver Stone will not be directing it (he wrote the screenplay to Scarface) like it did in Wall Street. Even so, I have faith that Douglas will bring his A game to this movie.

The Mystery Spot is a place in Santa Cruz, California, that claims to possess “magical” powers, where short people appear to be the same height as tall people, people can clean forward (approximately up to 45 degrees) without falling, and billiard balls roll uphill. While all of this may sound like Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, there is in fact, a simple explanation to every single one of these claims.

During the beginning of the tour, we are presented with two beams. The tour guide places a carpenter’s level on them to show us that they are completely level. When a short person stands on the right side of the beams, he/she will appear approximately the same height as a taller person.

Magical, right? Nope! A closer look at the carpenter’s level shows that the right side is in fact sloped higher than the left.

The reason why people did not catch this initially is because of two reasons: people believed the tour guide when she said that the beams were level and the fact that the tour guide quickly took the carpenter’s level away after showing us, thereby not allowing anyone any time to confirm her claim. Thus, the real reason why the shorter person seemed taller was because they were on a higher elevation! This was a technique that the tour guide constantly used throughout the entire trip.

The Mystery Spot is famously known for the ability of leaning forward (approximately up to 45 degrees) without falling. This can be seen on a cover of a TIME magazine.

However, what people do not realize is that this is merely an optical illusion because the entire Mystery Spot is situated on a steep hill (approximately a 45 degrees incline). Standing on a slanted slope will allow you to lean forward without falling (in fact you must lean to keep your balance) ! Anyone who has ever been to the Mystery Spot can recall the steep elevation that they had to endure throughout the tour. Try to lean the next time you are on a steep slope.

Next up was the illusion of a billiard ball naturally rolling uphill. This action was performed by initially rolling the ball downhill on a wooden beam. As the ball rolls downhill, the ball will eventually slowdown then roll uphill at an increasing speed. According to the tour guide, the right side of the beam is lower than the right.

However, if we look at the carpenter’s level again, it can be seen that in fact the right side is at a higher elevation than the left!

These are just some of the explanations to the ruses that The Mystery Spot deploys. While I was able to explain every exhibit they displayed, going to The Mystery Spot was entertaining, which is obviously their objective. If you are around the Santa Cruz area, I recommend dropping by there.

For the past few days, I have been playing the game Orbox B. There are 30 levels total and I am stuck on Level 28! The password to get to Level 28 is “kid668″. I am reluctant to look online for help because I have gotten this far without cheating! I am so close to beating it, too.In level 28, I always end up in one of these two situations: 1) I can blow up all the blocks, but cannot get to the exit, or 2) I can get to the exit, but cannot blowup the last block. If I cannot get the solution within the next few days, then I will look for hints online.

Today I changed web hosting providers from GoDaddy to Dreamhost. For just a little bit more money, I received much more services from Dreamhost that GoDaddy lacked (such as SSH support, hosting multiple domains, etc). However, when I changed hosting providers, I did not know how to backup my blog entries. Thus, I lost all of my earlier entries. There were not many entries, which is why I did not bother looking into backing up my earlier entries.

Before canceling my GoDaddy subscription, I already paid for them to host my site up until the end of this month. However, when I canceled my renewal subscription, they ended my service within 5 minutes! This left me very bitter. I had paid them to support me up until the end of the month, but as soon as I found a better provider and canceled my renewal option with them, they stopped supporting their customer. If I paid for services up until the end of the June, then I should still receive the same service up until the end of June. This is very bad business for them. Hosting providers are a dime a dozen these days and so thus, they need to work harder to please their customers, even if they leave them. Before I canceled my renewal option, there was still the possibility of going back to them. However, after my newfound experience with them, I will never go back to GoDaddy ever again.!

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