eMarkLee

mRP08 showed me the trailer of the upcoming Rambo movie that looks to be the biggest and baddest one of the series. The shiz looks tight with over the top special effects, advanced weaponry, and crazy stunts. It’s the whole package.

I recall the days of raves and techno-enhanced trances. Good old days. This video helps recreate some of that feeling. Also some of the feeling of Star Wars mixed with some Punisher and the crazy homeless guy in San Francisco that Workmonkey once attempted to fight (but Workmonkey fled in fear)

If you have eaten sushi with me, you know I like my wasabi. I generally will put enough wasabi on my sushi to make everybody around me cry. Believe it or not, there was a time when I did not eat wasabi by the spoonful.

Before the age of 17, I really couldn’t touch wasabi as I associated it with pain. (I reckon this is where most of you are currently. That little drop of wasabi you put in your soy sauce doesn’t count.) I have memories of tasting it along with raw fish and thinking it was like eating fire. Who wants to do that?

In college, however, I discovered wasabi with a vengeance with my discovery of sushi. Namely, sake (salmon) nigiri (still the gold standard of sushi). Once I got hooked I was hooked. In San Francisco I would eat out at my favorite sushi place twice a week for my fill. My rule still stands that all vendor lunches where I am treated to lunch are to be sushi as well as all of my own expensed lunches. So after my many years of wasabi-induced tear-shedding, I have compiled some important lessons that should be of benefit to you:

1. Wasabi is good for you.
Yes, and NOT as a decongestant, despite the fact that you start blowing your nose and crying. It actually has other health properties including:

1. Anti-Cancer and Anti-Oxidant
2. Antibiotic
3. Anti-Coagulant (including inhibition of platelet aggregation in the treatment of heart attacks)
4. Anti-Inflammatory Agent or for the treatment of asthma or anaphylaxis
5. Aids in Bone Calcification (from a different group of compounds)
6. Other Health Benefits

That “Other Health Benefits” section includes prevention of diahhrea. Yeah. Not sure if they mean the explosive kind, the pee-out-of-the-arse kind, or more of the chunky kind. Chunky Monkey style. Either way, it makes sense that sushi-eaters can use anything that helps prevent diahhrea.

2. Don’t make wasabi goo.
Yes, I used to do it. It’s so easy. You throw that gob of wasabi and mix it into mud and consume it like you just brushed chunky diahhrea on your sushi. It’s not how my ninjas, the Japanese, eat their sushi. If you are going to eat sushi, do it the right way. Take the wasabi, spread it on the sushi in its green form, and then you dip it in pure Japan-brewed soy sauce. Some good sushi places will actually have wasabi already on the sushi so you may not even need to put any on unless you’re masochistic or are trying to prevent explosive diahhrea.

3. Don’t breathe out when eating wasabi.
Not sure if I should be sharing this long-held secret, but if you breathe out after consuming a substantial quantity of wasabi, you may die. You will get that rush to your nose and head and then you will fall over. Don’t do it. Either don’t breathe or take a slow steady breathe inward. This is KEY to consuming wasabi like a Jap. It’s actually a secret, don’t give it away. Next time you get challenged to a wasabi eating contest, keep this in mind.

4. Serve wasabi in a small bowl and serve it as green tea ice cream to your mates
This is about as fun as wasabi gets. Your unsuspecting mate will take a big scoop, breathe out, start crying, start diahhrea’ing, then keel over and die. Life doesn’t get much fun than this.

In case you aren’t “in the know”, the latest dance craze is on us…the Soulja Boy Dance. It’s pretty simple, you just gotta lean into the Superman.

Yeah, if Natalie Portman can do it, you can do it. You don’t want to miss out on the Electric Slide and Macarena do you?

In 2002, I purchased my 2nd PDA. The Dell Axim X5.

It was a brand new PDA under the Microsoft Pocket PC platform. I had become a fan after playing around with my brother’s PDA and decided that I wanted one for a number of reasons:

1. Buy a new toy
2. Read news on the MUNI/BART in San Francisco on my commute
3. Play games
4. Watch videos
5. Have a powerful platform that will allow me to adapt to changing needs.

All this was achieved by the Axim for 2002-2004. Ultimately, however, I started commuting to work and then I started using a laptop at work so there was not a great deal of need to play with the Pocket PC anymore. Hence, it collected dust on my desk for the next 2 years.

Fast forward 2 more years to 2007 and here I am again…same situation but slightly different needs:

1. Read news on the Tube.
2. Play games on flights
3. Watch videos on flights
4. Get on the Internet while traveling.

That last point is the most important. I had purchased the Axim a while back purely as a standalone device that I would sync to my computer before I leave the house for the day. Ultimately I would get back to my computer and I would sync it again. That’s old school thinking. With wifi all over the place these days, it is feasible to jump online and surf the web.

So how does a device purchased in 2002 fare today?
Surprisingly well. I have installed a set of all new software for the device (running on Windows Mobile 2003) that include:

1. Madden NFL 2006. Yeah, Madden for the Pocket PC.
2. TCMP DivX/xvid player - Allows you to play vids on the Pocket PC
3. Pocket Informant - Upgrades the Outlook piece to be more Outlook like.
4. WisBar Advance - Gives the Pocket PC a “Windows feel” with drop down Start menu.
5. Opera Browser - Adds tabbed browsing and generally good browsing to the Pocket PC
6. IM+ - IM on all platforms (Yahoo, MSN, AIM, etc)
7. SPB Weather - Gives you the local weather for the next week.
8. SPB Traveler - Gives you info about cities you enter

In the past 2 years or so, the applications for the Pocket PC have gotten considerably better where I have upgraded a lot of the old software I had been running. Most of the new software today runs fine on the Axim still, which is great. I have played around with overclocking the Axim, but it was just to try it. I’m above all that geekiness.

Of course, the looks have not gotten considerably better since the Axim was introduced and so people still ask what that thing is…some kind of a Tablet PC? I usually just say yes rather than explaining how this is the first generation Pocket PC that do not have QWERTY keyboards but do have touch screens. Damn young’uns.

For some reason, all the clothes I buy have the same tag on it…