In the early days of computer, software is self contained in its own directory. When you need to upgrade the computer, just copy the directory to the new harddisk and you are back to business right away. Then comes Windows, software is chopped up into bits and pieces and the data is hiddened somewhere inside the registery and application data. That makes moving the directory of the software a nightmare since you have no idea what stuff you need to backup. If you don’t have to adminstrater privilage in the computer, you can’t even install the software since you have no write access to the registery file. It only make software more inconvinient to use. Finally, someone had enough with this stupid idea of registry and port many commonly used opensource software tp a portable version. You just have to download the software package from their website, unzip the files into the directory and you are ready to go. You can copy the files from one hard disk to another and use the software without any problem. It is good to have a copy of your commonly used software stored in a USB drive for carry around and in case of emergency. I can also get around of the installation limitation of the Critix account at work to install Firefox. The portable applications can be downloaded here.

When I was fixing something with a screw driver yesterday, my hand slipped and I have a long but shallow cut on my wrist. Today I show the cut to my friends, joking that I was trying to commit suicide by cutting my wrist. My friend point out at once it can not be a suicide attempt. She reason that when someone try to kill himself, he would have to cut his wrist a few times before he can slide open his artery. Just think about the mental stress and pain one has to go through before killing himself, it would be surprise if he cut it right the first time. I asked how come she know all about this. She said she learn it from watching CSI. In one episode, the police concluded the victim is murdered instead of suicide from a clean wrist cut. Now I know if I want to murder someone and pretend it to be a suicide case. I need to cut the wrist a few more times to make it more real.

I haven’t played badminton for almost a year. I used to play every week some colleagues from Mainland China, but I have to stop due to conflict of schedule with my philosophy class. Last night I have a badminton game with some other friends from work. We went to a really nice badminton center in Richmond. It is modified from a warehouse. It is very large, with more than twenty badminton courts. The lighting is every even and the walls are painted green, so the birdie is easy to see. The court floor us professional non slippery badminton court material, much better than the usual gym wooden floor in community center. Best of all is it only charges $13, only $1 more expensive than renting a court in community center.

I have been playing badminton since high school, but I never have any formal training. My skill cannot improve no matter how often I practice without knowing the right foot movement and the right way of holding the racket. There are group lesson offered in that badminton center, $99 for 8 lessons, not a bag deal. When I sign up for the lesson, the coach gave me a badminton test. We played for 10 minutes, actually I was played by the coach who made me running back and forth to return the birdie. The coach said I am good enough for intermediate lesson, so I pay the tuition fee at once to reserve a spot. Let’s see how much will I improve after 2 months of badminton lessons.