Today a friend asked me whether blogging is an addiction and can I stop blogging for a few months. Actually, the answer is a quite simple. I am not addicted to blogging and I would like to stop writing. Sometimes, I find writing a blog every day is a very demanding exercise for my mind. Especially on a slow day that nothing interesting happens. I keep writing is not for personal enjoyment, nor try to update my friends what happens around me. Most of my daily life is just being a dull engineer that no one will have much interest. Rather I want to improve my writing and thinking skill through this daily painful writing excerise. I have read many excellent columnist on newspaper as well as a few influential bloggers. I am inspired to be one of them some day. The only problem is I know my writing is sub-par. Occassonally, I have some weird thoughts that may be thought provoking. I have a few usual jokes, but Pat seems already heard all of my tricks. The most used ones are gay jokes, and guy-thing vs girl-thing. Other than that, I can’t think of any selling points of my blog. Anyways, pratice and more pratice is the only way to improve my writing.? Writing this blog also force me to be observative during the day to gather ideas for my writing.? So, dear readers, please be patient with the mundane writing of your correspodence. Hope you will see the quality of this blog improve over time.

Today I visited the Stevenson Village in Richmond.? I went there last time at night, there was nothing much too see after dark.? This time, I with Pat went in the morning and discovered the fisherman market.? Many fish boats come to Stevenson Village in the morning with freshly caugh fishes.? A hugh tuna 2-3 foot long only only cost $30.? There are also boat loads of shrimps, salmon and many different other fishes.? We bought a bag of Ikura for only $4.? The bag have enough Ikura to make at least 10 sushi.? We had a fest on Ikura.? It is the first time I eat so much Ikura that I found it quite filling.? We had lunch in Sockeye City at water front.? We sat on the boardwalk with nice habour view.? I ordered fish and chips, Pat ordered calamari salad.? It is a bit pricy, probably due to the location, but the food taste good.? We walked around Steveson Village for a while before heading to the church for the post-camp.? I lived in Vancouver for almost 6 years and yet there are still places surprise me in town.? Vancouver is a very interesting place, only if you care to explore all the different places.

[thumb:1841:l] My long waited remote control mini helicopter finally arrived. It is very small and light, built for indoor use. It can’t even stand the most gentle breeze outside. I had my first test flight in a large meeting room at work. The helicopter is very hard to control. If I give too much thottle, it will hit the ceiling. If I don’t give it enough power, it drops like a stone. Keeping it hovering in the air is hard enough. Making it move forward is even harder. The steering control of the helicopter is very sensitive. It will start flying in circle if I over control the helicopter. It is hard to aim it to the direction you want it to go. It is fun flying, although I can barely control the helicopter and it crashes every 15 seconds. The only draw back is the charging time. It takes 20 minutes to charge up the capactor in the helicopter and it conly fly 5 minutes. I just can’t wait to take off the helicopter. Before I received it, I would except the control is very complicate, since there are many degress of movement in a helicopter. To my surprise the control is very simple, very much like one for a remote control car. Here is the picture of my Picoo Z and a video from youtube of someone else’s Picoo Z in action.

Almost all HK students know how to spinning pens.? The basic is very simple, you spin a pen among your fingers.? Most often it is a subconcious action that your finger simply start spinning the pen when you are not writing. I know only two styles of pen spinning.? I learnt the horizontal spin in my English OAC summer class.? It was my lab-partner-to-be, Leon, who taught me how to spin forward and backward.? He can even spin pens with both hands simultanously.? Later on I pick ed up veritical spin from Mingwai, but I forgot under what circumstance.? The veritical spin is easier to do, and the pen falls off to the table less often.? When I was young, my parents told me spinning pen is bad habit.? I still don’t quite understand what is so bad among it.? Ok, if you spin badly and keep making noise, it is quite annoying to others.? I remember one of my teacher back in Lasalle always spin her pen.? It just looks cool.? Today I came across a pen spinning website, in which there are instructions to different styles and demostration videos.? There are some really cool pen spinning stunts I don’t even know about.? I only know the two most basic sytles.? If I am much younger, say still in highschool, probably I will follow the instruction of the website and practice pen spinning for my own amusement.? I am just too old to learn this kind of useless things.? You can check out the pen spinning stunts following this link

My old Microsoft optical mouse is officially retired.? I bought a new Microsoft laser mouse 6000, top of the line model.? I have been a loyal Microsoft hardware user.? I am so accustomed to my natural keyboard and mouse.? I don’t even consider getting another brand.? Actually there are not many options out there for quality input devices, either Microsoft or Logitech.? The new mouse has better precision than the one mouse, the feel of button click and the scroll wheel is more solid.? It has exactly the same feature as my old mouse.? It is very hard for me to find top of the line mouse being a left hand mouse user.? I am not a left hander, but mainly due to historical reason.? I only had space on the left hand side of my very first computer for the mouse.? One advantage of using mouse by left hand is that I can write and operate the computer at the same time.? I have another advantage playing first person shooting games, since it is more natural to use the keypad than the alphabet keys.? Although I have to customize the key setting.? Since I am a right hander, I don’t have any trouble using mouse with my right hand if I have to.? Somehow mouse manufacturors always neglect the left hander market.? Almost all ergonomic mouses are taylored for right hand, so I can only use symmeteric mouse.? The best mouse in the market is Logitech MX Revolution.? If Logitech make a left hand version of it, I will ditch Microsoft without second thought.? One thing really puzzles me, how come most of my left hander friends using mouse by their right hand?? I should start promoting using mouse by left hand.? If we can get enought momentum, maybe the manufacturor will serve this niche market.