I thought the only use of charcoal is BBQ. With some help from latest technoloyg, it could be the best friend for framers and combat global warming at the same time!
Monthly Archives: September 2009
加西2009後感
原本以為結了婚便不用去加西﹐結果還是給老婆捉了入營﹐分別只是今年我們睡夫婦房﹐不用跟其他小朋友睡碌架床。不過我倒寧可與大伙兒一起睡﹐我不怕小朋友遲睡談天擾我清夢﹐也不怕小肥仔打鼻鼾的嘈音。只是夫婦房在飯堂的地窖﹐沒有窗戶只靠一把抽氣扇通風﹐空氣很燜焗令人很不舒服。今年天氣又特別冷﹐我帶了睡袋夜半還是冷醒好幾次﹐每天起床時好像沒有睡覺一樣。早知反正也睡不好﹐倒不如去和小朋友的夜半玩耍聊天好了﹐不過不知他們受不受我這個叔叔玩。
最幾個星期剛從印度回來﹐接著又忙於新居裝修﹐在營中又睡不好。人太累連靜下來反思的精力也沒有﹐在營中我不由自主地爭取每一個睡眠機會。彌撒坐著會睡覺跪著會睡覺﹐唱歌讚美崇拜時站著也會睡覺。明供聖體有柔和的泰澤音樂﹐我更索性倒臥在地上熟睡﹐有幾次情不自禁地打鼻鼾﹐要老婆拍醒我以免嘈到別人。連加西營的戲肉神父那三個演講﹐我也完全在半昏迷渡過。今年講者陳永超神父零三年也來過。當年他才剛剛進鐸升神父不久﹐講道還很幼嫩有點不著邊際。今年雖然我在矇矓間沒有留心他講道的內容﹐不過我感覺他比六年前講道充實很多﹐可能這便是人生經驗吧。今年加西的主題是「以愛為証」﹐超神父圍繞這個主題的講道﹐我完全沒有留下位何印象﹐或許有空可以問人借錄音來重聽。
今年大會搞手新人事新作風﹐上一代的搞手已完全退下火線﹐忙生仔忙湊仔﹐今年的加西很年青化﹐節目內容亦很照顧小朋友。大幅減少悶人的靈修時間﹐把以往兩晚靜禱唸經壓縮為一晚。不會有空檔時間﹐便加插音樂崇拜﹐開大聲浪向營友疲勞轟炸﹐寧可放半小時小息讓他們自己各自各玩。小組動活很有意思﹐大伙兒一起做勞作建一個房子。大會提供十多種勞作材料﹐大家先商量好用那七種再去拿材料。特別之處是大會反行其道﹐偏偏給你沒有選擇的那些材料﹐喻意天父為我們準備的道路﹐不一定是我們想要走的道路。大家拿著那些原先被拋棄的材料﹐發揮創意精神共心協力﹐建出來的房子不一定比原本想像的遜色。勞作後是小組分享﹐大慨每個人也有類似的經歷﹐說起來有點感懷身世。
我最欣賞神父問與答的環節﹐對著十多二十歲的少年講愛德信德很虛無飄緲﹐倒不如說些與他們生活息息相關的內容。大會很花心思拍了些半搞笑半認真的短片﹐藉此探討講粗口﹐考試出貓﹐說別人是非﹐同性戀婚姻﹐同居和婚前性行為的問題。談論那些題目甚有難度﹐一方面教會有教會的道德立場﹐另一方面很容易流於說教惹人反感。超神父把分寸捉得恰到好處﹐輕鬆地好好笑回答問題之飾﹐又不失向青少年灌輸正確(教會)的道德觀念。最重要是他不會用大石砸死蟹的方法﹐一味說這是罪那是罪不許做﹐而是深入淺出地說明為什麼做那些事情不好﹐教會觀點關心的到底是什麼道德考慮。當然不會所有人也認同教會的說法(我便是其中一人)﹐但至少可以讓青少年從多一個角度思考問題。不過超神父其實也有些古惑﹐有些很難很刁鑽的問題﹐他沒有正面回答只是說說笑話輕輕帶過。最扺死是有人問超神父﹐如果有朋友要變性﹐身為天主教徒應讓怎麼做。超神父回答說﹐千萬別跟他去戀性啊﹗
星期天晚上是分享會﹐請了些嘉賓來講見證。往年在營火旁搞分享會﹐今年因為天雨關係要在室內進途。要一班小朋友坐定定聽分享是沒有可能﹐所以大會搞搞新意思。把燈關掉派螢光棒給大家﹐唱些節奏強勁旋律快的崇拜歌﹐大伙又跳又叫很開心﹐司儀又落力搞笑營做氣氛﹐唱歌和分享見證相隔﹐讓整晚也沒有冷場。一來氣氛很好大家情緒高脹二來有個嘉賓我也認識﹐十月便入修院當修女﹐三來下午講道睡足了精神﹐我沒有睡覺很留心聽分享。要去當修女那個朋友的分享很大路﹐有高薪厚職和麻煩男朋友但找不到生命意義﹐最後在耶穌中才找到愛。我認識她時她已經辭工全職當義工﹐幫助在市中心妓女﹐希望她們迷途知返。我說笑要在她入修院前﹐帶她去食好野。一來入了修院恐怕沒有美食﹐二來我想用美食引她還俗﹐看看她是否還是六根未淨﹐扺受不往美食的誘惑。另外是一個分享是個當事工的婆婆﹐談她和丈夫結婚三十多年來﹐聖經為基礎的相處之道﹐是一個活生生愛的見證。我想到我和老婆七老八十時﹐手牽手在小朋友前分享婚姻之道﹐會是多麼浪漫的畫面啊。
以下內容給給老婆censor掉﹕ 去年結婚後渡蜜月不用去加西﹐在我們婚禮中加西的朋友幫了很大忙。婚後一年也很忙﹐還未有機會出來敘舊。今次去加西可以順便還人情債﹐分派曬好的相片和多謝咭。想不到只是一年不見﹐去年還是一對出席我們婚禮的朋友﹐今年卻已經分了手。幸好多口問句才派多謝咭﹐不然他們收到咭便會很尷尬。還有我自己也擺烏龍﹐同桌吃飯時以為有新朋友﹐介紹自己還不忘加句Pat是我老婆﹐怎料那個朋友原來有出席我們的婚禮﹐怎麼我完全沒有印象。今年自己我結了婚﹐便可以向其他還未結婚的小情侶施壓﹐追問他們何時結婚。吃飯時大家很有興趣知我如何向老婆求婚﹐我也很開心和大家起說熱氣球的故事。不過可苦了被我施壓要結婚的小男友﹐讓他的小女友期望求婚要很浪漫。人老了開始有代溝﹐過了會與新朋友侃膝長談的年紀﹐亦對認識小妹妹沒有興趣。我倒是努力幫另一個沒有女朋友的老鬼﹐看看能不能扯紅線製造姻緣。不過今年的搞手全部是我的後輩﹐當年他們初次入營時我已經帶小組。小朋友可能會覺得我為老不尊﹐怎麼完全沒有長輩應有屬靈的好榜樣﹐不過沒有人比我高輩份可以說三道四﹐我倒也樂得耳根清靜。只是老婆和認識我多年的何神父偶然會哦我兩句。我總是回答說我其實很spiritual﹐很有spirit同很嘈。
English Translation: (Thanks to WCCCLC team)
At first, I didn’t expect myself to be coming to WCCCLC, now that I am married. However, it’s my wife who got me to come here. This year, instead of sleeping in the bunk beds with the other “kids”, my wife and I shared a room all by ourselves. If you ask me, though, I would actually prefer to live together with the rest of the camper; I don’t really mind the noise from the younger roommates who decide to chat overnight, nor do I mind the snoring from other people. It’s just that the room we had was situated at the basement of the dining hall – our room had no windows, only a small fan to keep the air circulated in the room. The stuffiness just made it uncomfortable for me. Moreover, it was way colder than any other years at this camp site, so despite wrapping myself in my sleeping bag, the coldness woke me up many times during the night. It seemed that I haven’t slept at all the next day. If I knew I wouldn’t get some good rest, I would rather stay up late and talk and play with the “kids” – if they don’t mind this uncle.
“There was a lot going on in my life lately – I just came back a few weeks ago from a business trip in India, and then had to stress out on the renovations of our new place. Not having a good rest in camp meant that I was constantly tired, and didn’t get the chance to truly do some self reflections. I would grab every opportunity for a quick nap: I could actually fall asleep in mass, even when I was kneeling; I could even found myself dozing off during praise and worship – while standing up. During eucharistic adoration, with the aid of some really soft music, I even slept laying on the ground! There were even times when I would snore out right, so Patricia would have to slap me awake so not to disturb the other campers. I was also half-dozing in all three Father’s Talks. This year’s speaker was Fr. Joseph Chan, who was the speaker for WCCCLC 2003. At that time he just became ordained, so I thought his talks then were a little on the inexperienced side. This year although I wasn’t paying full attention to his talks, I could feel that his talks were much more practical and fulfilling then those six years ago; maybe that’s what life experience would do to a person. All of Fr. Chan’s talks revolve around this year’s theme – “Dared to be a Witness of Love” – I couldn’t remember much from what he said, so maybe I will try asking if anyone had recorded the talks and could lend the recordings to me.
“This year’s organizers are brand new, even from a new generation. Those who helped organize the camp in the past had taken steps away – probably because they were too busy with their kids. The camp itself was geared towards younger campers, with activities that are more suitable for them. Gone were those long boring sessions of spiritual activities, and instead of having two nights of praying and meditation, they were compacted into one night. In the past, whenever there were slots of buffer time between programs, there would be praise and worship sessions, which I thought campers were just bombarded with loud music. This year, there were half-hour periods where campers could rest or just hangout with friends. In addition, the small group activities were really meaningful, one of which was the activity on Saturday morning when we had to build a house together. At first, we were presented with a list of 14 different craft supplies, and each group needed to decide on 7 that they would like to use for the house. What was really neat was that, when the groups went to claim their supplies, they were in turn given the other 7 that they had NOT chosen. The whole point of the activity was that a lot of the time God’s plans for us aren’t necessarily the plans that we have set for ourselves. At the end, everyone took the materials that they originally rejected, and with creativity and teamwork in the air, we actually built houses that I think would not be worse then if we had use the supplies that we ordered. After the activity, there were some group sharing, and I was a little bit touched that everyone had similar experiences.
“My favourite program in the camp is the Q&A session by Fr. Chan. Rather than talking about deep, philosophical issues about love and faith with the teens, why not discuss with them about issues that are practical to their lives? These issues revolved around swearing, cheating, gossiping, gay marriages, cohabitation, and pre-marital sex. Through video clips (filmed by the planning team, which were pretty hilarious), the campers got to expressed their views. I really felt that the questions asked by them were pretty difficult to answer. On one hand, people need to understand where the Church stands, and on the other hand, we didn’t want campers to feel that they were just being presented with rules after rules. However, Fr. Chan made the balance just right: not only did he present to the youths the correct views of the Church, but he did it in a funny way that made it easier to swallow, and the entire atmosphere was extremely relaxing. What I truly love in this activity was that Fr. Chan wasn’t talking down to us at all; he didn’t tell us that this is sinning and that is sinning. Instead, he taught us in detail why doing certain things may not be right, and that there are other moral issues within the bigger issues that the Church is more concerned with. It’s clear that not every camper would agree with everything Father said (me being one of them), but at least they now have another way of thinking about how to solve the problems that they may have. Although Fr. Chan was able to answer most questions, there were some that deemed too difficult, so he just made a joke out of it and let it go. One of them was this, ‘If you have a friend who decided to have surgery to change his gender, what should you do as a Catholic?’ To which he just answered, ‘Don’t follow suit!’
“There was a sharing session on Sunday night, and we invited a few guests to share their personal witness stories. Usually, we would have this program item outside around a camp fire, but this year it was raining, so we had to do it inside. I guess since it would be near impossible for the younger campers to sit for a long time just listening to somebody talk, the Core Team decided to add a new element to it, which was to embed the sharing session inside a concert gimmick. The lights were turned off, and every camper received a glo-stick. With some fast-paced songs sung by the music team, the energy level was brought through the roof. Everyone was jumping and having a ton of fun. With a combination of an MC who could stir up the atmosphere, the alternating of songs and sharing, everyone was engaged in the program thoroughly. I think this was the session that I was actually fully awoke in for a few reasons: First, the atmosphere was really good and everyone’s energy was high; Secondly, one of the girls who came in to share (who will be studying to become a nun in October) is a friend of mine; and lastly, I got plenty of rest after taking a nap during one of Father Chan’s talks. My friend who decided to become a nun shared her life story about having a high-paying job and a rather annoying boyfriend, but she wasn’t able to find the meaning of life until she had decided to follow Jesus. When I first met her, she already left her work and became a full-time volunteer, helping the prostitutes from the Downtown Eastside so that they could stop selling their bodies. I joked with her that since there would not be a lot of good food once she enters the convent, I would take her out for a feast. I also want to act as the devil and tempt her with good food, to see if she could really let go of this materialistic world (laugh). Anyway, the sharing session ended with a lady – who was married for thirty-plus years – who used the Bible as the base of her relationship with her husband which I thought was a true witness of love! How romantic it would be to imagine my wife and I, as an elderly couple holding hands, talking to youths about our marriage!
The unkindest cuts
I think EU’s anti-trust ruling against Intel is wrong. A few years ago, AMD have a really good chance fighting Intel but it flopped and missed a technology cycle. It’s CPU is slower and less powerful than Intel’s. AMD can’t cry unfair and ask government step in to punish Intel because their own incompetence.
Color Scheme Designer
Online color wheel that generates monochromatic, complimentary, triad, tetrad, analogic, and accented analogic color palettes. It even comes with a feature simulation how the palettes looks like to people with problems seeing colours.
Continue reading Color Scheme Designer
Picking color
Designing your house is not an easy task. No wonder interior designer charge a lot to make your house looks nice. My parents are very practical people and since I moved out of their house, I have been living in rental apartments, I always live in places with minimal design. In fact, I never have any colours on my walls except the generic beige colour. The closest design experience I ever have is buying IKEA furnitures and arrange them to fit inside my room.
I am a baby to home design, so I have much to learn. The first lesson in home design is choosing a colour scheme for you home. I found this task very challenging. When presenting hundreds of colour sample from paint manufacturer, I am totally clueless on how to pick the right colour. To make it worse, men is genetically colour insensitive, since we only have 1 pair of X chromosome, which controls the colour sensing neurons.
I have been reading general rules on picking the right paints from BBC Home Design. I know there are three basic colour schemes. Tonal scheme picks colours within the same hue in different shades. Harmonious scheme picks colour next to each other on the colour wheel. Complementary colour picks colour on the oppose side of the colour wheel. Natural colour like black, gray, white or wood colour does not fit inside the colour wheel and they general blend in well with any other colour. I know what is a warm colour and what is a cool colour. I know contrast can draw focus and make the room appears to be bigger.
After picking the right colour, then we have to select where to buy the paint and what finish should we use. I like paints from Benjamin Moore, but it quite pricey and maybe too expensive for my budget. There are 6 level of finish﹐ Matte﹐ Enamal﹐ Eggshell, Satin, Semi-Gloss and Glossy, from flat to shiny. Matte is most common for walls. I would like to try Enamal on hallways and Eggshell on Kitchen. The question is how does it look when mixing different finish.
I don’t have strong preference on colour. I like blue in general but it may not looks very well on walls. I don’t like making subjective decisions. I am happy with Pat’s pick on colour as long as it is not is in pink, which is a girl colour. I tried Pat’s idea to the 3D house model. The colour shows up on screen is not the same in reality, but the program helps me visualize how the paint looks like on wall. We tried a few different colours, but honestly I couldn’t tell what’s beauty and what’s not. I know how to check whether the colour violate the rules of colour wheel, but other than that they all looks the same to me.
Blood the Last Vampire 血戰新世紀
《血戰》是我喜愛的日本動畫﹐全智賢也是我愛看的韓國女星﹐長劍少女更是我萌的類型﹐《血戰新世紀》理應完全對正我口味。為什麼這套韓國資金﹐改篇日本動畫故事﹐劇中角色大講英語的偽荷里活片﹐可以如此令人失望﹐爛得足以榮獲金草莓獎的殊譽。
或許批評是人類的天性﹐又或許愛之深責之切﹐痛恨為什麼這套電影可以把九十分的動畫片﹐刪改得如此支離破碎﹐我對這套電影只有一面倒的批評。全智賢並不適合演小夜這個角色﹐一來她穿水手服已經超齡﹐二來她完全沒有武打底子﹐所有動作場要也依靠快鏡和借位。野蠻女友的可愛傻大姐不知去了那兒﹐這套電影中全智賢全程板起面孔來演﹐與我印象中柔弱的小夜完全不配。
電影的打鬥千篇一律是快鏡加凌亂剪接﹐在砍那一秒忽然慢鏡﹐假血漿從被砍中的敵人身上﹐像噴泉般四處亂噴。最要命還是那些CG怪獸﹐動作生硬像二十幾年前泥膠公仔動畫﹐倒不如找幾個武打員演來當那些吸血鬼﹐正正經經和全智賢過招﹐不要搞變身怪獸還比較好。最後小夜與翼手決戰﹐雙方竟然拋下手中長劍﹐改用龜波氣功互轟﹐我還以為自己看錯了龍珠。
若果連我這個《血戰》的忠實擁躉﹐熟讀原著劇情來龍去脈﹐也不明白這套電影的故事想說什麼。我可以百份百肯定﹐其他觀眾看得完全一頭霧水。電影中沒有突出小夜本身是吸血鬼的身份﹐沒有那份要殺光同類的矛盾心情。小夜所屬的組織赤盾在電影中忠奸不分﹐甚至他們行動目標也不清楚。小夜最後忽然成為吸血鬼女王翼手的女兒﹐簡直把原著故事改得亂七八糟。
最後想說說電影中每逢有小夜的特寫鏡頭﹐我的視線總是被全智賢鼻尖的暗瘡吸引著。心想是否小夜飲人血太燥﹐還是全智賢吃得太多泡菜熱氣。