Ugetsu Monogatari

This week's movie was Ugetsu Monogatari, by Kenji Mizoguchi.

World Cup Final

Today is the final of World Cup of, ... well, cricket, a sport I knew nothing about except the name. Recently my friends from India and Sri Lanca, where cricket is very popular, kept talking about the games. So, I went over their place and watched the last couple of hours of the game. A game is usually around 8 hours because they play shorter version in World Cup. (The longer one lasts for 5 days.) Thanks to their explanation, now I know at least how they play it.

Picnic

Today was a picnic at Bryan Park. We played regular Frisbees and Ultimate Frisbees around here. (The satellite image of Google Map has gotten better even in this small town.)

Falafels Flavors From Jerusalem

Today's lunch was at Falafels Flavors From Jerusalem. It's a Israeli restaurant.

My Laptop is Back

My laptop came back this morning. It was fast. They seem to have replaced the mother board, which they call planar card, and the keyboard. I thought it was a problem of the fan or somewhere around, but anyway, the problem was fixed.

By the way, it's still handled by the IBM repair center, not Lenovo's.

Life without My Laptop

As I wrote in DVD Encoding in a Fridge, something has been wrong with my laptop, ThinkPad T60. I finally sent the laptop for repair. Thanks to Web-based email, schedular, blog, RSS reader, bookmark synchronizer, and memo combined with classic services like IMAP and CVS, I could easiliy move my working environment to other computer. But, still something is totally diffent without the laptop.

Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (Mr. Hulot's Holiday)

I watched Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot by Jacques Tati. It's a comedy and somewhat similar to Mr. Bean.

Actually, there will be a parody by Mr. Bean, Les Vacances de Mr. Bean.

Bombay House

We had lunch at Bombay House.

Sending a Package to Taiwan

I got the address to send in Chinese. Not even knowing how to pronounce it, I went to a post office and copied the address to the envelope. Because it contained non-printing materials, an post officer asked me to fill in a customs declaration form in English. Well, I need to go back to the post office tomorrow.

DVD Encoding in a Fridge

When I encode MPEG2 using my laptop (ThinkPad T60), it becomes very hot and either suspends or turns off automatically. I had the same problem last summer with my old ThinkPad X30, but I was disappointed that the same happened to the new T60.

I probably need to send back the T60 to check because it's still withing the warranty, but to circumvent the situation, I put the T60 in my fridge last night. When I woke up this morning, the encoding was done. (Of course, the computer was suspended because it's out of battery.)

ToDo List for Google Calendar

I have been using the ToDo gadget for Google Desktop to keep track of my ToDo list. But, somehow the Google Desktop nowadays uses a lot of CPU in my environment (probably after the recent update, I'm not sure). So, sometimes, I need to disable the Google Desktop. Then, of course, I cannot access to my ToDo list.

I searched a bit and found this (Google Operating System: ToDo List for Google Calendar) and decided to give it a try.

La Sirène du Mississipi (Mississippi Mermaid)

I watched La Sirène du Mississipi by François Truffaut.

Madama Butterfly

I went to watch an opera, Madama Butterfly, with my friends.

Local Google Calender

Although I haven't tried it by myself yet, this seems useful. It is still its early stage, so it has several restrictions, but we can hope for its future.

Edit (4/16):
I tried by myself and it turned out that it was not so useful because the Google Calendar provider doesn't cache the entries. If you cannot use it offline, what's the point of using Google Calendar from a standalone application? We'll hope for the future.

Cafe Ami

We had a Korean buffet at Cafe Ami for lunch this week.

Casablanca Cafe

This week's lunch was at Casablanca Cafe. It was a Moroccan restaurant. I had paella. It was really good.

Snow

Last weekend, we had a very good weather. That's why we even went hiking. But today, it went back cold again. It even snowed a little.

Nationality

When I told people that I had an engagement ceremony in Taiwan, two questions drew my attention. First question is "I thought you were Japanese." and the second question is "Did you get engaged with a Japanese working in Taiwan?" Even in this age, a lot of people seem to assume that people get married among the same nationality.