Some Acura commercials
Just for fun -
Marriott Rewards: Pros and Cons
(Copied from a friend’s website)
Pros:
- They have a lot of properties in North America. If you are a business traveler, when you travel to some remote areas where there’s no full service hotel around, Marriott chains may still be available.
- Consistency: all their rooms are very similar to each other and offer consistent service.
- Relatively lower requirement for redemption at its “high-end” Cat. 7 properties.
Cons:
- Bad elite recognition at its own properties and hard to achieve elite status. As a GOLD elite (50 nights) or PLAT elite (75 nights), you will only get upgraded to lounge floor with access to lounge or breakfast coupons. No late checkout or suite upgrade like what SPG offers. You only get one category upgrade as a PLAT member at some resort properties.
- All their properties look similar; you cannot find any luxury properties other than the Ritz-Carlton hotels. In contrast, other chains typically come with some super luxury hotels. Even worse, you cannot accumulate points while staying at Ritz-Carlton, so probably it should not be considered as part of hotel chain.
- Award rooms are typically capacity controlled; you will need to double your points if there is no award room available. In contrast, SPG and Hilton have no capacity for standard room redemption, as long as they have a standard room for sale, you can redeem it.
Louis Vuitton: Where will life take you?
Saw this advertisement for Louis Vuitton on TV. Liked it a lot. Life is a journey.
“What is a journey?
A journey is not a trip.
It’s not a vacation.
It’s a process. A discovery.
It’s a process of self-discovery.
A journey brings us face to face with ourselves.
A journey shows us not only the world,
but how we fit in it.
Does the person create the journey,
or does the journey create the person?
The journey is life itself.
Where will life take you?”
Fuji F40fd becomes my pocket cam
For a while I have been looking for a pocket camera to replace my good old Contax T2. My specs are simple:
- Fast startup and decent shutter lag;
- Good image quality even in high ISO (~800);
- Solid but small build easily fits into my pants pocket.
So I grabbed the Fujifilm F40fd when it became on sale for $130 on B****Camera.com (the rebates ends March 30th, hurry up guys!), and have been very pleased with my purchase.
Below is a photo at ISO 400 of the Fujichrome Provia 100F slide film. It might well be my last roll of Fujichrome… And I was shooting a roll of Fujichrome with a Fujifilm, how interesting was that!
Cloverfield: Surprisingly Better Than Good
As I walked into the theater, I knew it would be good. After all, it is JJ Abrams.
An hour and half later, as I walked out of the theater, I thought it actually was surprisingly better than what I had expected to be “good”! In fact, I totally enjoyed it! It was this dramatic, “Blair-Witch-Project” style that had me held my breath all the way through. And yeah, the best part was the un-Hollywood ending, which I’m sure will stay with me for a long long time.
There might be a million ways to make a movie suck, but only one or two to make it great. JJ made a great one, again.
From WM5 to WM6
Since the release of Windows Mobile 6 last February, there had been a ton of Samsung Blackjack users who were complaining about AT&T not releasing the ROM of WM6 - and I was one of them. Earlier this month, when I was attending CES ‘08, I actually talked with someone from the Microsoft Windows Mobile team regarding whether or not there would be a release, and the answer I got was a “no”.
So imagine my surprise and joy, when I learned today that AT&T has just released the ROM of WM6 for Blackjack users to upgrade their cellphones’ OS! I downloaded the ROM, hold my breath, and followed the detailed upgrade instructions - trust me, it was a fun experience to install Windows on a cellphone… Anyway, after about half an hour’s work, my Blackjack finally got a nice facelift. In addition to all the improvements over WM5 and the bundled Office Mobile, I’m also quite happy to find out that in WM6, Google Maps Mobile’s “My Location” function works, although it didn’t work at all in WM5. :)
