The BEST headphones/earbuds period.

I've found them again. They are marketted as the Sony MDR-E828LP. And sells for $10. Yes, you read that right. I bought the same ones about 10 years ago at the UCSD bookstore for about $20 (everything is overpriced there). There is something magical about the Twin Turbo circuit for enhanced bass response. Earbuds in general usually do lack bass, and these don't boost the bass. It just seems like it accurately reproduces them. And for some reason, these are the only earbuds that Sony seems to make that has the Twin Turbo circuit inside. And I do remember my brother listening something with my earbuds and him saying how good they were.

One day, when my dad was driving me home from college, I must have closed the door while half the headphone was still outside the car. And it wasn't salvagable after about 100 miles of driving. I've gone back to the UCSD bookstore more than a few occasions to see if they still carried the same ones years later. But all they sold were the cheaper versions without the Twin Turbo circuitry. And I must have bought those a few times and were disappointed every time. Since then I have gone through about 8 different pairs of headphones and earbuds, spending hundreds of dollars of trying to find something I once lost. Why? The earbuds are that good. You experience music at a much higher level. You can literally close your eyes, sit in a dark room, maybe close your ears to ensure no other sounds escape, and you can get lost in your songs. Its a moving experience.

So just yesterday, I was walking through Walmart because I had just gone through my last pair of descent earbuds, and lo and behold, the only Sony ones they had were the ones I had failed to find in the last 10 years. Maybe I had found them on amazon before, but I had gone with their higher priced earbuds that do not have the twin turbo stuff, and after paying more and more thinking I was going to get something better each time I bought something, I gave up. I have the perfect headphones once again, and I had forgotten how much I used to love being totally immersed in music.

Next time I'm at Walmart, I'm just going to buy 3 or 4 more of these because for some reason Sony is not putting their best technology in their newer earbuds. And even in amazon, they are almost impossible to find if you don't know exactly what you're looking for. They may disappear one day, and earbuds having a life of only a few years, it will be a worthwhile investment.

The only negative thing about these earbuds is that every imperfection in the mp3 is exposed. All the mp3's I got while I had these headphones years back are perfect because I used to download 10 of the same songs, and choose the perfect one. But recently, I hadn't had anything of this caliber to judge the minute differences so all my mp3s are not perfect, and I can hear all the imperfections now. You can hear the differences between the Fraunhofer, Xing, LAME encoders. You can tell differences between 128 vs 160 vs 192 vs 256kbps bitrates.

TV Season is back!

Shows I watch as soon as it becomes available:

The (Celebrity) Apprentice
The Ultimate Fighter
House
World Series of Poker
Top Chef
Nip/Tuck
South Park
CSI (Las Vegas)

Shows I like having on (I like falling asleep to, or watch in the background while I work).
No Reservations (Travel Channel)
Mythbusters
Man Vs. Wild

Shows I plan to watch on an extended vacation (whenever that may be)
Smallville
Naruto
Apprentice UK

Shows I'll watch when I retire
CSI Miami
CSI NY
24

Shows I thought I would never not stop watching, but do not watch currently:
The Simpsons
Family Guy
American Idol

All FOX...Interesting

Oldmanitis

I recently turned 30 a weekend and a half ago. Big three oh.

What is it like? To tell you the truth, I cannot tell. When I'm not brandishing my crows feet (only happens when I really have an authentic smile on my face), I feel like I look about the same as I did in my late teens. Unfortunately, people who can tell that you are older than say a 21 year old is practically everyone else. I can't remember the last time I got genuinely carded out of me looking too young, not because of obligation from the law or management.

I don't know what age your age becomes a factor in your cognitive abilities, but I feel as though I'm sharper than I've ever been. What I've learned (unfortunately after college) is that to learn something, you need to first learn how your brain learn something new. My ability to learn something or solve a problem is always being improved and fine tuned. Its all about maximizing the gain of a new skill and minimizing the time you put into it.

As for strength, today, I bench pressed 145 lbs 8 reps without a spotter. That might sound like a little (or a lot depending on who you are), but I've never been able to bench close to 135 no matter how hard I tried in the past. It was discouraging. But things have changed. I've always read in Men's Health how it is easier to gain muscle starting at 30, than at 25. Something about testosterone. You produce more of it starting early 30's. Thinking back to the caveman days, it makes sense. When you are in your 30's, you gotta build a home for your family, hunt and kill wild animals for food, and protect your family (from predators, enemies, and natural elements). Before you're obligated to do that, all that testosterone probably just makes you an annoying person to be around.

As for my tastebuds, bitter things have more appeal as expected. I used to hate all bitterness, even till my late 20's. But now, I don't mind it at all. I may be even attacted to it. I find myself at the market sometimes exploring new tastes that are dark, rich, viscous, and often pungent. Things you generally hated as a child.

I would have to say that 30 is 10 times better than being 20.

Why I like to eat natto

Natto has an acquired taste. I eat it just about every other day. It may be the most foul smelling Asian foods you can eat, #1 being stinky tofu, #2 being natto, #3 fish sauce and durian being somewhere in the mix, I'd say natto probably isn't that bad. Natto smells pretty much identical to stinky feet. Stinky as in...say...you put on your running shoes with your gym socks on, you accidentally stepped in a puddle, and you decided to just not do anything about the dampness for the entire day. And say you had pretty sweaty feet in general so it just keeps your foot moist all day long. After a long day, you take off your shoes, the smell hits. That is what natto smells like. Right there. I can't describe it any better than that. I can say that the smell of smelly feet can have a high variance, but the exact smell of natto is in that spectrum.

So why do I eat it? Aside from the smell, it is fun to eat. The level of salt is perfect when you're looking for something to snack on. There is a whole process involved in eating natto. The first step is to prepare it with the 2 packets it comes with. The hot mustard and the soy sauce. Separate the top so that you have a discard pad for your packets. Squeeze the hot mustard and soy sauce onto the natto. The second step is the to mix in the soy sauce and hot mustard. And the more you mix, the more frothy it gets. The trick is to mix it up, get it froty, and have a few soy beans. The mixture of froth and some soy beans is what you want to get in your mouth (3rd step). Why? I am not quite sure. But if you don't make the froth, its not the same. When it gets to your mouth, you've undoubtably ended up with some strings of natto (kinda like spider web) on the chop sticks. You really don't want this to hit your chin. The mouth has a ability to clense itself, your chin doesn't. A dry wipe will not do it. So the fourth part to eating natto is to not let the natto strings hit your chin. Use your chop sticks to guide the strings away from your chin. 5th part is keep up the frothyness. The froth will die down when its not constantly stirred. Keep mixing it so you can keep eating it.

Pros:
-Fun to eat
I also found out today that its good for you. From wikipedia:
-Supposedly it helps your blood not clot.
-High in nutrients that helps bone growth.
-May lower cholesterol.
-May prevent some cancers like any soy products.
-Is filling (probably something about its consistancy, frothyness, and gas that makes you think you ate more than you did).
-I can personally verify an unverified claim noted in wikipedia that it does help with digestion.
-Good for your skin.
-Its probiotic.

Cons:
-Gas. They are beans afterall. Also, they are fermented. You can do the math. But in all honesty, it probably smells worse going in.
-Soy has something in them that bonds to estrogen receptors in your body. I have not found conclusive one line statement saying soy will have identical effects to the body that estrogen does, BUT...doctors do recommend that a heavy diet of soy products for young boys is a very bad idea, and there are products like estroven which is like a natural estrogen supplement that is made with soy products. They must exist because they are not a total waste of money. They probably won't give you man boobs (moobs) because if it did, Asia would be the land of moobs, but that is not the case.

So its almost the perfect food. Except the estrogen like effects and the smell. May require more than trying once to acquire the taste, but you may start loving it like I do (and the millions of people in Japan).

Nikon D90, a camera that bridges the gap between beginner to the first time dSLR owner

A phenomena was unleashed today when Nikon released information that the new D90 will be able to shoot 720p video 24fps.

First things first 24fps is the fps used by film/movies. Real film can be shot at a low 24fps because each frame can be motion blurred by having long exposures so that each frame will be seamless into the next. Long exposures takes an insane amount of processing power. To do it right you would need to process something like 24 images shot with 1/25s exposures every second. Looking at samples, on Nikon's website, they are ok, but it still looks like a movie with low fps. In other words, more choppy than cinematic. It is no mistake why they chose more slow moving objects, than say someone briskly walking with arms swinging back and fourth.

A good assumption to would be fair make about users who think video is the next breakthrough in dSLR technology is that they probably don't own a dSLR. Taking pictures with a highly specialized (and expensive tool) was never something they were completely sold on, which is why they don't own one. They might have been on the boarderline of buying a dSLR, but after the video feature was added to the D90, it was the feature that pushed them over the edge. So kudos to Nikon for making it happen.

So today, in the dpreview forums, there was a massive amount of people who were more than in-your-face about the fact that they have finally not chosen Canon in the Canon forums because Nikon made the right move. Is there any point to arguing with a person who wants to buy a highly specialized photography tool with a plan to shoot video? Especially when better video equipment has been around forever. These people are neither photographers or videographers. They are just proud that they've finally made up their mind whether to go with Nikon or Canon.

Seriously, when is the last time you picked up your dSLR and thought "damn, I wish this thing had video?" It just doesn't click.

The phenomena itself wasn't the camera, but the barrage of soon to be first time dSLR owners who all collectively made up their mind that D90 has the extra something they have been waiting to jump on when it comes out. If a Canon one day comes with video, maybe I'll use it once in a blue moon because its there, but I really can't see someone who has photography in their mind giving any weight to the video feature.

Update: After reading the D90 reviews, I take back a lot of things I said about the camera. The video indeed does suck, but the camera itself is awesome, more so than anything Canon has announced recently. Nikon is still in the photography business, Canon seems to be changing their focus so that their features are more appealing to the everyday consumer which is ultimately going to be disadvantageous image quality. Please Canon, no more megapixels. 15 is too much for the APS-C, and I can't imagine what a pain a 21 megapixel raw file will be to handle.

KITH

My first experience at Marie Calendars

When I was young (elementary school/Jr. High), living in Koreatown, my friends always told me how they went to Marie Calendars and how they relished the experience. I used to ask if it was a restaurant, and they'd tell me that they'd have desserts. So it was a place you went to get pie and coffee? It just didn't make sense to me. And that cloudy vision of Marie Calendar remained with me for the next 20 years. What do you do there? Its like a cafe, mostly for desserts and soups? Why would anyone go there for that? And how could it be that good? Well, I went there for the first time on Friday. And it turns out that its pretty much like a Denny's, but of higher quality. Since it was my first experience, I went for the full Marie Calendar experience. That's right. I got the chicken pot pie. That's what they are known for. Just ask Costco. At one time of my life, I really liked chicken pot pies although I've only had one kind of chicken pot pies in my life. I never had a Marie Calendars frozen chicken pot pie (I always thought they were expensive, and one took at the Nutritional Facts sealed the fate that I would never buy one). I only buy the $1 kind with light blue packaging. It was cheap, and I can enjoy it.

So what was the Marie Calendar's pie like? Well, I can say for sure that it was probably the best pot pie i've ever had. But to be fair, its not hard to beat a $1 pie with a $12.85 pie. There is some magic in the crust (probably butter or shortning). When the crust is broken off and dropped into the white cream on the bottom, the stars align. Earth stands still. You spoon the combination of crust and pie center into your mouth, and as you press your tongue to the roof of your mouth, an explosion of goodness happens. The tonge has taste buds for sour, salty, bitter and sweet, but trust me on this one, we have taste buds for fat, and it is revealed to you when you eat something like this. The fat dissolves instantly when it makes contact, and its like someone turned on a switch in your brain, that hasn't been switched on for a long time. And you think "huh....yeah, there is something special about this."

Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling like chicken pot pie, so I didn't savor the experience, but I ordered it anyway to get it out of the way so I never have to wonder. To finish off the original Marie Calendar experience, we ordered individual pieces of lemon marange, cherry, and banana cream pie.

The entire experience itself was ok. I'll go back when I feel like eating some chicken pot pie.