The Big Bang Theory

I just noticed that I haven't posted some good stuff for a long time. Of course, my whining is definitely not good stuff. Therefore, I decided to share another awesome shows with you guys. Most of you probably already knew about this show, but just suck it up and read it enjoy what I want to share with you.

Big Bang Theory is a show about 4 very intelligent people (either Ph. D or Master degree) who many people define them as "nerds." Indeed, they show every possible stereotype and have ever possible characteristics of nerds in the show. Though some people may find it a little exaggerating, they do perform very well to make us laugh. However, a story about 4 nerds would probably be very boring after a while, so the staff adds in a girl who is tagged as "the blonde girl" who is supposed to be all looks and no academic knowledge.

When these two totally opposite kinds of people collide, sparks do show. :)

Characters:

Leonard Hofstadter:

Leonard is an experimental physicist whose IQ is 173. He is, of course, tagged as a nerd/geek who plays Halo, Guitar Hero, WoW, and all the games that geeks would play. He has no style about his dressing and has no idea about anything but physics, Star Wars, Star Trek, and all other SciFi movies. Something to be noted: all four of the guys share the same interests, but Leonard somehow is the most normal one out of the 4. Many episodes of the series is about him and the neighbor, Penny.

Sheldon Cooper:

Sheldon is Leonard's house mate who has absolutely no idea how this society works. Although he is a genius who received his Ph. D in his 14, he does not know anything about non-academic stuff. This is why many jokes are evolved around him from his manors. For example, he cannot tell when people are being sarcastic (though he learned a bit as the story goes on :) ). Sometimes he can be really annoying, however, because of his characteristics. Even when people do realize that this is part of him, they just cannot stand how he does things in the show. I personally stopped on one episode simply because he's way too annoying. Whether he's good or bad, he is a unique character.

Howard Wolowitz:

Howard is a the only guy out of the four who does not have a Ph.D, and people sometimes make fun of him for that. Besides his smartness, Howard is known for wanting to get laid. He has many "interesting" pickup lines that will never work on any of the women, yet he does not realize this fact and constantly wonders why he cannot get laid. He lives with his mom and is seen as a little boy by his mom disregarding the fact that he's 27. Howard's fun point usually comes from his stupid pickup lines and tricks to get women. However, some people do find it a little disturbing.

Rajesh Koothrappali:

Raj, the 4th guy of the group. He cannot talk to girls with the influence of alcohol. However, once he's drunk, he becomes a smooth talker. We do not find out about it until later in the first season when Penny tries to take the bartender's job and mixes him a drink. Raj talks to his parents often through webcam. His parents live in India and are apparently pretty rich, but Raj often talks about how he was raised in poverty in India. Although Raj has this distinctive symptom that makes him special, he does not really talk much in the show for the same exact reason.

Penny:

Yes, the blonde girl is here. Penny moves into the same building and becomes Leonard and Sheldon's neighbor in the very first episode. Penny works at Cheesecake Factory as a waitress, but she has a dream of becoming an actress in movies or tv shows (ironic, huh?). Unlike the four guys, Penny possesses good street knowledge but is usually confused by the guys. She has dated many guys but eventually broke up with all of them. She and Leonard have this friend/lover relationship that develops throughout the story. Although she does not know much academic stuff, she eventually learned a lot (well, not only academic stuff but also Star Wars, Star Trek, etc.) by simply hanging out with the guys.

Right now it's on its third season. Each episode is about a different story, but the relationship of the characters do develop throughout the story. If you are interested and have some free time, try this show. It's very funny. :)

It's one of those days......

Midterm weeks have officially started as I have two of them this week and tons of hw following after. You know, after every summer I've always wanted to tell myself: Jonathan, try to enjoy this year. It will be much better compared to the last one.

Well, guess what, an illusion is called an illusion for a reason, and self-hypnosis does not work on me.

Oh yea, btw, I'm supposed to be studying right now for my really important midterm tomorrow, and you all know what I'm doing right now. I just don't have the energy and mind to study now, but I will have to eventually. My rainlender just reminded me that I have a midterm and a MATLAB assignment due tomorrow. Thank you rainlender, but I don't really need this right now. I wish I could be watching espn and enjoying my quiet night right now......

I'm not trying to complain here, but wtf, why does my major have to so hard? And in case you guys don't know, I hate the name Fourier. This name makes my life really really miserable. Actually not just this one, but there are also Laplace, Maxwell, and maybe Gaussian alone with it. Sometimes I wonder why people cannot just chill and not think about all those math problems so we do not have to solve and memorize all the laws and formulas.

My professor made a joke saying that engineers only view this world in two perspective: things that need to be fixed, and things that will need to be fixed. Well, guess what, I think my life needs to be fixed right now. I seriously want to just take several shots and crash on my bed so I don't have to worry about anything after today. Sadly this will never happen. At the end mister Fourier still has to punish me with his transformations, and Gaussian still has to torment me with his laws. Isn't the world wonderful?

I guess this is the price you have to pay after enjoying a nice weekend celebrating your friend's birthday. Wait, I actually spent most of the Sunday studying, so it's more like one night of drink-all-you-want-and-don't-think-about-anything. I gotta say it was pretty fun, except the fact that I slept on a really soft couch so my back started hurting the next morning.

I think I should go back to playing "who blinks first" with my heavy textbook. It always owns me pretty badly for some reason. I guess I can never beat it because I'm just not smart enough to play the game right.

Last words for you guys: living the lab is not fun; living in the library is not fun either, but when it comes to your grade, the words "lab" and "library" are better than the word "home"

Good night guys. May you guys have a wonderful night and may you never have to face what I have to face right now......or more like after finishing this post. Ah......I wish I could watch some How I Met Your Mother or Big Bang Theory right now......

Another sad news? Or should I call it normal?

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4532106

There were injuries after injuries last season, and this may be a sign that it's repeating this year. I'm not saying that this is the only reason why Warriors sucked last season, but it does play some role in it. Now I just hope that this won't affect the rest of the team that much. Oh well, not like they can make playoff this year, so it doesn't really matter. They have a lot to do for the coming season, and the first would be......

FIRE EVERYONE IN THE FRONT OFFICE AND GET CHRIS MULLIN BACK!!!

College Food Series: 碎肉玉米炒辣椒 (Spicy Ground Pork and Corns)

You know......I always find it hard to translate the dishes' names to English......

but anyway, here we go:

Ingredients:

1. corns: 1 can (non creamy)

2. ground pork: 1/4 lb (marinated with salt, sesame oil, a little rice wine, and some corn starch)

3. chill peppers (I like the red ones, they add good color to the dish, but if it's not spicy enough throw in some green, little ones. Oh they are good.)

Procedures:

1. after marinating the meat for around 15 minutes, throw in some oil into a heated cooking pan.

2. throw in the chill peppers and let it cook for about 2 minutes (or until the smell comes out)

3. throw in the meat and cook until it's cooked.

p.s. if you think it's not salty enough, add some salt. DO NOT USE SOY SAUCE. It's going to destroy the color.

4. throw in the corns and cook for 3 to 5 minutes

5. eat!!!!!

It is another great dish to go with rice, and it's awesome for lunch box as well. It's easy, tasty, and fast. Such a good dish huh? :)

College Food Series: 麻婆豆腐 (Ma Po Tofu)

I decide to start this series just because I love food. Haha, it's also a guide of how I successfully made it so I can check back in the future. So here we go

Ma Po Tofu

ingredient:

Tofu: 1 piece

The sauce pack: 1 pack

pepper corn oil: a little

ground pork: 1/4 lb

I use the sauce pack to save some time. After all we the college students don't have that much time on cooking, right?

You can get this in the Chinese grocery stores such as Ranch 99. It's around 2 bucks so it's acceptable.

Procedures:

1. boil a pot of water. We will use it later.

2. heat up another pot (or a pan or whatever you use to cook) and put in some oil.

3. cut the tofu into small cubes (the smaller, the easier the flavor goes in but also the easier it breaks, so it's up to you how big you want it to be).

4. cook the ground pork until it's fully cooked.

5. add the sauce into the pot and stir slowly.

6. meanwhile, put the tofu into the boiled water for about 30 seconds. This is an important step. You might not be able to tell the difference because this dish has a strong flavor, but for other dishes you can taste the "soil" taste in the tofu.

7. put the tofu into the pot and stir slowly. Cook it for about 5 mins.

8. add in some peppercorn oil to give it a good smell :)

9. if it's too watery, make some corn starch water (corn starch + water...DUH!! make sure you use cold water though) and put it in gently.

10. wait until it's saucy but not watery, turn off the fire.

11. eat!!!

It's a great dish with rice. I bet you can eat more than usual with this dish, so dig in!!

How I Met Your Mother

Okay.....so I've seen some depressing stuff on people's blog. It's true that we face things that don't go according to our ways, but that's also the interesting part of our lives, isn't it? Like people always say: when someone gives you lemon, you throw it right back at him you make lemonade :) This show has a lot of realistic stuff and unrealistic stuff. The realistic part makes us think while the other part makes us laugh. For those who are sad or depressed or whatever, go watch some of the episodes. It's really funny.

The story starts with a dad (Ted) telling his kids about his life back when he was late-20 and how he met their mom (yes! the title!). To them, everything happened in the past, but to us, the time in the show goes with our current time. The entire show is a big flashback.

There are five main characters who are good friends with each other. Of course they have to go through some fighting and arguing, but they are still good friends after all.

Characters:

Ted Mosby:

Ted is an architect who seeks for a woman for a long-term relationship and marriage. Throughout the show he gets with many but eventually breaks up with all of them. I'm not gonna talk about the characters too much in case of any spoiler. Watch the show!! :)

Marshall Eriksen:

Marshall is Ted's best friend ever since college. They lived together throughout their college life and still lived together for a while after college. He's a lawyer who's dream was to help the environment protecting organization to fight against the evil corporates. However, his dream doesn't seem to come true any time soon..... Marshall is a tall man who was raised in a "manly" family. All his brothers are taller than him (he's 6" 4') and his dad tried to make him become very manly. The family sure can eat. :)

Lily Aldrin:

Lily is Marshall's beloved woman. They got together on the first day of their college life and have been together ever since. Lily is a teacher at a kindergarten. Although she's kind and sweet most of the time, she does have those moments when she completely turns to the dark side(XD). She's also a painter whose painting is not acceptable to human beings but somehow is to dogs (and it's extremely bad to the birds).

Robin Scherbatsky:

A Canadian news reporter who moved to the US to chase her dream. However she could only work at a station called Metro News 1 that apparently has a really low viewing rate. Robin is introduced in the first episode of the first season. In the episode, Ted did something crazy to try to get her, but at the end the narrator (old Ted) revealed that Robin is only the kids' "aunty". Of course, there's more about Ted and Robin later on in the show, but we do know that they eventually stayed as friends. Robin's thought is kind of opposite of Ted's. For example, Ted wants to get married and have kids, but Robin just wants to chill and have fun in a relationship. She doesn't want commitment (or not yet?) and would not accept Ted's idea. Again, go watch the show. There's so much more. :) Oh yea, the other four always make fun of her for being Canadian or saying Canadian things. It might be a little offensive to my beloved Canadian friends but....I'm sorry it's just so funny XDDDD

Barney Stinson:

I know it's kinda sad to say this, but he's my favorite character. He's a womanizer who pretty much always wears a suit. He apparently worked at some mysterious company that no one knows what it does, and he never told anyone about his job (until certain episode when something happened to that company). He has many crazy ideas of judging a woman or how to get a woman to sleep with him. He also has a set of rules of life. He always says those ideas with the tone of "let me teach you something". In the show we learned why he always wears a suit and how he became who he is now. Barney's role is the comedian and the spice of the show. Without him the show would not be so interesting and so funny. And once more, go watch it.

For those who are college students and are suffering from all the works, I understand how you guys don't really have time, but we gotta loosen up a bit sometimes so we won't drive ourselves crazy. This show can be the buffer in real life. I'm sure it will give you some laughter, and you'll definitely enjoy it. :)

Oh yea, this show also talks about sex a lot (well...we got Barney here) so for those of you who can't take it, don't watch it. But hey, just talking about it wouldn't hurt would it? I say we should just relax and enjoy the show.

This is one of the shows I follow. I've followed many series such as The Office, Heroes (stopped), Big Bang Theory, and House (need to catch up). I'll try to give some introduction of these shows to those who have never seen them before.

Lebron James' Best Dunks

http://www.nba.com/video/channels/top_plays/2009/09/14/nba_091409_lebron_dunks.nba/

This guy is a physical freak.

But I like it :)