chainwhip's Xanga

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Wed, 25 Oct 2006 07:17:13 GMT

I finally made the move over from Xanga to WordPress - WordPress has great built-in tools and enjoys the support of many 3rd party applications like FLOCK which make blog-publishing a snap (you can compose, edit, upload photos, etc., all in one spot).

la Familia de la Chen

Hopefully, this will help remove some of the roadblocks to blogging. More to come...

>>RSS FEED<< >>LINK HERE<<

Kenzie Chuen-Hwei Chen

Sat, 04 Mar 2006 22:01:59 GMT

Po

Sat, 18 Feb 2006 00:30:23 GMT

Remember Po

Thursday, February 02, 2006

Thu, 02 Feb 2006 20:13:36 GMT

I recently received word that my 二伯 and 堂兄 passed away. The day my uncle passed, my father experienced heart palpitations, irregular heartbeats, and dizziness... Supposedly, both occurred at about the same time (weird?).

My cousin had been in a coma for over a year - he suffered a fall while on a construction job (yes, we Chen-Clan come from plebian/worker/farmer/kung-fu stock) and died shortly before his father.

On the one hand, I'm sad that my childhood buddy (pre-Anglo-word speaking days) has gone. On the other, it's good that both Uncle and Cousin are no longer suffering - released if you will.

We know my Uncle became a Christian, but I'm not sure about my Cousin...

My father's follow-up EKG's and tests came back normal - please pray for him that this was just an anomaly.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Wed, 04 Jan 2006 22:21:12 GMT

It's 2006 now (duh) and I found an interesting compilation of searches according to Google:

http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist2005.html

From WikiPedia:

Zeitgeist is originally a German expression that means "the spirit (Geist) of the time (Zeit)". It denotes the intellectual and cultural climate of an era.

Anyways, so 2005's been a good year. It has been full of ups-and-downs for la familia, but God has been gracious and merciful.

In any event, I hope 2006 will find you blessed - both in relationships and in your communion with our Creator.

Monday, November 21, 2005

Mon, 21 Nov 2005 16:57:11 GMT

0-3 El Clasico - BARCA

I finally got to watch FC Barcelona live on TV (thankyou Torero for carrying GolTV!) - against Real Madrid in El Clasico en Bernabéu no less (arguably the most watched event year-in/year-out in Futbol - akin to our SuperBowl on a non-World Cup year). Both teams are stocked to the gills with world class talent but FCB had (until recent history) been the eternal bridesmaid in the Spanish La Liga.

Some important things happened Saturday night in Madrid - Ronaldinho was applauded by the home crowd (typically a rabidly hostile, anti-FCB stadium) after his two spectacular goals salted away the victory for the away side. This is significant because of the history between the two teams (which goes way back to the Spanish Civil War, but we won't go into that here) and because the only other occurance of this in the modern era was was when the incomparable Maradona (search "hand of God Maradona" in google) rampaged the Real Madrid defense in 1983.

The other important thing to note is the revelation of Lionel Messi in this high-stakes pressure-cooker of a game - the Argentine prodigy was brilliant... Slicing and dicing, making Roberto Carlos look like a little schoolgirl out on the pitch, etc., etc., etc.,

Finally, FC Barcelona's striker Samuel Eto'o scored a goal. Eto'o is a Real Madrid castaway - he wasn't "good enough" (read Raul), "pretty enough" (read Beckham), "marketable enough" (read Beckham), etc., etc., etc., His motivated goal put FCB up 0-1 and made the home side play catchup the rest of the match - forcing Real Madrid to bring in more offensive players (which opened up the defense for Ronaldinho, Eto'o, & Messi to work their magic).

Thanks to the incomparable KingKongRahRahRah for indulging me on an early Saturday morning - trekking down to CrossRoads mall to watch the game with me :)

And to think... Ronaldinho would probably be playing for Manchester United now if it wasn't for that bumbling Peter Kenyon.

Visca Barca!

P.S. If you have a BitTorrent client and wish to watch the game, here's a link to the Torrent: http://www.mininova.org/tor/157447

P.P.S. More insight into this game courtesy of Phil Ball and SoccerNet.com: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=349747&root=europe&cc=5901

P.P.P.S. Goals:
0-1: http://s19.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2WR1H2OBAKB5N0QZCUKQ0M96EY
0-2: http://s40.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=22VUR6LBM89Y839YZXKG4M71WX
0-3: http://s40.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=1WPBWWFE9AVUO1XFJY7EI2Z68K

Monday, October 17, 2005

Mon, 17 Oct 2005 16:18:32 GMT

What's that accent? Wey ya 'at?

When people hear that I'm Chinese and from New Orleans, they first say... "You don't have an Asian accent" often quickly followed by "... and you don't have a Southern accent" - I tell people that people in New Orleans don't necessarily have a Southern accent.

My wife would typically have some input at this point - something like: "He has his own weird accent" - or something to that effect...

Regardless, here's an interesting article about the many accents that make New Orleans such a great melting pot of people and culture:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4961257

Finally, any post w/o mention of food would be a travesty - and here's a quick blurb on NPR about the return of Beignet's to New Orleans!!! Hooray for Morning Call & Cafe du Monde!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4958551

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Thursday, September 01, 2005

Thu, 01 Sep 2005 14:10:56 GMT

Quote:

"It is hard to sit in silence, to watch one's youth wash away... New Orleans is my essence, my soul, my muse, and I can only dream that one day she will recapture her glory."

-Harry Connick Jr.

Loss of Architecture in New Orleans

I've always loved big porches - wide, expansive, and relaxing (chillaxin as my 'lil bro says) - it seems a great deal of the architectural treasure that is New Orleans has been destroyed... much of the the city's idyllic southern/west-indies style houses are gone forever. :(

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/01/garden/01fred.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5094&en=9108c5a06af95a05&hp&ex=1125633600&partner=homepage

I found this cool picture of the inside of the SuperDome:

Here's some links to satellite shots from 8/31 (Dial-up Warning - very large pictures 3+mbs):

http://www.digitalglobe.com/images/katrina/new_orleans_msi_aug31_2005_dg.jpg
http://www.digitalglobe.com/images/katrina/new_orleans_msi_march9_2004_dg.jpg

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Wed, 31 Aug 2005 17:04:22 GMT

Big Easy under Big Water

Many of us are from the Big Easy/South Louisiana area - the weight of this tragedy keeps compounding for me as I see and read more about the effects of Hurr.Katrina.

Here's some sites for you all:

News:

http://2theadvocate.blogspot.com

http://www.nola.com/newlogs/breakingtp

Searching for People:

http://www.hurricane.ragingredfish.com/forum

http://www.katrinacheckin.org

You can send help at:

http://www.redcross.org

We're praying for our friends and family back home - let us know how we can help.

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Tue, 30 Aug 2005 15:56:42 GMT

CyberWar with China

There's an article being circulated around security circles regarding Chinese CyberSpying:

***Time Article Here***

Quote:

Carpenter had never seen hackers work so quickly, with such a sense of purpose. They would commandeer a hidden section of a hard drive, zip up as many files as possible and immediately transmit the data to way stations in South Korea, Hong Kong or Taiwan before sending them to mainland China. They always made a silent escape, wiping their electronic fingerprints clean and leaving behind an almost undetectable beacon allowing them to re-enter the machine at will. An entire attack took 10 to 30 minutes. "Most hackers, if they actually get into a government network, get excited and make mistakes," says Carpenter. "Not these guys. They never hit a wrong key."

Given how easy it is to hack networks, this is really scary stuff - plus, it helps the IT Security budgets when you have something like this to scare the bean-counters and pointy-hairs. ;)