If you're planning on flying to China anytime soon, you might want to check out Cathay Pacific's new Premium Economy class. From first looks it seems well worth the money for a 11+ hour plane ride.
The addition of a Premium Economy class was way overdue IMO. The price gap between Economy and Business class is extensive. From New York to Hong Kong, an Economy class seat will run you about $1000 (which is very cheap for such a long flight). Want a little extra comfort for the 15 hour journey? Be prepared to pay over $7000 for an upgrade to Business class for which you get this:
Premium Economy will cost you about $2500 for the same route. Is it worth it over economy? You decide. Heres the standard Economy:
The Premium Economy also comes with an amenity kit with a dental kit, socks and eyeshade. All in a dedicated cabin with noise-canceling headphones and improved meal service. It will be phased into the fleet starting with the 777's and the A330's (which fly to Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Vancouver, Toronto, Milan and Australia) followed by the 747's and A340's later.
Of course if money is no object, you could splurge on the First Class mini-suite.
In honor of forever alone day, Id thought I share with you a little story. The story of my first crush.
It all started in eighth grade. I had just transfered back into my home school district (why I left is another story). One day at lunch my eye caught sight of a girl sitting a few tables across from me. She was by herself and had dyed blonde hair. My heart sank, a feeling came across me like no other I had felt before. At the time I didn't know what it was.
I really wanted to talk to her and get to know her more but naturally I was scared and incredibly shy. When I entered High School I was also enrolled in weekly group therapy to ease my transition. After a few weeks I confessed to the group (there were only two others plus the councilor, one being a close friend) that I had a crush on this girl but I didn't know who she was. After describing her and finding her in the yearbook, it was reveled that my close friend was acquaintances with her. My confidence grew knowing that I had someone who knew her.
When I heard her name, it sounded familiar to me. So I looked in my yearbook from elementary school and it turns out that we were in the same class in second grade! I even invited her to my birthday party by coincidence! (I just invited the whole class even if I didn't know them) Thinking back to that party, I remember that I got an unusual gift. It was a hand puppet, and she was the one who gave it to me. At the time, she looked as if she was fresh off the boat (she was born in a foreign country). She had no friends, spoke little English and wore strange cloths. She probably felt obligated to get me something for being invited but had no idea what to get an American boy. So she gave me that puppet, which was probably one of her old toys. I still have that puppet today and I now understand the significance of its uniqueness.
Fast forward back to High School.
For the next few months, I used my friend as a proxy to deliver messages to her. First I asked him to tell her that there was someone who had a crush on her but was too shy to come forward. During Valentine's Day the school had a fundraiser to deliver roses to anyone in the school. With it I included a note about how I had a crush on her, but I still kept my anonymity. Until finally, one day I decided to suck it up and confront her with the assistance of my friend. I forget exactly how it went but I asked if she would want to be friends/acquaintances and she said yes. At that point I was dancing on rainbows thinking I had actually entered some type of relationship with her. The next week I tried friending her on facebook, and when she accepted my friend request, I became even more excited and relieved. As time went on I tried to talk to her whenever I could by bringing up mundane topics to try and build a bridge between us, though most were awkward. Each time I thought out thoroughly ahead of time what I would say to make sure I made a good impression. I was always so worried that I would end up creeping her out.
On occasions like Christmas, her Birthday and Valentine's Day I would always try to give her a card and small gift. Inside the card I would write messages of encouragement and even poems. Like before, I analysed and thought thoroughly about everything I wrote. My goal was to show her how that I appreciated her, respected her and cared about her and - in an underlying tone - loved her. All without creeping her out and scaring her away. I continued this ritual for 4 years.
I thought I was experiencing true love, but one day a bombshell hit me. She changed her relationship status on facebook to "In a relationship". I had a massive breakdown. I cried for two days straight, only to find that she changed it back to "single" a week later. It may seem silly now, but I was a teenage boy filled with infatuation. The attraction felt real, and so did the heartbreak.
Towards the end of 11th grade I began to feel as if this attraction I was feeling was nothing more than teenage puppy love. While she still felt important to me, I understood that I had other priorities. I became less obsessed over her than I was back in 9th grade. I began to understand that she wasn't the one for me. After all, she didn't seem interested at all with a relationship with me. If she didn't love me back, all of my efforts were futile. Only now did I realize this and finally learned to let go.
Nevertheless, she is still a very nice girl who helped me learn what true love really is, and I thank her for that. As the end of senior year approached, I decided to compose one last note to write in her yearbook. I wanted to say that I still have feelings of love for her, but Im ok if she doesn't share those feelings, that I'll find someone else and that I hope she does well in life and finds happiness of her own. That as long as she is happy, I can feel happy.
If you wanted to sum it up in a nutshell, she was my Susan Glenn
During the Super Bowl last week, there was an ad for a Senator's reelection campaign that many deemed, racist. See for yourself (if its not taken down):
Still can't find a download, but once the game is released in China it's only a matter of time before it ends up on the internet. An English version is unlikely so you may need to learn a little Chinese before you can play it right.
Ive had some health scares in recent days. Ok, not "scares" but things to keep in mind. First off I got some blood tests to check my fats, cholesterol and triglycerides among other things. For a while now I have had symptoms of frequent urination, fatigue, weight gain and excessive thirst. All tell-tale signs of...
I was relieved however to find that my blood sugars were not excessively high. It turns out the above symptoms may be coming from excess hormones produced in my thyroid, but I have yet to investigate that issue. They mainly wanted to look at four things: my general cholesterol, my LDL (bad cholesterols), my HDL (good cholesterols), and my triglycerides (carbohydrates). The ideal levels for these are as follows (mg/dL):
Cholesterol: less than 200
LDL: less than 100 (for adults)
HDL: greater than 60
Triglycerides: less than 150
I won't give exact numbers but my cholesterol came out just below 200, which is no cause for concern. My LDL was a little high (just over 100) and my HDL was significantly low. My triglycerides came in the next highest bracket above the normal range, but doesn't fall into the high risk category of 200+ mg/dL.
Partially to blame for this is my diet. Although I shy away from fatty foods, I crave carbohydrates, which is causing my weight gain and high triglycerides. If I were to make a rough breakdown of my diet in my head right now, I think it would look something like this:
Probably not very accurate
Although I dodged the bullet that is diabedes and am in the clear for now, I'm not as healthy as I can be or should be for my age. Exercise would solve almost all of the above problems. Lowering my LDL and triglycerides and boosting my HDL. However like most people, I have difficulty motivating myself to do so. But it also leads into another issue of mine. Hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating).
I love the cold. Unlike most people, I find it comfortable. It has to be well below freezing before I start to complain about being too cold. During the summer, I love the scenery but dread the weather. Even a little of physical activity causes me to sweat buckets. It is uncomfortable and irritating. I makes me dread the thought of exercise even more. Thankfully I am able to take refuge in at least one activity that won't kill me. Swimming. Since I don't need to worry about perspiration or overheating, I can swim until my muscles ache. So Im going to try to swim at my college's indoor swimming pool whenever I get the chance and hopefully get into the habit of fitness.
Another issue of mine is at the dentist. For the past few visits Ive been told my gums bleed too much because I don't brush as much as I should, causing increased blood flow to fight the bacteria that build up. Neglecting this for too long can eventually cause gingivitis (chronic inflammation of the gums). However, it has been improving in recent months. Yet, I have strong teeth and no cavities ever! But in recent months Ive been noticing callus' on the side of my tongue. I was told that these were caused by me biting my tongue repeatedly in my sleep. The bad thing is that forcing your tongue to heal itself from biting injuries over and over again can eventually cause the cells to become malignant. In other words, tongue cancer is the absolute worst case scenario. But given my age and risk factors it's very unlikely. Still, to make sure they want to biopsy my tongue. So at least I have that to look forward to. Most likely I'll end up getting a mouth guard to wear at night to prevent my jaw from closing all the way and biting my tongue while I sleep.
I may not be a prime example of human fitness, but I am grateful to be in overall good health and to be free of disease and other more serious ailments.
Even though it's old, it was a powerful workstation in its day. So I thought that its duel Xeon processors would make up for its age. I thought it would make a decent gaming PC, but I didn't take into consideration was its GPU. I tried running TF2 on and even at medium settings it lagged severely. I thought if I got it a new video card it would run a lot better. Enter the 4670.
Due to the machine's outdated hardware, it would only accept cards with PCI or AGP interface (modern cards use PCI Express). It was hard to find one with decent power that would fit but I was able settle on this, the 4670.
I ordered it from TigerDirect because it was cheaper. But it turns out they only had one in stock and that the card was being discontinued, and someone managed to grab the last one at the moment I ordered it. It was on my bill, but didn't show up for four weeks. So I called TigerDirect and they informed me of the mishap and refunded me. So I reorder the same card from Newegg and 2 days later it's at my doorstep!
Now for the review, installation was easy. I popped in the card, installed the drivers from the CD, and downloaded the patch for the driver. It ran perfectly. First I tried testing a relatively old game (and one of my favorites), Jedi Outcast. It ran perfectly, though this wasn't really much of a test, as it ran great on my old PC when I got the game in 2002.
Next I ran TF2. It ran much smoother and at higher settings, with very little noticeable lag when playing online.
Then I decided to put it to a real test; Call of Duty 4. I was pleasantly surprised. It ran well at normal settings and was quite similar to the Xbox 360 version in terms of graphics. It is however noticeably choppy, sometimes more than others. It's at its worst in the second mission (where you storm a cargo ship in the middle of a thunderstorm), probably due to all of the weather effects. Other than that, it can lag a little if you're in an intense firefight with lots of NPCs.
I also plan to try Halo 2, but if it works well on CoD, I shouldn't run into any problems.
According to the Windows Experience Index, the new card had a score of 6.4 out of 8, which looks pretty darn good IMO. This is without a doubt, THE best AGP card you can buy today. I would totally recommend it for anyone who wants to upgrade an older rig that accepts AGP.
This time it wasn't a technical problem but a people one.
When I was driving to school today I had to change lanes to get to the turning lane. I thought I had plenty of room to move over but apparently it wasn't for him. This guy in a green van starts honking continuously when I move infront of him and when we stop at the light he gets out of his car and walks over to my window and yells more or less, "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT! YOU'RE A TERRIBLE DRIVER YOU MOTHER FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT! FUCK YOU!". Then he spits on my window before trampling away.
This is the first time something like this happened to me. When I saw him in my mirror coming for me I was scared to death. I almost felt like running through the light to get away from him. I wish I had an axe or something for a situation like this.
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