The World of Little Little Bird

I was doing my laundry late last night. When I went to pick up my clothes around 12:30am, I saw a small bear outside my apartment next to the stairs. It was a small one with greyish fur. It is like 50 pounds. I stared at it for 5 seconds. Both of us were scared by each other. Finally, it ran away quickly before I backed off. Anyway, my size is much bigger. :)
I told my roommate about the bear this morning. He said it might be a raccoon. He saw one raccoon near his office building once. That makes some sense. If it was a bear, I should feel very lucky that it didn't come at me.

The Auto insurance in Texas is crazy. I called an insurance agent for a quota, it was $450+ for half a year with only about half of the coverage that I got from my current Pennsylvania insurance. Moreover, the $450 didn't include the $100 deductable comprehensive in my current plan, which will cost me another $130 in Texas. I do like my current plan, but unfortunately, the insurance company, American Commerce doesn't carry business in Texas. I called AAA agents, and finally got a $300- plan with minimum coverage under Texas law.

I went to the drivers license center at lunch time today. After a long explanation about my expired visa, the agent finally accepted my application. He took my Pennsylvania License and told me that I had to wait for 2-3 weeks to get Texas License from mail. Totally freaked out.

I got my car registered in Texas during today's lunch time. In Pennsylvania, AAA helps do car registration. However, in Texas, I had to go to the county tax office. I got two Texas plates and a registration sticker. They cost me $180. Damn, I was happy saving money on car inspection just two days ago. Now, I paid off in double. I still need to go to the DMV for my Texas driver license tomorrow. It will cost me at least another 30 bucks I guess. As well, my car insurance and AAA membership will expire in a month. Sigh, I'm getting broke.

I've been futile during the past week mainly because of the paper due and the miserable Wednesday. Anyway, I'm working hard today to be more productive. :)
Rockets got an awesome win this afternoon at Dallas. Go, Rockets!!!

AMD is planning to move all its designers in Austin to a new site, by which communications and productivity can be enhanced. The new site was selected at an environmental sensitive area called Lantana. Environmentalists are opposing us. Here is what they claim.
StopAMD

My car has been accompanied me from Pittsburgh to Austin for about two years. Last year, I did my Pennsylvania inspection in Pittsburgh. I drove my car to the garage at 8am and waited until the afternoon to get it back. It costed me like 50 bucks. Today, I drove my car to a gas station one block away. It took only 15 minutes, and I left with the sticker on the window shield. The price is $12.50. In this case, I love Texas. I'll go and apply for the Texas registration next week.
Different from Pennsylvania, Texas requires two plates, on in the front and the other in the back. Kelvin told me that when he put his front plate in California, he bought a hand drill, punched two holes in the front bumper, and screwed the plate on. So, I've been kept an eye on the drills for quite a while. The cheapest one that I see is like 10 bucks. I had no luck to get a $5 drill as Kelvin did. Today, when I was waiting for the inspection, I tried to borrow a drill from the garage. The technician looked at my bumper and peeled something off. Oh, my god. There are four holes hidden on the bumper. Wow! I don't need to drill them. I'm a little surprised at my stupidity. :P

April 20th, it is a miserable day to me. All bad things happened to me. Sigh~~~

Video Stream
http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/2005/04/16/v20050416000115.html

It is said on the internet that 中国17城酝酿周末反日大游行.
Meanwhile, I got one email in my online.sh.cn mailbox. :) I posted it here:
From:
shdata@mail.online.sh.cn Add to Address Book
To:
allusers@online.sh.cn
Subject:
告知所有上海热线的用户
Date:
Wed, 13 Apr 2005 18:48:11 +0800

市公安局治安总队重申：
1.根据法律规定，游行要经过批准。群众表达爱国热情要有序、理智、合法。
2.冷静、理智、合法、有序表达爱国热情。倍加珍惜安定团结政治局面切实维护上海社会稳定。
3.通过正当途径，表达爱国热情，自觉遵守法制，自觉维护秩序。

AMD wins gong at Intel bash
AMD CAUSED something of a ruckus last night by winning the Computer Trade Show award for Best CPU Manufacturer at a shindig sponsored by Intel.
Awards, presented by Intel, were given out throughout the night. However, the Intel lady left the AMD award until last, and walked off the stage rather than present it personally to a jubilant set of chaps.
We got some blurry 3am bar-room photos of the award itself, which AMD were said to be delighted with. There's a nice big 'Sponsored by Intel' logo in the corner. How wonderfully ironic.

Wall Street Journal is delivered to our apartment every weekday. Neither I nor my roommate subscribes that. It has been happening for about 2 months. At first, I thought they might give us a couple of free ones to attract us for subscription. I kept the newspaper and hoped I could read them when I had time to improve my English. However, it is delivered every single day. So, our living room was soon packed with bags of Wall Street Journals. I finnaly trashed two piles (about 30) unread WSJ's last week. It is pretty weird to get unpaid newspapers.

Tomorrow, April 8th, is SJTU's 109th birthday. Happy birthday!
SJTU was founded by Xuanhuai Sheng back in 1896. I was admitted in 1996, when she was 100 years old. Wish her being better and better.

Go to maps.google.com, select "Satellite" mode from the top right corner, and type in your address. It rocks. Here is how I find ECE department of Carnegie Mellon University.
5000 Forbes Ave Pittsburgh PA

CVS is clearing their Midiland Home Theater (with DVD player) out this week for only 30 bucks. I went to the two CVS nearby, but either had it in stock. Don't have luck on this deal.

Finally, I submitted the final version of my DAC paper. I have been working on it for quite a while. Now I need to move forward on to the ICCAD paper due April 20th. Hope it will be accepted as well. God bless yaping!

Three days ago, when I posted a message on this blog, it generated an error message to me. I tried five times, but failed with the same error every time I attempted. However, after 3 days, all five identical messages showed up, as if I was an idiot. Today, the same error occurs again. I'm only posting this once and will wait three days to see if it posts. :)

It's gonna be the day light saving time from tomorrow on. I'll lose an hour of sleep tonight. :(
Gangs of California are having a party right now. Wish they have fun. :)