Dear Yahoo!:

What is it about the shower that makes people want to sing?

Barney


Dear Barney:

Much like "How does Paris Hilton live with herself," this is one mystery that may never be solved. (emphasis mine) Although there's no definitive reason why so many love to sing amid the steam and soap, we can offer up a few theories.

As we learned from the San Francisco Exploratorium, the sound of a person's voice actually improves in the small, confined space of the shower. When you sing in an open area, you "basically only hear your voice as it is produced." However, in the shower, the sound waves reflect off the walls, producing a much richer sound, improved bass, and more volume. Goodbye, William Hung. Hello, Bette Midler.

Some theories are less scientific. The book "Sounding the Silence" believes people are inclined to sing in the shower because they feel safe and relaxed. "The quiet solitude creates a space in which our spirit can freely express itself." Or, to put it another way, a shower's privacy allows people to relax and let loose.

In the end, we suspect it's a combination of the improved vocals and the relaxation that comes with being completely alone. It's a comfort to know that once you pull that mildew-stained curtain shut, not only will you sound better, no one's going to laugh if you don't.

[First seen posted by Cryil repost as is][Creative Writing]

My sense of timing has never been great. I like to run at night when no one else wants to exercise. I start new books when I am busy and can't put them down. I focus on my inner thoughts when I should notice other people's feeling. However, last night SzuFang logged on 30 second before I was going to log off. So for once, everything went right and we talked for a bit. It made the usual Tuesday seem lighter, like there is a change in the gravity field. Or maybe it is that my occasional jogging is finally making a difference.

Speaking of bad timing. Blue tagged me near 6 months ago. So here is a reply. Even though late, maybe it will brighten Blue's day, I know the whole event has certainly made me smile.



Tagged by Blue...

The Book Club Tag

What's in a book?
Worlds and possibilities. Stories and windows into other people's lives.

Number of books on the shelves:
A couple hundred probably, I sort of collect books. My real library is digital on my computer though - a couple thousands in selection. (no, I haven't read them all >_<) Those that I own or bought: I love used book stores, it is one of the fastest way for me to waste money. I typed out a few that I like on MSN Space and I own those all.

Last few books that I bought:
"The Art of War" Chinese version with interpretation. "Pencil Drawings for Beginners". "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" by Richard Feynaman.

Book that I'm reading now:
Japanese for Beginners. Book 6 of "The Chronicles of Amber" by Roger Zelazny.

Last few books read:
"The Partner" by John Grisham, "The Broker" by John Grisham.

Seven Things That Scare Me
1. Dying alone and have nothing to show for.
2. Disappointing people
3. Losing my mental facility (Alzheimer, stroke, or other disease)
4. George W. Bush as president
5. Mob mentality
6. Giant giant giant cockroach (like one that is big enough to cover a hand)
7. Possessing great power, I am afraid what I might do with it.

Seven Things That I Like the Most
1. Talk to people I love.
2. Read interesting books
3. Sing, just myself along with mp3.
4. Trying out new things once I have been sufficiently rested.
5. Green Tea Ice Cream
6. 牛奶布丁 (Milk Pudding/Flan)
7. Start silly projects. (Programming, writing, drawing, diet projects...etc)

Seven Important Things in My Bedroom
1. Computer~! (Plus the desk to put it on, chair to sit in front, and light to illuminate)
2. My queen size bed =)
3. Pillows
4. TV (plus its stand)
5. Alarm clock
6. My green plant
7. Clothing (plus its closet)

Seven Random Facts About Me
1. Aquarius, born year of the Monkey.
2. O+, INFJ
3. I keep my computer more organized than my room.
4. A blend of technical and sentimentality that changes in proportion like the phase of moon.
5. Both of my pinky bend in a slight angle, it is a family trait from my father's side.
6. I can survive on 5 hours of sleep for a long time, but I usually need 6.
7. Sometimes I like to be by myself.

Seven Things I plan to do before I die
1. Make a positive difference.
2. Learn Judo
3. Learn Japanese
4. Open a bookstore
5. Learn to sing well
6. Buy a house or two.
7. Live forever...


Seven Things I can do
1. With great pain touch the floor with my fingertip, knees not bending.
2. Wiggle my right ear, left ear, or both at the same time. (i know, i am a freak)
3. Build a computer from scratch.
4. I have been told I grill steak well.
5. Get rid of virus from your computer, assuming it is still bootable.
6. Massage
7. Find something good in everyone


Seven Things I Can’t Do
1. Speak and read Japanese (and i so want to...)
2. Match my cloth
3. Remember my dreams
4. Be in a crowd for days on end, I get overloaded
5. Cook complicated food
6. Lie still when I hear the sound of mosquito
7. Sleep without regret when a book is not finished

Seven Things that Attract Me to the Opposite Sex
1. Interesting conversations
2. Nice person
3. Sense of direction
4. Reciprocal in love
5. Honesty
6. A little imperfection (i know, i am strange...)
7. Cute, pretty, good looking...etc

Seven Things You Say the Most
1. Okay
2. Hello, This is Kailay Corporation (when picking up the phone and I say it in chinese)
3. I have a theory...
4. Tag the word "maybe" before making a statement.
5. oh my goodness
6. How are you?
7. ^_^ (just a smile)

Seven Celeb Crushes (whether local or foreign)
Not actually crushes...I just like their attitude/media image
1. An Indian CNN Internaional news achor woman. (she could be malaysians, i don't know, she just looks middle-eastern)
2. The lead actress in Entrapment
3. Clare Dane (the girl in Les Miserable and Romeo and Juliet)
4. Mandy Moore
5. Avril Lavigne
6. the lead actress in The Mummy
7. Helen Hunt

Tagged: anyone who read this webpage ^_^

It is always interesting to see who links to your site and Technorati lets you do just that. Near the bottom of Technorati Search Page checkout "Website URL Search". I found this function a bit too late, appearantly "Views in Greens and Blues" was linking to me 176 days ago - but now no longer linked. Still, I found the site pretty interesting, a lot of feelings. I especially like her randomly generated quotation tied to a database. When there is time I will look at her codes and see how she did it. I now belatedly link it to my site under Pieces of Me.

The problem about majoring in Electrical Engineering is that none of my engineering friend writes. It might be an ego thing - an unspoken current of thought that wispers, writing is for those liberal arts. Which is kind of a shame, because even though we might be boring and nerdy bunch, I bet we have interesting things to say from time to time. Anyhow, the end result is that I have no one to link my blogs. They don't believe in blogs. They just write the programs that people use to blog. Or, they build computers, maintain their cars, play computer games...etc. Bill still has me linked, but with the Purdue University Webpage, which doesn't work anymore. Last time he updates was May of 2005.

My Thoughts and Ideas About the World updates once a week, at least back in September 2005. I will keep my hope and see if he updates sometimes this year.

The View From Taiwan is kept by a professor in Taiwan. He even left me a couple messages. I had him linked for a while now. He writes everyday, usually serveral times a day, and always on topics related to Taiwan. Writing must be a passion for him. On the same note, HotChocolatte also left me a couple messages, I enjoy her writings. Just Let Me Say It also shows up from time to time, suprisingly she can also read chinese - what are the odds?

Written Words is a blog on american style comics. I am more familiar with Japanese Manga yet the recent influx of movie adapted from American Comics have peaked my interest. One of my quotation/thought made it on to her blog. Her world seems unique and interesting. I have her linked and will go over her site later.

My blog hack - Rotating Header Images made it on to Fresh Blog. It is a technical blog, which is nice, however I have enough technical stuff in my life so I will just forego linking it. Another technical blog e-piphany linked to my Google Analytics article. On that note, Google has stopped offering analytics for free sign up due to heavy load, it is now an invitation only service. You can submit your webpage to them and hope you will get an invitation.

There are a few blogs that link to my "Baba Yetu" lyric article. Civilization Fanatics' Center, Wikipedia, Cynical Smirk, Mob Wisdom, John & Stephi.

These are the people I met purely through chance. Websites and stories I would otherwise not have known if I didn't blog. Now let's see what next year will bring~

New webpage layout on my Blogger blog. Go check it out.

New layout design. I figure my old site needs a new make-over.

The pretty scrolling bar on top is made by Voluptpat Venenatis. The code source and icons are provided on his website.

The "Stick Clock" to the top left is provided by ClockLink. You can pick from dozens of styles and then modify that to your time zone. They even have a countdown clock and countup clock, if you want to keep track of anniversary or major events. I thought about combining a countdown clock with Death Clock Website. Death Clock Website predicts the day you die based on your body weight, height, MBI, sex, birthday, smoking status, and general outlook on life. According to it, I will die on Sunday, December 12, 2077. The design concept is sound but kind of depressing. I might do it later when I am more morbid.

The "Slider" underneath the clock is provided free by code. You can subscribe to different feed or use your own material. I tied my Slider to current events but you can pick from sports, entertainment, video blogs, and everything under the clear blue sky.

I made some effort and checked the site with IE, Firefox, and Safari. I don't own a mac, so I used a Safari Viewer provided by Snugtech. You enter in a website, it will load that site on their Mac computer (with Safari), take a picture, then load the picture to let you see website.

The profile on top right when viewed with Safari turns out to be white and some texts are masked, I don't know why.

There are still some little issues I am working through, but everything loaded in the right place for all 3 browsers. I have an odd line to the bottom right of my Blog Title Scroller. I don't know where it came from, probably a left over because I failed to close a division class somewhere.

There is also the issue of color. The text of my posts show up as gray in Firefox, but properly as black on IE and Safari. This baffles me. I will try to find the cause when I have time.

A new service offered by FastOnlineUsers shows how many people are currently viewing a particular webpage. Surprisingly simple, only 3 lines of code. Even fewer since I took out the advertising ^^;;;

I also placed a Webband on the top right corner provided by OpenMind. They have a couple different style and wordings. There is also another one offered by MakeProvertyHistory.

The Randomly Generated Photos to the left is provided by Flickr. You can choose to generate from the entire Flickr database or just from your own Flickr picture database. It is a new service called Flickr Badge. This one requires sign up and has 2 Badge styles to choose from. But since Flickr is owned by Yahoo! If you have a Yahoo or AIM ID you can just use that ID to sign in. I highly recommend it. It hosts your picture for free so you can share them over the web, the interface and sorting is also the best I have seen.

The 3 by 4 randomly generated Snap Shots to the right side bar is the 2nd style of Flickr Badge. I like this one very much. I tied this badge to my Flickr picture database. However, I only have 24 pictures linked to the Badge so there are some repeats from time to time, I will upload more pictures when I have time.

I also changed from 2 columns to 3 columns. The blog style was originally Rounder4. I found the following links helpful: Add Side Bars on Both Sides and 3 Column Layout. I don't actually recommend you look at my code to figure out how to do 3 columns. I added so many hacks and I quick patched so many holes the code is pretty ugly. It will probably just confuse you.

The other problem with 3 columns is that I have nothing to put there. So I went into Windows Media Player, looked up my most listened to songs last month and typed it in. I also wanted to put up a wish list just in case someone nice wants to buy me something. But alas, I don't have anything I want at the moment. I thought about putting up books I like to read, but I figure no one would want to know that - if you do you can find the answer on My MSN Space.

I got rid of my old randonly generated header picture. I tried to put it on the bottom but it just looks messy.

I kept my randomly generated quotations and placed them to the top of left sidebar. I want to find some new quotations and replace the old one. It will be done sometimes...

I kept the View Visitor Stats provided by Statcounter. It lets you view as a guest the statistics on my website.

I added a search box to the left side bar since my articles are getting numerous; I kept flipping back and referring to old articles which gets annoying.

If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

January 28th to February 2nd was Chinese New Year. 5 days of national holidy means I temperiorily halted my plan of World Domination and took a well deserved break. I did nothing productive, ate lots of food, and slept 10 hours a day.

January 30th also happen to be my birthday. For some reason I got 3 cakes this year instead of one. One of them was Black Forest, named so because of the amount of dark chocolatte that densely populated the outer layer.

Another one is Japanese Stype Cheese Cake. It "relies upon the emulsification of cornstarch and eggs to make a smooth flan-like texture and almost plasticine appearance".

The last one is Tiramisu Cake. It is "an Italian dessert typically made from Lady Fingers, espresso coffee, mascarpone cheese, eggs, cream, sugar, marsala wine, and cocoa. The name tiramisù means "pick-me-up", referring to the two caffeine-containing ingredients, espresso and cocoa".

I think I have already posted the best pictures here on Blogger, the rest are just people you don't know and places far away. The Cakes~ The Cakes are what's important! But if you want to see some more random pictures, there are 3 more sets on the web space given by MSN Messenger.

I injured my thumb, so Judo would have to be put on hold for a little bit, sometimes we don't always get to do what we want, sometimes life doesn't work out to how we plan.

I spent my extra time running now. It is perhaps the one constant thing I always come back to. There is a familiarity to the road that is comforting. It is its nature to be solid and supportive. It has seen me in rage and grief, pain and joy, hope and confusion.

And the road demands so little, just a bit of my time now and then. The conversation would last as long as I want; the road stretches on forever.

Our conversation is simple; a steady rhythmic vibration felt from the bottom of my feet - step after step. There is nothing complicated about running or roads. It is one of the few things I understand. There is beauty in its simplicity.

Whatever problem I may have, running makes it seem smaller. My thought naturally focuses on inhaling and exhaling. The noise of my mind would fade into background. The struggle for breath and air puts other problems into perspective. They become more trivial, more manageable.

It is not often I jog during daylight. I don't jog for the green trees or grass, not for the pretty flower or warm sun; I jog for myself. I found it easier to be myself at night, where it is quiet.

Once a while, even under the polluted sky a few stars would come through. Then it would just be the road, the stars, and me. "Stars are far apart from each other," she says. "They do not have to touch to know each other. They shine at each other from far away." I like that statement, it makes me think how people I know are all connected, perhaps by the ray we generate within.

The pursuit on the meaning of life is universal and eternal. In all the history of man no consensus has been made on this subject. The thought then occurred to me, perhaps there is not just one meaning to life. After all, even a single word contains multiple definitions; thus life, which encompasses all words, would no doubt contain more than one answer.

I have erred in hoping to seek meaning from a universal point of view, like how man hope to track space and time absolutely. Space and time is relative so must be judged from a reference, and this is how i came to view life and its meaning.

The meaning of life depends not only on the point of view, but also of the time. i believe the basis premise of life is the ability to change, influence, reproduce, and survive. The first two factors are closely related, one is the ability to change oneself, the other is the ability to change others or the environment. The last two are equally related. Reproduction is the survival of one's gene and survival is the preservation of one's life. Looking from this way, life at its most basic is change and survival.

The meaning of life then is how we define those two basic things. People view survival differently. Some find family and the continuation of gene to be utmost important. They find meaning in love of family. Other find spirituality to be utmost important in survival, thus they emphasize on religion. Then there are others who think true immortality can only be found in their work, thus projects were built, books were written, and great tombs are constructed. Some find survival in friend's memory and find meaning in that, so they judge friendship important.

Since there is not just one answer, I don't have to declare one truth over the other, I don't have to just pick on meaning and live by it. I may find family more important on New Years Eve, I may find Friends more important on their birthdays, I may find my projects important during work hour. Meaning of life is dependent upon time.

It is also more than that. Life itself is limited by time. If I have eternity then I would find my priority very different from if I have just one more day to live. So partly, the meaning of life is determined by time. An 80 year old man may tell you honestly of the meaning of life and it would not apply to you. Some wisdom is only true when you are at the right stage to receive it.

Well, Seems like the Bush Adminstration is asking all major internet search company to hand over millions of user search data. So far Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL were asked and have handed some data over. Google was also asked but refused inorder to protect user privacy. Here are the details in a couple different sources.

I am sort of sick of all the bad news coming from US. So I am not going to speak ill of Bush adminstration nor will I mention any names - like how Bush is a moron and the worst president in the whole history of United States. Hmmmm, seems like I said it anyways. Sorry >_<.
I am just here to tell you how to protect yourself. There are easy ways to surf the web anonymously. The easiest way is to surf by proxy. There are many many privacy website that serve as a middle point hub, insulating you from contacting the website you access.

In effect, the websites you access won't see you surfing the website, they will only see that middle point hub. These kind of websites are called "anonymizers". I never actually use them because website loads a bit slower when going through a middle point.

The one that is more frequently used on my blog site by other people is anonymization. I am not sure why people come to my site anonymously, I find it slightly amusing. Only about 0.5% of people use them though, I suppose it is better to be careful and surf privately, I just never remember to use it.

Here is a link that compiles all the proxy server and website out there probably a couple hundred links with description. I have not tried any of them. Let me know which one you like better and I will update this blog reflecting your opinion.

"I really hope he calls today, so I can hang up on him."
~Ally McBeal

Jack Taylor said to his 6 year old daughter, "Maggie, when you grow up and are incredibly beautiful and intelligent and possess a certain sweetness that's... that's like a distant promise to the brave, to the worthy, could you please not beat to a pulp every miserable bastard that comes your way simply because you can? Could you not do that?"
Maggie Taylor said sweetly, "Okay Daddy."
~One Fine Day

"This above all: to thine own self be true; And it must follow, as the night the day; Thou canst not then be false to any man."
~William Shakespeare, 'Hamlet,' Act I, Scene iii

"The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues makes them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed."
~Ernest Hemmingway A Farewell to Arms

John after he told Ally he love her: "Well, that‘s the trouble I suppose in coming to people with honesty, they sometimes counter with it."
~Ally McBeal

"Anything you lose automatically doubles in value."
~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966

"There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the affection is the entertainment, we no longer call it dating. Under no circumstances can the food be omitted."
~Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behaviour

If there is a heaven in the religious sense, then all beings must have an equal chance of gaining entrance. I would imagine heaven is full of trees, for trees never seem to do much harm and always good.

Seems like an odd image, I know. Other people's image of heaven is usually white and full of clouds. Mine is strangely full of animals and trees. Human beings are really just one of billions of species. I would imagine by virtue and chance we would only occupy a very small amount of space in heaven.

Recently my friend's cat passed away. It was a good cat. It did no harm except to leather furnitures and shoes. I think if there is a heaven, that cat would be there.

Maybe I am biased, but I hope the gates of heaven doesn't admit too many mosquitos. Even though heaven would be perfect and the mosquitos wouldn't have to drink my blood to live, I have came to really hate the unique sound they make while flying around. I will heed the wishes of cows, pigs, and chicken to stay away from them in heaven. I wonder if mosquitos will listen and stay away from me as well.

Of course, I am assuming a lot by saying I will be in heaven and that heaven exists. Still, it is something interesting to think about.

I have never been very good with deaths. This would have to serve as a tribute to my friend's cat 咪咪. May the cat find peace and many leather things; may each of us find meaning and resolution in our limitations.