Ah Ying eh Blog - 阿盈的部落

Monday, 25 March 2013

Sheldon Cooper

(Since Jim Parsons turned 40 on 24th March, and since I'm currently having mind block for my travel blog, I have decided to blog about Sheldon Cooper and continue my travel blog later)

In my heart, there's always a soft spot for physicists. I always believe that in our 红尘, in the academic world, they are those that closest to the truth. I love the intelligent and child-like Einstein, I adore the multifaceted Richard Feynman, and I even understand why that young lady fall in love with Yang ZhenNing.

So, I think it is pretty logical that I love the fictional physicist, Dr. Sheldon Cooper (B.S., M.S., M.A., PhD., ScD., and OMG :p ), one of the funniest and most original character on television.

A recently discovered species of bee in Brazil was named Euglossa bazinga.
An asteroid was named 247247 Sheldoncooper.

Looking at the facts above, I'm sure I am not the only one who love Sheldon Cooper.

Even though Sheldon Cooper is just one lab accident away from being a super villain, even though he is super annoying with inflated ego, still, everyone loves Dr. Sheldon Cooper.

I love the geeky Sheldon. Even though I am not a Trekkie, I like the fact that he speaks Klingon. I think only person that can speak Klingon qualified to be a real Trekkie.

I love the way he is specific and accurate about everything. He would blow his nose into handkerchief and ask others whether this is moss green or forest green; When he is to pick his car colour, he specifically wanted the 'light blue of Luke's lightsaber was, before the digital remastering'; He describes Acrophobia as not a fear of heights but fear of falling; I love how he explained his spot "In the winter this seat is close enough to the radiator to remain warm and not so close as to cause perspiration. In the summer it is directly in the path of the cross breeze created by the opening windows there and there. It faces the television at an angle that is neither direct, thus discourage conversation, but not so far wide as to create a parallax distortion"; "Love is in the air? Wrong. Nitrogen, Oxygen, Argon and Carbon Dioxide are in the air"; "It's not a cartoon, it's anime" etc.

I love how he and his friends fond of comic books, costumes, role-playing games, video games, collectible card games, action figures, fantasy, science fictions. I am not as crazy but I could always understand the fondness. I guess when other people look at how excited Wei Wei, En En and I talk about the movies / games / TV series that we love, they may think we are flibbertigibbet too.

I love his vintage T-shirts, be it superhero logos or the Philips Test Pattern or the Melting Rubik's Cube or the super crazily geeky "73" (Sheldon says “The best number is 73…. 73 is the twenty-first prime number. Its mirror, 37, is the twelfth and its mirror, 21, is the product of multiplying (hang on to your hats) 7 and 3. In binary, 73 is a palindrome: 1-0-0-1-0-0-1, which backwards is 1-0-0-1-0-0-1.”). His vintage T-shirts had made me fall in love with t-shirts all over again. Wei Wei and I have been "window shopping" for TBBT t-shirts online for quite some time.

I also love the fact that he is always very sure of himself in a lot of ways. "You know me to be a very smart man. Don't you think that if I were wrong, I'd know it?"

CBS released photo: Jim Parsons & Leonard Nimoy on the set

Sheldon Cooper is one of the most "spot on" and successful character in recent sitcom universe. The Big Bang Theory writers working very hard to put every possible imaginable nerdy awkward moment into Sheldon's character. He is the crazy smart that everyone loves to hate, and yet, Jim Parsons has successfully turned him into one of the most adorable character in the fictional world.

Thank you, and happy birthday, Jim Parsons.

Sunday, 24 March 2013

Sin City

The Las Vegas Strip

Las Vegas is a very interesting city to most people. Not me and Sheldon. (Dr. Sheldon: You know, I'm given to understand that there's an entire city in Nevada devoted specifically to help people like Howard forget their problems. They replace them with new problems such as alcoholism, gambling addiction and sexually transmitted diseases.)

It's not that I didn't enjoy my visit there, it's just that I'm not so keen on casinos, entertainments and shopping. The one thing that I really can relate with and makes me really love the idea of visiting Las Vegas is CSI, one of my all time favorite TV series :) However, we didn't take any "CSI tours", all the advertisements seems a bit stupid to me.

We started our Las Vegas trip by doing shopping at Las Vegas Premium Outlets. Before we got ourselves accommodation, before we had our proper meal, before we did anything else at Las Vegas, we went straight to the outlets and had great time shopping. Both of us had almost equal share of spending and fun. It is a bit crazy for me, maybe once in a life time experience.

After the shopping, we drove along Las Vegas Boulevard for the scenic night view, and also to pick a hotel that we'd love to stay. Since there are so many hotels along Las Vegas Strip, it's hard to choose. We decided to let Agoda to make the decision for us. We drove to McD and use the free wifi, went to Agoda website, set the filter with "Las Vegas Strip", "5 Stars" and "below USD100" and agreed that the first hotel that come out from the search should be the one.

This led us to Flamingo Hotel, which happened to be a great deal! I dropped Ching Ching at the lobby so that she can check in while I waited in the car. When she finally completed the check in procedure, she came out with an expression that shout UNBELIEVABLE! This 5 stars hotel cost us only USD45, even after tax it's only USD50.40. This is the cheapest hotel we stayed for our 15 days South West USA trip!

Since we were way below budget for accommodation, we decided to spoil ourselves with some great meals (食餐豪的!) We went to the Olives at Bellagio, found ourselves a great seat at outdoor, just besides the fountain at Lake Bellatio. 3 minutes later, a waiter came and told us that the kitchen is closed. We checked our watch and surprised that it's already 10pm!! and we haven't had our dinner!!

So, no great dining experience at Las Vegas for us. Almost all fine dining / contemporary dining restaurants are closed after 10pm. We ended up having down to earth meal at our hotel.

The next morning, we started our day with great breakfast at Serenipity 3, at Ceasars Palace. The restaurant is cheerfully decorated in orange and pink (a very strange colour combination but turn out surprisingly pleasant). We had our breakfast at the patio. It is fun to have small talks here while most parts of Las Vegas is still asleep.

After the breakfast, we started to walk along the Strips. It's totally different view and experience as compare to night time. There were less tourists in the morning, which means we could take a lot of photos without strangers in them. It also means we could take our own sweet time to walk rather than rushing along.

After exploring the Strip, we, just like any other tourists, went to Freemont Street. Of course, we were supposed to visit this place the night before, but we were too exhausted then, we decided that the Freemont Street can wait.

Freemont Street is not interesting at all during day time. We did some souvenirs shopping, and the little girl went to weigh herself under the sign of "OVER 350 lbs EATS FREE!" Of course, she is way below target even with her backpack.

Before heading to Big Bear Lake, we HAD TO take photo with the famous Las Vegas sign!

We were very surprise to see the super long queue, and we were not as patience as these people. So, instead of waiting in the queue, we decided to stand beside the queue, and had our post ready. As soon as the other tourists finish their photo shoot and before another one come into the picture, we could take some fine pictures :)

So this is how your picture looks like if you refused to wait in the line:

Saturday, 23 March 2013

Hoover Dam without Transformers

We HAVE TO visit Hoover Dam, of course it is an engineering wonder, but more importantly, we watched The Transformers :) [Who knows maybe there is actually a secret base of Sector Seven here. haha!]

We reached here late and missed the last guided tour of the dam. Since we can't tour and learn about the inside, we decided to walk around and take some photos before heading to souvenir shops for some Transformers / Hoover Dam fridge magnets.

It's a very warm evening. The sun light made it hard to take good photos, but I still love the fact that all the photos are with blue blue sky :)

I have watched documentaries about Hoover Dam before, so I could understand why the Americans are so proud of this dam. This engineering wonder was built in year 1933, and I think it is safe to say that it helped the born of the Sin City Las Vegas.

Walking near the penstock towers was fun. I couldn't help but imagine a few Transformers will land on this place any minute from now and start fighting and I couldn't help start calculating the odds of getting out of here alive :)

After a short walk around the area, we finally ended up in the souvenir shop. Both of us was SOOOOO DISAPPOINTED with the souvenir shop at Hoover Dam. The souvenirs sold are with very bad quality, and super expensive! The fridge magnets / T-shirts / mugs are all badly printed with some lousy photos of the dam. And believe it or not, I still manage to find some year 2000 magnets, still on sale!?

And of course, most importantly, we don't see a single image of Transformers. I thought it should be a good way to sell Transformers at Hoover Dam? (Well, maybe this is just some crazy ideas from a non-American-tourist)

So, even though we'd like to buy a fridge magnet at every stop, both of us decided to skip Hoover Dam. Better continue our journey to Las Vegas before it's too late (Or it is never too late to reach Las Vegas?!)

On our way out, we saw a "vista point" and hence, as usual, I MUST go there and have a look. And what a surprise, Lake Mead looks so good from here. A very good conclusion for our Hoover Dam visit :)