Japanese indeed knows how to draw the cuties! This animation movie tells a very simple story and the logic is somewhat weird. But none of those matters when Ponyo, a goldfish who later turns to be a girl, and Sosuke, a five years old boy, are together, ridiculously endearing and adorable. It melts my heart. There are also famous voices as Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, and Tina Fey.

If I have to find a plus side of a long distance relationship, it is that I am able to actually read during the long flights. By reading, I meant reading actual books, not magzines, newspapers, or all the fictions/reports/forums/bbs on-line. It's like, with all the TV programs, movies, internet and everything, we don't evem have enough time to live, let alone "wasting" three or four hours merely sitting there and reading a book. But now I have all the time I want! Well, not really, but still...

However, by no means am I reading those famous literature, like I haven't had enough headache already. What I really read in last a few flights are:
Red Sox Rule: Terry Francona and Boston's Rise to Dominance
Now I Can Die in Peace: How ESPN's Sports Guy Found Salvation, with a Little Help From Nomar, Pedro, Shawshank, and the 2004 Red Sox

The next book I might try is Grant Wahl's The Beckham Experiment. I read an excerpt from SI.com and found it pretty fun. Donovan rips Beckham in the book, accusing him lack of dedication or commitment to the team and the league, especially after his loan move to Milan. He said and I quote, "My sense is that David's clearly frustrated, that he's unhappy and, honestly, that he thinks it's a joke". Well, Landon, did it ever occur to you that, compared to playing in Milan, it is kind of a joke, isn't it?

So, I upgraded my iPhone to OS 3.0. And now copying/pasting on iPhone is no longer a dream! It's really really handy, along with the feature of shaking to undo. There's one problem with the new OS though is that a line would flash across the screen if I open another app while on the phone. Anyways, here's a summary of the downloaded apps that are currently on my iPhone, grouped into several categories:

Those which I can't live without:
TwitterFon - One of the most popular Twitter apps. Simple and neat. I use it to follow Boston.com's sports section, SportsGuy, and Andy Roddick (among others). Currently it sits on the dock with Phone, Mail and Safari.

TWC - The Weather channel. Much better than iPhone's own weather app.

Bejeweled 2 - Game. I actually spent $$ on it and it's being an efficient way to kill time (and battery life).

At Bat Lite - I use it to have a quick glance of everyday MLB scores.

Sportacular - And then catch all the Sox game actions on it, if I'm not in front of the TV.

Those which make my life easier:
Shazam - An amazing music discovery engine.

Air Sharing - Downloaded it when it was free. A wonderful app. Could upload lots of docs.

Units - A simple unit conversion utility. I still need assist to convert between F and C.

SnapTell - Snap a pic of a book and it will show its info on amazon and other websites.

Bloomberg - Tracking stock market movement and news.

Now Playing - Movie information. Somehow I don't really trust it and always go to movieticket.com to do a doublecheck. Why do I bother?

Cardstar - Save all my membership card information. Yet to try.

Those which are good to have:
Dictionary, Wikipanion - Although I usually google the new word that I want to know about, they are still good to have.

Scribble Lite - Sometimes I might want to draw.

Flashlight - Maybe it'll be useful in the dark

Those which I don't really use now but somehow I haven't deleted:
Moonlight - A game I spent $$ on, but now I have lost my interest.

Cubes Lite, Matches, Sudoku, Tris, FML - Other free games that I haven't played for a while.

iTalk - Since OS 3.0 has Vioice Memos, it's essentially useless now.

刚刚看到WSJ上说出第三代shuffle了，赶紧跑到Apple网站上去看。awwwww，简直是ridiculously cute！挠墙ing~

新shuffle比一节AA电池还小，是我那只的一半（我觉得二代就已经小巧可爱得不行了），但有4G内存（4倍于二代），价钱保持$79不变。控制按钮现在改在耳机线上，而且还可以通报歌曲，歌手或者playlist的名字。

啊，我一颗果轮的心又开始汹涌澎湃地荡漾了~

ps: 不知道为啥，我的safari 4 beta版特别慢，尤其是当页面有很多图片的时候，比如说google image的时候，那速度简直是不能忍受。奇怪的是，这个还被claim成最快的浏览器，我是不是应该卸载了重新装一遍？不过那个top sites feature的确很酷。

HBP的第一个trailer终于出来了！

小Tom Riddle的面貌终于揭晓，很可爱的小男孩，还有点baby face。我就说看上去还蛮像成年后的Voldemort，结果看了报道才晓得那个小演员就是Ralph Fiennes的侄子。在Trailer里面，当长相很甜美的小正太用很阴冷的口气对Dumbledore说，"I can make things move without touching them. I can make bad things happen to people who are mean to me. I can speak to snakes, too. They find me, whisper things"的时候，还是挺渗人的。还有最后那句对话：
Harry: Did you know, sir? Then?
Dumbledore: Did I know that I just met the most dangerous dark wizard of all time? [a beat] No.

热烈期待十一月份电影的上映！

3G Iphone出来了，看了review之后，我终于再也按捺不住，泣别Verizon，跳入了AT&T的怀抱。

买iPhone就很折腾，我们去了三次Apple Store，第一次是iPhone出来之后两天，排队的人狂多，我们看了看就走了。第二次是一个星期后，排队的人倒不多，可半个小时候快到我们了，店员说黑色的已经out of stock了，只有白色的，我们想了想还是算了。三顾茅庐是第二天，正好星期六，lh中午打了个电话过去问还有没有8G的，对方说有，我们就赶紧去了，队都排到店外了。我们很有先见之明的带了两本书去，所以还不算太过无聊。四十分钟后，店员出来说8G的都卖完了，我们想了想，忍了，于是又排了四十分钟后，买了16G黑色的，299美刀，family plan每个月130$。忍了。

之前看到BBS上有人把新iPhone骂的狗血喷头，说什么GPS太烂，不能开flash，不能P2P，等等。我觉得这要求的也太高了。本来也就一手机，难道要求他的GPS比专业GPS都好？flash不能看我也觉得没啥，至少我去的网站里用flash的不多。不能P2P这个指责也太搞笑了，用手机BT电驴？想出这个主意的人真是天才。

CNET上的review提到iPhone的GPS在行车的时候反应不够快，我们试了一下还可以。倒是提到的电池寿命是个big concern。我第一天用3G上了不少时间的网，回家的时候电量就不够了。不过一个星期以来我已经积攒了不少节省电池的tricks，所以也不用太操心。

我以前的Phone都是很原始的，猛然用上smart phone还真是爽。感觉iPhone样样都能（虽然也许门门都瘟）。打电话，查邮件，上网，还有一些小软件可以查球赛比分，股票信息，各地新闻什么的，很方便，还有写小游戏。而且样子也cute。lh之前本来不想赶时髦买iPhone的，但是看了看其他smart phones，比如说Blackberry Pearl这些，还是觉得看起来很土，塑料感十足，傻乎乎的，所以最后他也屈服了iPhone。

说起省电的招数，我罗列一下：

• 不需要上网的时候就要把3G和Wifi关掉，比如说睡觉和上班的时候；


• 在地铁里面用airplane mode；


• 回家上网用Wifi，关掉3G；


• 把邮件设定为manual，不用自动fetch data；


• 把keyboard clicks和lock sounds关掉;


• 在室内可以把brightness降低；


• 关掉location services;


• Autolock的时间可以缩短；


• Mail里show 25 recent message就够了；


• 关掉iPod里面的EQ；


• 不用了就随手lock掉。

特别有意思的就是中文输入里可以识别handwriting。用了那个我才发现我很多笔划顺序都是错的。就好像“边”字，我从来都是先写走之底，然后写力，这下发现其实应该先写力…… 还有一个发现就是很多字都不会写了。= =

还有一个好玩的软件可以识别歌曲。比如说有首歌很想知道名字或者是谁唱的，就可以把iPhone凑近，让它“听”十几秒钟，然后就会告诉你是什么歌曲。我试了好几个，还都挺准。最神奇的是连相思风雨中都知道。哈哈。

继续俺的iphone体验中。

不得不说，只要咱中国人想做，最后总比老美做的好…… E都市做的三维城市地图，真是让我崇拜得五体投地。

边上的图就是大学时候我的宿舍楼和系楼，点开可以看到整个科大东区。当然如果直接去看合肥地图，还可以看到各个建筑的实景照片和各种信息……比Google Map强大多了……

跑题说一个，lh终于英明神武地用一根cable和一个免费软件让我能在电视上看/录大部分电视频道了！包括HD频道们！而且我还可以即时截图～ 这个比电视卡高级在可以看到那些收费频道，比如说ESPN什么的。唯一可惜的是，NFL，HBO，CBS这些台比较狡猾，disable了这个功能。不过我已经非常非常喜出望外了！

再跑题说一个，Burger King这几天在放一个很搞笑的广告：whopper freak out。就是在某分店里，他们宣布以后不卖whopper了，人民群众都顾名思义地freak out了。跑到网上去看了整段录像，差点笑疯了。搞得从来没吃过whopper的我都想去尝试一下看看到底这是怎样好吃的牛肉饼。不过这个广告从一个侧面也反映了美国人民对junk food的addiction是多么的miserable呀。