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Kekeke, I finally got my Dirty Dancing soundtrack -- ahhh reminds me of my childhood -- which little girl who grew up in the 80s didn't watch Dirty Dancing? Anyhow, I was ordering a book on Amazon and if I spent 5 bucks more I'd get free shipping. Since shipping would've cost around 5 anyways and the sound track was like $7.99 I figured might as well. Too bad Jennifer Grey fixed her nose -- sigh, we all copied her and wore Keds and rolled up shorts...

Hooray Hubble!

I was flipping through the latest issue of National Geographic. There is an article on the Hubble Space Telescope. I think the Hubble is the coolest scientific mission ever. It is our eye to the Universe.

Young stars forming in Magellanic Clouds -- It's a shame that we can no longer see all the stars in the sky, with all the light pollution. I remember clearly driving from DC to New Orleans one year and while passing somewhere in Kentucky or Tennessee, I poked my head out of the car window and my jaw literally dropped at all the stars that spread out across the sky, it was magical!

Black Eye Galaxy -- wow, it's hard to imagine that it probably takes light years to travel from one end of the Galaxy to the other end -- and yet we can see the entire Galaxy in one picture.

Looks like a Cat's eye. But alas, it's light echoing from a super giant red star. Hmm, I think it's probably of a Communist persuasion :-)

A perfect storm of turbulent gases in the Omega/Swan Nebula -- I wouldn't want to get caught in that!

All pictures courtesy of

Hubble Telescope Website

Apocalypse

The apocalypse is here... or at least it seemed so. A combination of strong winds and dry weather fueled numerous wild fires around the LA area. The day started out nice and clear...

...but by late afternoon, the sky was covered by an orange haze. Yuck.

Even the sun was shrouded in a thick blanket of smoke

How to make a northern style Chinese pancake...

Here is how you make a delicious northern style Chinese pancake (courtesy of my mama). By way of background, there is a huge genetic and cultural split between northern and southern Chinese. The northerners are taller and their diet rely more on noodles, buns and pancakes, whereas rice is the staple of southern Chinese cuisine. Ok, here is what you do:

Make some dough

Cut dough into four or five portions or mini doughs

Roll the mini doughs into pancakes

Pour a mixture of salt, crushed walnut and black sesame on top in the shape of a smiley face (remember, it must be a smiley face, that is the key to this recipe! Otherwise you will cry your eyes out after you eat the pancake)

Ok, ok, mom, I won't mess around anymore (my mom just chased me away), anyway, you actually need to pour a generous portion

Roll the pancake into one long dough with the toppings rolled inside

Roll it back to a pancake

Put a little bit of oil on a pan and fry the pancake...

...until golden brown on each side

Now this is the hardest part...

Someone's got to eat it... and that's my job... oh zee angst... yummm...
Warnings and disclaimers from my mom: after you eat this northern Chinese style pancake and before you go on a hot date, please brush your teeth, because some of the black sesame may have stuck in between. Peace out, Cat's mom.

The man of my dreams...

I've found the man of my dreams, and his name is -- Colbert! I love Colbert! He is so funny and witty... and oh so patriotic, the eagle has landed! Go Colbert!

Hannah who?

Am I completely out of touch with American pop culture or what? Who is Hannah Montana? And why does her name sound like that of a porn star?

South of the Cloud

I am currently stranded in LA, hehe, so dug up some pictures from a wonderful trip to Yunnan, China.

Women from the local Nashi minority group. They offered to do a traditional dance for us, and several expressed an interest in marrying a fellow traveler and follow him to the US :-)

Notice the little girl at the end of the group? She is the daughter of one of the "dancers." Her mom is the prettiest of the group.

Here she is again, catching tadpoles from a pond nearby. We gave her some candies after the dance and she offered to give us her water bottle. At first we were a bit perplexed but she pointed to the tadpoles inside. Since we gave her candies, she gave us the tadpoles in return to show her gratitude. Such good manners!

The Nashi women were mesmerized by a fellow traveler's digital camera. I love this picture!

Storm Clouds

Storm clouds over West Los Angeles. Sometimes it's good to take a break from all the sunshine.

Curse of the Golden Boobs

There is a Chinese film festival at UCLA this month. I don't know Chinese cinema that well, but lately I've been sorely disappointed by the works of its most famous director -- Zhang Yimou. To be specific, how did he go from this

and this... masterpieces such as Raise the Red Lantern, To Live and The Road Home...

To crap like this...

and this...Curse of the Golden Flowers (aka Curse of the Golden Boobs)?


Ever since Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, it seems many Chinese (really Asian) directors feel that that's what the western audience wants to see. They have forgotten who their first and foremost audience is and who they are! This is the best time to make movies about the average Chinese, their struggles during this tumultuous period, and yet Zhang chooses to make some stupid boobfest of a movie.

Noah vs. Cat

While driving on the 405, I was cut off by a white minivan with the vanity license plate -- GODS ARK! Hmm, before GODS ARK does any holy business, maybe it should learn some basic human manners such as not cutting other cars off and signal before changing lanes. After GODS ARK cut me off, my overactive imagination went into over drive -- imagine the screen blurs and we are back in Biblical times during the Great Flood -- God appointed both Noah and Cat (i.e. me) to collect animals, and while our respective arks were drifting down the Holy River, and while I was catnapping on my ark, Noah unscrupulously cut me off without signaling... and this is the last I saw of Noah's Ark before it sailed into Biblical glory...


Painting by Pily Torres

Family Planning

I was cleaning out my picture files and had to share this one I took in Shanghai with you. It is a family planning billboard and it is sponsored by -- Budweiser! Hello!? If anything, babies are made because of Budweiser!

FYI the billboard loosely translates into -- control the population, raise the quality of the population, the entire society needs to care about population related issues.