A moving video and touching poem in memory of Shamar Rinpoche

大地舞者的香巴拉

2002年，23岁的万玛尖措凭借舞蹈《出走》，荣获第五届全国舞蹈大赛创作金奖，成为当时年纪最小的金奖得主。
“香巴拉”是藏语的音译，又称“香格里拉”，是极乐世界、自由净土的意思。以《香巴拉》命名，万玛想表达的是“人生来会被包围在物质和欲望中，要做出很多选择，但不管是生命不可承受之重，还是不可承受之轻，都应该用平和的心境去面对和平衡，以寻求精神的自由和灵魂的安静。”　　在《香巴拉》中，万玛尖措采用了现代的舞蹈剧场形式，以舞蹈为主体，融合音乐、歌曲、对白等多种元素，称得上“一部舞台上的电影”。但藏文化元素才是架构整部作品的血肉：经过重新解构的藏舞动作，未做任何加工的原生态道具，还有回归质朴的民族服饰。

ASUS Transformer Book T100

I got it from my dear husband as an early birthday gift. It's a Windows tablet with netbook roots with  a 10-inch Windows tablet that comes with a keyboard dock in the box.  The internal storage we got is a 32GB model that goes for $349. 

What's especially nice is that when the tablet is docked inside the keyboard, it stays put in the lap. As it happens, the 1,366 x 768 IPS screen offers pretty wide viewing angles anyway, with a 300-nit brightness rating allowing for easy readability under harsh fluorescent lights. So, the T100 looks like a netbook, and offers the same typing experience as a netbook. And it feels like one too: With the tablet docked so that it's in clamshell mode, the whole thing weighs 2.4 pounds (the tablet itself comes in at 1.2 pounds). It's just about as heavy as a netbook, and just as easy to carry in one hand.  

One convenient thing about having the keyboard dock in the box (aside from all that typing) is the selection of ports you'll get -- namely, a USB 3.0 socket on the left side of the dock. On the tablet itself, you'll find micro-USB and micro-HDMI ports on the right landscape edge, along with a headphone jack and microSD slot. 

Over on the left, meanwhile, is the volume rocker and Windows Home key.  One disappointment for me is there is only a rear camera. That's right, there's just a 1.2-megapixel webcam here for the occasional video chat. A bit of a surprise, given that ASUS normally puts out decent tablet cameras, but then again, it had to cut costs somehow.

The T100 is the first device equipped with one of Intel's new Bay Trail-series Atom chips -- specifically, a quad-core Z3740 processor, clocked at 1.33GHz. With the help of 2GB of RAM, the tablet handles the overhead of Windows 8.1 just fine. Performance almost always felt smooth. It also takes just 11 seconds to start up.

As for battery life, the 31Wh cell is rated for up to 11 hours of casual usage.

OK, I'll start playing with it now.

Happy Birthday to hubby!

Another orange cheesecake, since he's never tired of it!

Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn (2012, Movie)

I never played the game and somewhat enjoyed this as a SCI-FI flick. Granted a little slow at the start, but another amazing alien action!

Orange cheese cake

I baked the cake and hubby did the funny face.

Ender's Game (2013, Movie)

The book is a series called the Ender Quintet done by Orson Scott Card. No 12 year old, no matter his/her brilliance has the emotional maturity to do what Card has them doing. On the positive side, the visual effects were great. 

The Book Thief (2013, Movie)

It does have elements of the Holocaust embedded - being set in WW II Nazi Germany, how could it not?  A hauntingly beautiful story of a young German girl named Liesel, who having lost her own family is adopted by a new family and immediately thrust into the horrors of Nazi Germany.  Liesel's story is less about war and more about the importance of remaining human in inhuman surroundings.  Liesel is played masterfully by a pretty, 13 year old Sophie Nelisse; managing to convey both the initial bright eyed innocence and the eventual world weariness.  There is just enough humor sprinkled throughout to nicely counterbalance the horror of the setting, which makes the movie a pleasure to watch.  

"There once was a girl, who had a friend that lived in the shadows. She would remind him how the sun felt on his skin and the air felt like to breathe, and that reminded her that she was still alive," 

張藝謀電影 -- 歸來 (Movie, 2014)

陸焉識，歸來路焉識。 于若歸來汝焉識？

問題出在平庸的主題、敘事切入點和價值觀，結局的處理其實想法不錯，可惜從第二幕開始劇本除了冗長毫無技巧性可言，從頭到尾都是平鋪直敘，敘事的層次感、伏筆反轉和角色塑造都做得很差。張藝謀到頭來還是一股濃濃的做戲感。

Home made margaritas

Strawberry or Orange?

Dallas Buyers Club (2013, Movie)

Matthew McConaughey lost 38 pounds and his strong, demanding performance make McConaughey an obvious candidate to win the best actor. The film becomes a game of tug of war between Ron’s methods and his doctors strictly following FDA procedures. Ron feels like it’s his right to share his findings with the world even though they’re not FDA approved. It’s fascinating to see that AIDS is such a devastating disease that doctor’s still can’t seem to wrap their heads around even to this day. "Dallas Buyers Club" is one of the most compelling films of the year featuring magnetic performances from Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto. 

Ron started a minor organization called the Dallas Buyers Club that revolved around selling an unapproved drug from Mexico to help HIV patients including himself. It was a type of biography film that didn't give off any other strong elements besides acting. It just told a story.