broom's blog

California Nostalgia

Just back from a 2-week biz trip in Cali. Last time I stayed in SF and took Caltrain to work in San Mateo, but this time I chose to stay in San Mateo at a much better price and rented a car. I feel this is a much nicer solution for me since I don’t really need the nightlife in the city but the convenience of driving around really helped.

Somehow this trip turned out to carry a nostalgic theme. It started with a meet with my mentor in Bosch 6 years ago. I was an intern at that time and lived in Palo Alto for half a year. She works in Apple now and I got to visit the famous Infinite Loop. In the following days I visited a lot of places I enjoyed before: sunset view in Half Moon Bay beach which I missed last time; a 10-mile trail in Big Basin Redwoods State Park which @riki and I visited in a super foggy day before; Stanford campus which I never really toured before (I blame you @riki); and my old address in Palo Alto, glad to see the big pine is still there :)

OK this got a bit over sensational but I feel I basically re-visited most of these places in bay area already. Need to figure out some new ones next time :)

Ramen Burger

So I finally got a taste of this recent fad – Ramen Burger. Is it recent? It has been around for months but I guess not many people out of NYC heard of it. Is it a fad? New Yorkers seem incredibly interested in any food fusion, even if it’s literally “fusion”, so first Cronut and now this. The hungry marketing method has been pretty successful so far and the passion of hundreds of foodies who can get up in Sat morning and join the line for a bite was contiguous.

Been there, done that #ramenburger

A photo posted by Wei Wei (@weiwei9) on Oct 5, 2013 at 8:52am PDT

How does it taste? This is the most asked question I got after posting this photo. It’s definitely not bad, which partially explains why it becomes popular. The ramen buns were pre-made and grilled a bit on the spot. The noodles in the buns are soft and hydrated, but somehow fixed in that shape so they don’t fall apart. It tastes a little bit like instant noodles, I guess some similar techniques in instant noodles are used here to keep the shape. The beef part is not very special but just normal beef burger, with some fresh green vegetables. The sauce used in ramen burger is pretty strong and savory. So the sauce brings most flavors, the ramen bun provides a quite special taste and the beef burger makes Americans happy.

How to Get a Ramen Burger?

The current information (which may outdate very fast) is you need to go to the Smorgasburg at Williamsburg on Saturday morning. It opens at 11AM and the Ramen Burger only sells about 300 per day. One person can only buy one burger. So your best bet is to arrive there before 11:15 to secure one and avoid long lines. Also check their official site for news and updates, sometimes it’s served out of Smorgasburg too.

Badland

逼格出乎意料的高的一个游戏。。限免的时候随手下载的，后来注意到还上过App Store的编辑游戏推荐。

初看有点像暗黑画风的locoroco，各种物理引擎的要素还蛮丰富于是可以当休闲游戏玩下去。但玩着玩着就会发现这游戏有的地方挺难的，有的是操作方面，有的是解谜方面。操作手感比较独特但应该说还不错。checkpoint很密集，所以并不算太变态，比较难的地方多试几次有时候运气好就蒙过去了。

刚刚把Day 1的40关打完，诚意推荐。

Almost Time to Pick the Next Phone

My 2-yr contract will end by this Nov. So in 2 months I’ll have the chance to pick a new phone! It’s hard to understand how much this “commitment” is until I experienced this 2-year contract. Basically you’re locked to this carrier and this phone for 2 whole years! That’s a big deal, considering Chinese users change phones every 6 months in average. I’ve been very satisfied with my iPhone 4S , however I do feel a little tired of it after 20 months.

So I seriously started to consider the next option after the Apple iPhone 5c/5s event last week. That event was quite disappointing because almost all tapping points were leaked upfront. 5c is just a gay-colored 5, and 5s doesn’t have many revolutionary or exciting features. Fingerprint is useful but already everywhere (even on office doors); and M7 chip seems having some great potential but no one really knows it yet.

Despite my several unpleasant experiences with Android, mainly with company test devices, I started to look into current leading Android phones. Frankly Moto X is the one catching most of my attention. I don’t really care screen size as I think it only matters if you need to use lots of badly designed web pages or apps. And the features Moto X promotes are pretty cool in my eyes: always-on voice command, active notification and write-flip activated camera. However after checking several detail reviews, I noticed Moto X had an obvious weakness: camera… I consider myself a frequent Instagram user, so a bad camera is a big turn-off to me.

Then I looked back at iPhone 5s, and realized it’s the SAME price as Moto X or any other Android “flagship” phones. Although 5s’ “progress” is not that impressive compared to previous iPhones, iPhone 5s is not bad at all compared to any other Android phones. With the best camera, software collection, 1st-class display and hardware spec, I don’t see much reason to choose an Android over iPhone 5s…

Sprint is running a new user promotion of 100$ discount for iPhone 5c/5s, but current users who want to upgrade their phones (like me) aren’t included. I don’t understand how their business plan is… Maybe US users hop across carriers after 2 years anyway, so Sprint decided to only care about attracting hoppers from other carriers and not to care how many users hop from them? Fine. I’ll hop.

大连印象

虽然住在隔海相望的烟台，但这次跟公司出游却是我第一次来大连。短短三天浮光掠影，随手一记。

大连机场虽然不大但是搞得干净整洁，wifi很快，有足够多的电源。餐馆商店的价格不可免俗的溢价很多，但质量还不错。给人的第一印象还挺好。

机场开车去金石滩路上看到一片片拔地而起的高层小区，颇有一些在农田中央的。不禁让人好奇什么人会愿意住在这里，以及这房地产生意在中国是有多蓬勃。

有点出乎意料的是大连的天也不算太蓝，大约也就像北京好天气的时候差不多。市区里看地平线20度之内的角度还是灰蒙蒙或者说黄乎乎的，有点浮尘的感觉。还好出了市区到海边就好了。

大连的绿化搞得确实是不错，一路开过去公路两边能看到的绿地面积够大。

丘陵地貌和植被构成和烟台很相像。常常会看到似曾相识的景色。海景也很像，海产也很像。钓到熟悉的鲅鱼感觉很好玩。方言口音也有点像。

金石滩是国家5A级景区，管理水平有待加强。每天从酒店到海滩走的一段路上就会看到各种不打表且开得很猛的出租车，还有土得掉渣的马车。。路面也没有海滨景区应该有的那种整洁感。更扯的是景区里有好多楼盘和售楼广告，难以理解这思路。

跟出租司机聊天的话必然会提到薄熙来。大连人对Bo很支持。

轻轨修得不错，还在修地铁。有现代化城市的样子。