还有四天就要启程了, 这几天里忙着决定路线, 在Lonely Planet论坛上问些初级问题, 找西班牙语日常对话的小册子, 久违的对陌生城市的向往与兴奋一天比一天强烈. 在美国的这几年习惯了机场-公路-汽车旅馆的旅行方式, 真怕自己已经忘记了该怎么搭长途汽车．

我对古巴的了解一只手板就能数出来：David Allan Harvey的影集,the Motorcycle Diary，Buena Vista Social Club和Fidel.就是这么点东西就足以让人心痒, 希望能亲眼看看这个经历了许多苦难贫穷却不屈不挠的岛国．再一想到自己能赶在那帮穿着星条旗短裤，脖子上挂着数码相机的胖老美们之前领略一下加勒比海的最后一块净土，更禁不住感到自豪． :-)

两天前收到了Pedro从哈瓦那发来的电邮，确认我预定的casa.临了他预祝我旅途顺利，用他满是拼写错误的英文说道：God tavel to Cuba，我猜他说的是"Good travel to Cuba"，不过他说的也不错，上帝也要去古巴．

It was nearly two years ago, I was channel surfing one night. On the screen a tall white man, in his early 30s, dressed in bright yellow jump suit, wearing a shiny gold chain as thick as my thumb, moving his hands like a black gangsta rapper coming straight out of MTV, was interviewing Buzz Aldrin, the 2nd man ever walked on the moon.

The tall white man was Sacha Boran Cohen, aka Ali G, aka Borat, aka Bruno, and his interview was CRAZY:

ALI G: When you went to da moon, was da moon people friendly, or did they scare you?
BUZZ ALDRIN: We had no hopes of finding any life there whatsoever.
ALI G: When is man going to walk on de sun?
BUZZ ALDRIN: It's much too hot on the sun; we can never go there.
ALI G: We could go in de winter, when it's colder.

Later Ali G would mix Louis Armstrong with Neil Armstrong, compare Michael Jackson's move to Buzz's walk on the moon. You get the idea.

Since then I was hooked with the show, and learned about Cohen's other alter egos: Borat the Kazakh reporter and Bruno the Austrian gay fashion journalist. They were all outrageously ignorant and out of place - to the extend that people let down their guards and show their true selves.

That was totally what had happened in the Borat movie.

The movie is simply a series of Borat episodes sew together, with very little plot. Some scenes are almost straight out of the Ali G show - like singing the national anthem in a rodeo game, or messing with a group of frat boys. And granted, lots of scenes were dim-witted and simply were there for the sake of being funny (but not much so).

In my mind's eye, I have this strange association of Ali G/Borat/Bruno with Robert Frank, the great photographer who relentlessly showed the unflattering side of the US when lots of Americans were in a mood of extreme supremacy. Both from Europe, both Jewish, the two artists (I know some would not agree on this) poured freezing cold showers to the Americana. Let it be the black passengers sitting at the end of a bus or the homophobic rodeo owner who agreed gay people should be hung, 50 years ago or yesterday, realistic or absurd, the same ironic message was sent. However, one thing is different - how the Americans are treating the two - RF's "the American" was doomed with ill fate for years, not even Jack Kerouac's introduction could save it; on the other hand, Cohen was hailed by film critics and fans as a great comedy genius for his outrageously "brave" acts. Sure, we are becoming more open minded since the last 50 years, but have we learned from our mistakes and become less apathetic? That's the question.

1999年, Wachowsky兄弟凭着"the Matrix"横空出世, 把一本漫画演变成一个后现代版的庄周梦蝶的科幻传奇,还顺带把Keavu Reevs从"Dude Where's My Car"这类水深火热的SB角色中拯救出来(课外读物: Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure), 让人好不激动了一回. 但是可惜好景不长,趁热打铁的Reload和Revolution即没有重整旗鼓,更没有继承其革命传统,让人觉得这哥俩不是吸了太多大麻,就是已经江郎才尽.

结果,这种怀疑到昨晚被"V for Vendetta"一扫而空. 事实证明W兄弟的才华比两把刷子还要多至少一把: V的故事其实很俗,无非是一个未来黑暗世界里的受害者挺胸而出英雄救美并发动群众力量捣毁了邪恶的统治. 这些都可以忽略不计, 真正要赞的是整出电影里精心策划的对白和第三个W - Hugo Weaving老到得近乎无懈可击的演技. 由于其地下工作者的身份, 老W整出电影里都没有露出庐山真面,害得我猜了半天到底好莱钨什么时候出了个这么文武双全的老戏骨. 跟Matrix里的Agent Smith相比,V少了些狡猾,多了些文雅, 但是不变的是丫特有节奏的咬文嚼字和W兄弟们较真得近乎痛苦的措辞. 找本字典出来,然后看看下面的对白:

"...a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.”

(一个微不足道的老小丑, 被命运无情的捉弄, 忽而变成受害者,忽而成为恶人. 这副浮华的面具, 尤如被曲解的民声, 已经变得没有意义, 消失无踪. 然而, 这曾经英勇的神圣力量依然不屈, 必要征服那滋生病毒,腐败,贪婪和暴力的源泉. 对天指誓, 唯有血债血还, 方可一日保还道德,警醒与真理的价值. )

怎么样,不得不服了吧? 四句话里用了四十个V字词,还不带重的, "V"onderful.

"Coasting to a Stop at Whalom Park" - this was the headline on yesterday's Globe's regional news.

"... for many area residents whose teenage years were defined by weekends spent at Whalom Park, who remember their first kisses at the roller-skating rink and their first dates in the Rose Garden dance hall, the end of the amusement park was not quite real until yesterday morning, when a roaring yellow excavator tore a hole in the park's best-loved attraction, the Flying Comet roller coaster (also known as 'The Black Hole')."

It finally came, I thought - the dooms day of Whalom Park, a place where lots of locals had spent their childhood riding the "Flying Comet" or dancing in the "Rose Garden".

Almost exactly two years ago, I had the opportunity to photograph what's remain of the Whalom Park, thanks to Mark Chester, a long time Lunenburg resident who grew up riding the carousels and was then trying very hard to prevent the demolition. The mid-autumn weather was cold, but we had lots of fun - Andrew and I brought torch lights, we painted the coaster, the can-can building, various creepy objects in the ghost house with our lights under long exposures. The place was already a wreck, I didn't have to do anything but just point my camera and shoot to show how sad it's become. The beautiful fall color, which mixed with the bright but chipped paints of the buildings, made the whole place look so unreal. The pictures were not great but it certainly recalls the memories of some visitors (My Whalom Park album has by far attracted most comments in my pbase site):

"I can't believe that a huge part of my childhood is gone. My childhood was less than perfect, and Whalom Park provided me with the opportunity to be a child. Whalom Park provided me with the opportunity to spend time with a father that was never really around. Whalom Park was a good excuse for him to be a kid, and take his kids. I am sorry to see that this historical site has withered into nothing more than memories wrapped up in a used Kleenex. I was glad to have Whalom for as long as I did. It was a real place for a child who grew up to fast, to go and just be a kid. I remember it fondly." - from "cubby"

"I grew up in Leomister MA and now close to 50 years old have very fond memories of Whalom Park. Looking forward to the day when it returns to being some kind of recreational and educational park rather than some gated development." - from "Chris"

"Im 22 years old now, but I was about 10 when my Dad who grew up in Leominster, took me to this park. I remember riding the roller coaster so many times and how much fun I had. I would have loved to take my kids here, but I guess thats not going to happen. It makes me so sad to see it go :(" - from "Katy"

I wish I knew about the demolition before it happened, at least I can take a day off and go to say good-bye to the park properly - although I've never really enjoy my time in the park while it's open. But with the visits we paid two years ago, It feels I am somehow attached to it. It's always sad to see a friend, be it new or old, go.

(photo: Rick Cinclair for the Boston Globe)

Can't remember when was last time I shot with a roll of tri-x.

On a boat trip to the P-town.

Today I had lunch with three coworkers from my previous job. Among them, I am the only one without a child. (granted, I am the youngest too...) So we talked about things and inevitably, the topic turned to kids.

Rich works for Bentley, a local university with student tuition shooting for high 40k a year: in the greater Boston area, almost all private colleges are money crunchers. While we were whining about how much it costs for kids to go to college nowadays, Rich mentioned if he held on to his job long enough, his oldest son, who is 7 years old now, will be able to go to Bentley for free. Hmm... let's do the math: if Bentley charges 50K a year for a four year program by then, he'll be able to save 200K from the tuition! Or that translates into a 50K bonus a year! That's a lot of $.

So that's a no-brainer: take a little bit of pay cut, get tons of vacations, work in a slow-paced environment, and your kids go to school for free. What are we waiting for, everybody who has a high-school-age kid should start monstering for an academia job! Of course, that's when you can find a decent job, your kids are willing to go to the same school you go to everyday, and your boss is not a jackass. :-) But given the trend of the growth in university tuitions, this idea may be really attractive to those who can't afford their children's education.

I am going to build a web site for university jobs and sell it to Monster tomorrow.

Last night my order of the KyLinTV set top box arrived - it's a slick yellow hybrid box the size of a laptop. I said "hybrid" because it has the regular AV output jacks aligned with RJ-45, USB and even a mount for Wi-Fi antenna.

Once powered on, a set up screen (in Chinese, yeah!) somewhat similar to Windows 98 network configuration appears - SSID, WEP key, router, DHCP, DNS server, all that usual stuff. The on-screen key pad is a pain in the arse, and I can't believe the keypad is missing some keys like the semicolon and the plus sign!!! This is even more brilliant than some web sites who say "please don't use special characters as part of your password". Hello?

The set up was a bit of hassle: besides the WEP key, I completely forgot I've restricted my wi-fi access with MAC filtering. So after running up and down a few times on my stairs b/w my desktop, laptop and the set up box, we're finally wired. Now it's the moment of truth: how well can this piece of yellow matchbox performe with my Comcast broadband Internet?

I flipped onto a news piece, my mom standing next to me in excitement - after the 2-week long blockade of Chinese news media, she's dying to see anybody speaking Chinese on TV - now a baby-faced anchorman appears on the screen, and... he started speaking! Alright! It works! But wait... what's that "buffering" stuff on the corner of the screen? Oh, it must be some initial buffering, let it settle down... OK it's streaming again... cool... hey! Why is it buffering again??? #($*%^!(@#!...

So our first experience of IP TV was not good - the video jitters every few seconds, it's simply unwatchable. Going over the manual in frustration, I found a test utility for bandwidth utlization. The minute-long ping test rendered my connection speed at a miserable 0.36Mbps, hell, even Lucent's stock chart is doing better than that. Sigh... not Comcast again.

I had so much horrible experience with Comcast that I was in joy when I found out the state of Massachusetts was filing a class action law suit against them. Helplessly, I dialed the 1-800-comcast (or should it be 1-800-get-grumpy?) number, started ramping with a poor operator girl somewhere in Canada. She finally gave up or got lost in the mix of my sarcastic comments and technical jargons, and called up a technician, who claimed to be looking at IP TV himself and seemed to know the difference between megabits and kilobits. The conversation ended up like this:

Me: Hey Robert, you said you're looking into IP TV yourself right?
Robert: Yes I am.
Me: Are you using Comcast by any chance?
Robert: (after a short pause) No I don't, we don't have Comcast in Canada.
Me: Good for you man. And stay the hell away from it.
Robert: (laughs) I understand.

Oh well. The customer service proved themselves again that they can't do jack about your problem. All over their web site Comcast is promising 1.5Mbps but I am getting only 1/4 of what I paid for. This sucks.

In despair and disgust I flip on the bandwidth test again, the line starts crawling... and this time it stayed higher, the final result said 0.56Mbps. Hmm... interesting, let's do it again, 0.67Mbps, at some point the speed actually spiked over 800kbps, the recommended speed by KyLin TV. Magically the speed kept growing, like a beat up car starting up in a dead, cold winter night. And finally it averaged over 0.8Mbps and viola, the baby-faced anchorman finally was able to speak for more than 2 minutes without being frozen like a pre-historic mammoth caught in an ice-age storm.

Exhausted and still anxious, I went to bed. No dreams about the Internet or TV.

Woke up in the morning, my first thought was "let's check the bandwidth". And this time, the number jumped to nearly 3Mbps. Wow! That's amazing! It must be all my evil neighbors who knew I am getting an IP TV and conspired to slow down my Internet last night! No, it must be all the west coast Chinese parents who were watching the latest security-guard-beating-up-journalists-news last night!

So there it is, I left the house with my parents watching their beloved CCTV-4. And we'll find out how KyLin TV is doing on its first day at work.

Welcome to IP TV.