Just cannot understand Microsoft

Microsoft just released the 2008 version of Visual Studio Express, which requires installation of .NET Framework 3.5. Since the Express series is free of charge, many ppl fancy to use it as a costless code editor (esp. in embedded area, even the expensive full version could not do the compiling or debugging job, which have to be done with some specific tools, most likely to be linked to some HW). So I tried to install it on company PC for evaluation, and guess what? It triggered a 87MB downloading from Microsoft website and was blocked by the company's firewall! Thanks to Microsoft, now I have to take the laptop back home, and use my own cable, AND MY OWN TIME, to finish the installation so that I could submit an evaluation report to my boss.

One very simple question to Microsoft: Since you have already released the whole thing FOC, why you just put the full set of installation files on website for downloading? You always assume that users will have high speed and fully "open" Internet connection when they do any SW installation. Is it because that you guys back there in the cubicles took it for granted, or you actually wanna utilize this chance to do some "back-door" things, like you always do?

I sincerely call for some masters to hack this problem and share a full-size installation file with the whole world!

When a dude ages -- Street Kings

To be honest, I was heading to the cinema for Keanu Reeves.

After 30 sec, I realized that some dude could age in a not that elegant way, especially compared to George Clooney.

There's a pretty good story in "Street Kings", not like most recent Hollywood movies, which focus too much in the CG. A Hong Kong movie fan could easily see some plot that looks familiar -- the writers around the world are learning something from the East now.

The footage of the first half is brilliant. Those metaphors, tones, could be used in textbooks of any acting course. While in the second half, the script itself slips into the old fashion of "set-up hero single-handly save world", so the footage is getting boring too.

OK, back to the dude. Although Keanu looks quite old and tired in this movie, his acting does make some progress. I hardly see him moving his neck forward and backward when he is saying the footage in a exciting mood (he always did so before, "Speed", "Matrix", etc.). Seems he has learned how to control himself. Several scenes even reminds me Paul Newman in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof". Maybe now it's the time to care more about what he is acting, instead of how his pretty face looks like.

There are so many talented actors/actresses in this movie, Forest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie, etc. And poor Chris Evans, was sacrificed to fulfill a Hollywood law -- Whoever talking about his/her spouse/partner/fiance/fiancee/boyfriend/girlfriend before a big fight, will not survive it.

So basically you cannot find those "eye ice-cream" in this movie, and you cannot find those "magic effect" in this movie, and can you believe that some idiot invest money to shoot such a Hollywood movie nowadays? Isn't it a miracle by itself?

I sincerely thank Fox Searchlight for this miracle.