Protocol Snow

After a half year break, I am glad to be finally back. How do you like the new design? I’m working on a couple minor formatting tweaks but for the most part this is the final look.

The sliding header with the five images solved a couple problems for me. First, my old blog was minimalist to a fault with a very bland black and white color palette. For my new site, I definitely wanted something colorful at the top. Initially, I was planning on creating a banner image based on the title Protocol Snow, but that would have involved a lot of work and creative/Photoshop skills that I don’t have. The sliding header allows me to keep “Protocol Snow” as a plain text title and to rely on pre-existing images to bring the color.

A second problem is that at first glance, it was very difficult for new visitors to figure out what my blog is about. “Protocol Snow” is gibberish nonsense that is meaningless to everybody but me. Additionally, my posts don’t have a consistent focus, unlike a games-dedicated blog or an Asian drama-dedicated review site. My sliding header helps this problem by highlighting several of the categories that constitute the bulk of my content.

I’ve thought about ways to increase traffic, and it seems like most successful blogs I read are dedicated to one specific topic and attract a consistent, devoted readership. However, I like to write about all sorts of random things and ultimately, this is simply my personal blog — my goals aren’t to become famous or rich from blogging. So for better or for worse, the content of my blog will not be changing in any way. I hope that whatever attracted you here in the first place keeps you coming back.

I finally have my own domain! =) I am re-launching my blog with a new design based on the Sliding Doors theme, officially sometime in June. In the meantime, I’ll be fiddling around with the site and making small adjustments whenever I get a break, but I wanted to get this site out to the public early so Google can start indexing. Consider this a soft launch.

ProtocolSnow.com will be my future home and has all the contents of my wordpress.com blog (which is now discontinued). I did a straight export-import from within WordPress and haven’t done much else, so if some links aren’t working, please bear with me. See you in a few weeks for the grand opening!

Hey folks, I’m breaking my blogging hiatus briefly with some great news: my brother was accepted to Harvard Medical School, MD-PhD program! Not only will medical school be free for him (I’m going to be saddled with all kinds of loans when I graduate med school), but he’ll be PAID. This is awesome timing for him as well with Barack Obama’s recent legislation on stem cell research, which my brother has big dreams for. Research really isn’t my thing — I’m doing a poster presentation at a research fair in a couple weeks, but that’ll probably be my last experience with research =P

But this is great timing for me as well, a kick-in-the-pants motivator with the USMLE Step 1 less than 3 months away. I’m slipping back into blogging silence after this post, but if you haven’t noticed on the sidebar, I’ve set up a twitter account which I’ve been updating pretty regularly. Keep up with my mundane updates that way if you wish, and I’ll be returning to blogging status in June! If all goes well, I’ll find a new WordPress design because this very stark, minimalist design is too boring for me.

So with this flurry of blog posts in the past few days, it’s time for me to take a break. I have less than 5 months until I take the USMLE Step 1 exam, possibly the most important test of my medical career. As I mentioned a while back, I will be taking a blogging break until then so I have one less thing to distract me. I will, however, still be visiting my usual sites so don’t be surprised if I stop by and drop a comment (I can’t study all day after all).

My schedule for the next half year or so: finish the 2nd year of med school strong, prepare for the test in early June, attend my brother’s graduation at Harvard, come back to school for hospital orientation, and then a vacation at an undecided location. Take care, and see you in the summer!

I’m not sure when I first learned about Wolfgang Puck’s signature steakhouse named CUT, but it seems like I’ve been hearing its name every other week for the past year. Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, Will Smith, and Jada Pinkett Smith were photographed having a double date there last year, it was the setting for a lunch meeting in a recent Entourage episode, Adam Carolla on his radio show/podcast talked about his encounter there with a couple The Hills stars in December, on and on, not to mention all the food blog reviews I’ve encountered. CUT is a very hot restaurant, to say the least, and for quite a while, I’ve been looking forward to eating here with its genuine Japanese Wagyu steaks (think: Kobe beef). I made reservations a month in advance!

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I leave all my consoles at home so whenever I go back to Los Angeles for Christmas break, there’s typically the “big game” of the year that I can’t wait to play. For 2007, it was Halo 3 and Mass Effect. 2006: Gears of War. And so on. For 2008, I was expecting it to be Metal Gear Solid 4, Grand Theft Auto 4, and Gears of War 2. However, lately I have become so weary of investing time into single player campaigns (and gaming in general) that I ended up playing none of these. Instead, Geometry Wars 2 and Super Street Fighter II Turbo: HD Remix were my games of choice this holiday when I did sit in front of the TV, both supremely excellent titles on Xbox Live Arcade.

But I’m here to talk about my first experiences with the PS3. When the Metal Gear Solid 4 bundles were first announced almost a year ago, I was excited about the PS3 finally having an appealing bundle/deal. However, I wound up talking myself out of buying the system. It wasn’t until Amazon restocked the limited edition Gunmetal MGS4 system for $200 off the original price that I was convinced and bought the PS3 in November.

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I had planned to post about the Toto Washlet a few weeks ago when I returned to my Los Angeles home. These washlets aren’t that common in the U.S. and are probably best known as those “crazy Japanese toilets that spray water at your butt”. They’re everywhere in Japan restrooms, of course, but they’re also fairly common in Taiwan and I’m sure in other Asian countries. My uncle has had these toilets in his Taiwan house for a few years, which was an inspiration for my family to install them.

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