Rey's Blog

Pet Peeve and OCD

2007-04-04T18:43:00.000-07:00

Just like any normal person, I have my pet peeves and OCD. A lot of it I've grown out off. I remember when I was a kid whenever I walk on the side walk with rectangle patterns, I avoid stepping on the lines. I also make sure I step on the boxes an equal number of times, depending on their size. Sometimes, I see other kids do it today and I just smile and tell myself, "See, I told you weren't a psycho." to which myself responds "Yes, you're right. I am not a psycho."

Anyways, one of my pet peeve is google maps response to the middle wheel button of the mouse. In Photoshop, you drag the button towards you to zoom-in. This is like dragging the picture towards you. In google maps, doing the same thing results in the map zooming away from you! How evil is that! What happened to the "Do no evil" mantra that the folks at google live by.

My friends has told me that they see it as the user flying and so moving the wheel away is like flying towards the map, making it zoom-in. I don't buy that. I figured, the photoshop behavior is the de facto standard, why go against it?

Well, I've always knew there's a reason why I feel the need to scroll the wheel towards me to zoom-in, and today I found more ammo. Google's own product, Google Earth (version 3.0.0762), behaves the way I want it to! Which is opposite of google maps.

Well, I did some searching, and I found out that Google has decided to change Google Earth's behavior on version 4 to match that of Google Maps. That just sucks. But I guess if you're a 900 lb gorilla, you can change de facto standards, even one made by Adobe's Photoshop.

But hey, instead of throwing stones from the outside, I think I'll try and find a job at google and maybe change this behavior someday. Or at least give google maps the option of changing its behavior by un-checking a "Behave Evil" option.

More Movies

2007-04-04T09:26:00.000-07:00

I recently some movies, two of which sucked bad.

1) Ghost Rider
Probably the worst comic book adaptation since The Punisher and The Hulk(the movie that almost ended Ang Lee's career). This was just Nicolas Cage at his worst. The script was horrible, there was no action scenes at all.

I give Ghost Rider Two Thumbs Down.

2) 300
I can't find anything good about this movie. They tried to sell it like Braveheart, selling the patriotism line, but it fell flat on its face.

Somehow when they made the movie they couldn't figure out how to make more action scene, so they decided to slow things down to eat up screen time. I liked the slow-mo in The Matrix, but mostly because they added the 360-degree rotation, just like the opening scene of Swordfish. But 300 just slow things down, just for the heck of it. It reminds me of old movies and TV shows like 6 Million Dollar Man, and those lame 80's movies that used a lot of slow-mo.

Personally, I like my action movies with "action" in them, like Ong-Bak and those Hong Kong-type action movies. While I watch 300, it kept reminding me of action scenes from other epic-type movies, only slooooower. There were scenes right out of LOTR, Troy, etc. The most obvious one was the jumping stab move that Brad Pitt used in Troy.

I give 300, Three Hundred Thumbs Down.

3) Shooter
This movie is based on Stephen Hunter's book "Point of Impact" which I tried to finish reading before the movie came out, but haven't finished it yet. The movie didn't stick to the book, which is not a surprise. I was hoping the movie would move in a Bourne Identity speed, but there was a lot of slow down on the movie.

I'm a sucker for sniper movies, maybe because when I was a kid, I used to hide up in our neighbor's mango tree with a blowgun with shooting mung beans. Or up on our roof shooting kids and chickens with my slingshot. Somehow I like snipers over sloppy spray shooting from Rambo movies. There's skills and calculations involved in shooting from a mile away, while anyone can spray bullets everywhere (like 8 year old kids in Africa with AK-47's).

I give Shooter One Thumb up.

Summer of Sequels

2007-04-04T09:16:00.000-07:00

Summer movie season is back, and that means sequels. Why make new movies, when you can patch-up the old one and make money out of it.

Here's how I see this summer's sequels:

Two I'll pay full price for:
1) Bourne 3
2) Transformers 2
Michael Bay should die if he fucks this up. I guess this is more of a re-make than a sequel. But it's my list and I'm calling it a sequel.

Ones that I'll watch matinee (or two-fers)
1) Pirates 3
Johnny Depp was great on the first one. The second movie was alright but didn't live up to the first one. I just hope this doesn't suck as bad as Matrix 3 did.

2) Spiderman 3
This is actually pretty interesting, but it had become just another action movie.

3) Shrek 3
I loved the first two Shreks. I can't see how this one can top those two.

4) Rush Hour 3
I'm getting sick of these buddy movies.

5) Harry Potter 5

One I'll wait for on USA network, or F/X
1) Die Hard 4

Two that you'd have to kill me to watch
1) Ocean's Eleven 3
The first Ocean was good. The second one sucked bad. I'm staying away from this one.

2) Fantastic Four 2
The first one was a real downer. This one can't be any better.

TV is Back!

2007-04-04T09:02:00.000-07:00

I haven't been watching TV much lately, just Seinfeld re-runs and Jeopardy. TV started to suck when all these "reality" shows started popping up. It would have been nice if they were "real", but they're not, so what's the point.

But this week, good TV is back! And by good, I mean the bad-ass. Last night "The Shield" premiered it's sixth season. I'm glad to see Forest Whitaker back, fresh from his award-winning success on "The Last King of Scotland", a biopic about dictator Idi Amin. I haven't seen that movie, but I did saw Idi Amin back when I was a kid. I saw him in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where he was exiled after getting kicked out of Uganda.

On Sunday, The Sopranos will be back for their last season. I can't wait to see how it all ends for Tony. I hope it's not a lame ending for a great series.

Also back this week is Entourage. That show is alright. Some of the cast can't act, but Jeremy Piven is really funny, though I recently read he tipped a couple of waiter with the Season 1 DVD set of the show. I would have asked him to at least autograph it so I can sell it on eBay, instead the guy threw it back at him.

My Politics

2006-12-23T16:14:00.000-08:00

Here's what it says about me. Kinda accurate, I guess. I've always considered myself Libertarian on personal issues (ie. get the church off my bedroom), while Liberal Socially (ie. money for schools and no oil drilling on my national parks):

Neo-Liberal

You scored 54% Personal Liberty and 23% Economic Liberty!

A neo-liberal believes in moderate government intervention on personal matters and moderate to high government intervention on economic matters. They believe in a social safety net or welfare state and try to balance personal liberty with safety or security. Some neo-liberals believe in more foreign intervention or war then most other leftists. Others are more like Centrist Democrats. More authoritarian-leaning Neo-liberals (such as personal 40/economic 30) are the result of a "fusion" between "old left" and "new right" tendencies.

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 99% on Personal
You scored higher than 99% on Economic

Link: The Politics Test written by brainpolice on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Freestyle Video of the Day

2006-11-25T00:15:00.000-08:00

Not really the original video for the song, but it's really cool nonetheless...

Rent - Can't We Try

Freestyle Video of the Day

2006-11-24T15:51:00.000-08:00

Stevie B - Dream About You

The Wire

2006-11-23T23:15:00.000-08:00

With The Sopranos, The Shield, Monk, Psych and Entourage all in hiatus, the only thing I watch on TV today is The Wire on HBO. I never followed this show until this year as there is nothing to watch on Network TV. It's really sad that all these reality shows and even new scripted shows all suck ass. No wonder I see more people say they don't watch TV at all than ever. The two new shows that had potential are Heroes and Studio 60. But Heroes has become a teen version of Lost, and Studio 60 is just way too much like The West Wing. Lost has become too annoying to watch. As for reality shows, the only reality show I watch is the one that follows paparazzi hunt celebrities.

The Wire is really interesting. It's set in Baltimore, and follows the city government, the police department, the school system and life in inner-city neighborhoods. It exposes flaws of social beliefs and theories of both conservative and liberals alike. Acting is pretty good, and while Law & Order and CSI franchise (and others) use sensationalized murders, rapes and one-liners (damn you, Horatio) to attract audience, The Wire relies on strong writing and more realistic plots. The show is also a lot less violent than its network counterparts. It's like comparing an indie-film with strong writing, plot and acting from no-name casts, to a big-budget "stuff-blows-up" summer flick.

One of these days I'll find the DVDs of early seasons and watch the series from the beginning.

Harsh Times

2006-11-14T18:44:00.000-08:00

I went to get an oil change today. So with two hours to waste, and a movie coupon from a friend, I decided to go see a movie. I wanted to see The Departed or The Prestige, but it's an hour wait for either one, so I decided to see Harsh Times instead. What caught me by surprised was in the beginning of the movie, they kept playing Freestyle music. You rarely hear those on the radio, much less movies. But I guess the movie's Hispanic theme kinda fits in.

The movie is directed by the person who wrote Training Day. So as expected there are characters from that movie that's in Harsh Times. The ones the stood out are Noel Guglielmi and Samantha Esteban. In Training Day, Samantha Esteban played Letty, Guglielmi's cousin. She's the one who was almost raped and Ethan Hawke came to the rescue. Later on, his heroics came up useful when Guglielmi was holding him upside down on his bathtub and ready to blow his head off with a shotgun, until Guglielmi found out he earlier saved his cousin, so he let him go. In Harsh Times Guglielmi plays Samantha Esteban's boyfriend. Samantha Esteban's character's name is also "Letty" in Harsh Times.

Samantha Esteban is kinda cute and almost always typecast as Mexican, but she's actually mixed, and has Filipina blood in her.

Evangelicals and the GOP

2006-11-13T11:37:00.000-08:00

Interesting article from a former Bush adviser about how he now sees as GOP using Evangelicals.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/archive/2006/11/13/findrelig.DTL

'Borat' Victims Upset at Being Duped

2006-11-13T11:33:00.000-08:00

Here's a funny article from the Washington Post about people who felt they got duped by Borat.

Upset!

2006-11-08T20:28:00.000-08:00

In probably the biggest upset since "Borat throw Santa Down the Well", scroll down to see what I mean, an unknown Democrat beat a 7-term Congressman, fat-Pombo.

Two years ago, Pombo beat McNerney easily, even after skipping their only debate that a local newspaper setup.

The only thing I remember about McNerney is that his son is serving in Iraq and his daughter went to my alma mater. The only thing I know about Pombo is that he's a close pal of Jack Abramoff, he wears a cowboy hat, he wants to eliminate the Engdangered Species Act, and he took his family on an RV trip around the country to visit National Parks, charged the bill to the tax payers and then he said his "research" tells that the National Parks do not need to be protected. The Democratic Party didn't even support McNerney, but the Sierra Club did.

Christmas Wish #1

2006-11-06T23:49:00.000-08:00

The West Wing - The Complete Series Collection

Borat Throw Santa Down the Well

2006-11-05T17:22:00.000-08:00

Probably the biggest upset since Buster Douglas beat Tyson, Borat out-grosses Santa Claus, $26M to $20M, in the box office even though it's released on less than 1/4 the number of theaters. It made up for lack of release with $31,500 per theater average vs $5,800. In the suburbia, where I live, they have five show times for Borat vs nine for Santa Clause. Borat was obviously pack. The movie received a lot of great reviews, and it's probably the funniest movie I've seen in years. There's a hotel scene that was so funny I was still laughing about it way after the scene was shown.

Collage

2006-10-28T13:07:00.000-07:00

One of the best Freestyle song ever:

Michael J. Fox Talks To Katie Couric re Rush L

2006-10-27T23:40:00.000-07:00

People like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly are the reason I would never vote for a Republican.

Rush Limbaugh's comments about Michael J. Fox

Michael J. Fox Talks To Katie Couric regarding Rush Limbaugh's comment.

Shut Up and Sing

2006-10-27T18:37:00.000-07:00

Somehow I get the chills watching this trailer.

Hot Filipinas

2006-09-12T22:52:00.000-07:00

Currently, there are two hot Filipino-Americans in their peak.

The first is MTV VJ, Vanessa Minnillo, who's also dating Jessica Simpson's ex husband. Her other claim to fame is winning Miss Teen USA, and dating a Yankee team captain.

The second one is Nicole Scherzinger from the gal group Pussycat Dolls. She's a former member of that group Eden's Crush, from TV's Popstar reality show.

It's hard to decide who's hotter, but my vote goes to Nicole, as she has some talent. She was a back-up voice on Eden's Crush, but is now the front and center of Pussycat Dolls. I think she even wrote some of their songs.

Voltes V

2006-09-11T20:58:00.000-07:00

I love this anime growing up! I found some episode in YouTube. It's originally Japanese, but this Episode 1 is dubbed in English (obviously by Filipinos).

Episode One:

Church

2006-09-07T21:28:00.000-07:00

Apology NOT Accepted.

2006-09-06T21:08:00.000-07:00

Rob Corddry to Leave The Daily Show

2006-08-24T23:23:00.000-07:00

I just found out that Rob Corddry will be leaving The Daily Show for a FOX Network sitcom. Looking forward to seeing the new show though, it's created by Seth MacFarlane, from The Gamily Guy, Robot Chicken and Aqua Teen fame.

Glen Cove Marina and Carquinez Bridge

2006-04-27T10:07:00.000-07:00

The following pictures are from around Vallejo area.

Panorama of Glen Cove Marina

A bigger Panorama of Glen Cove Marina. Includes Mt Diablo, C&H SUgar factory and Carquinez Bridge.

The pictures below are taken from Crockett. The Carquinez Bridge connects Vallejo to Crockett. The middle span is in the process of being taken down.

Gas Bill

2006-04-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

Below is directly from my Credit Card Bill:

It looks like gas prices will cut down on my National Park travels this spring and summer. Oh well...

Fort Funston in San Francisco

2006-04-08T20:53:00.000-07:00

I was in Daly City today, and I took advantage of the great weather to go to Fort Funston in San Francisco. It's a place where people go hang-gliding. The wind wasn't suitable for that when I got there, but I had a chance to take pictures of people flying their RC planes, as well as hang gliders parked on the ground.

The Sopranos

2006-04-06T21:25:00.000-07:00

Since I don't have HBO, I haven't seen any episodes of The Sopranos's last season. But last night at my parents' place I was able to catch a short segment, and it was a funny one. The backdrop is Tony Soprano in the hospital recovering from a gunshot. Fundie is an Evangelical trying to save Tony. Christopher is Tony's nephew, and Hesh and Beth are Jewish friends of Tony:

(Tony was looking at a dinosaur book)

Fundie: Dinosaurs? My kids can't get enough.

Tony: Yeah. Yeah, me too. Ever since I saw King Kong kicked their ass in the original. My son loves dinosaurs too.

Fundie: Interesting.

Tony: What?

Fundie: Some people would have you believe dinosaurs existed millions of years ago. It's just not true. God created the Earth six thousands years ago. When I tell my kids, you have to remember. Dinosaurs and human beings lived on the Earth at the same time.

Tony: What, like the Flintstones?

Fundie: It's in the Bible.

Tony: What, what about that carbon dating stuff? A lot of scientists would disagree with you.

Fundie: I think you'll find those people all have an agenda, Tony. Evolution, which is Satan's plan to deny God. Evolution... and salvation are mutually exclusive.

Tony: The guy next door is a scientist. I think he would disagree with you big time.

Fundie: Then, that man's not saved. Read about Mr. Colson. We'll talk later.
(Fundie walks out the room)

Christopher: What's he saying? There were dinosaurs back with Adam and Eve?

Tony: I guess.

Christopher: No way. T-Rex in the Garden of Eden? Adam and Eve would be running all the time scared shitless. But, the Bible says it was paradise.

Beth: You can disagree with Evangelicals, but they're great friends of the Jews. Because, Israel is the holy land.

Hesh: You wait. (sarcasm)

Serenity / Firefly

2006-04-04T22:03:00.000-07:00

I borrowed the movie Serenity from the library about a week ago. I really liked it and was glad the library also has the Firefly series it was based on. The series aired on USA and lasted one season. Actually it didn't even last one season since there were un-aired episodes on the DVD set. I finally finished watching them today.

The show was created by Joss Whedon of the Buffy and Angel fame. The series was really good, and I'm surprised I don't even remember seeing a trailer for any episodes. I assume USA didn't market it enough and gave up too easily on it.

The series follow a group of people lead by a character based on Han Solo, a western cowboy with a space ship he leases out for cargo transport. And just like Buffy and Angel, Joss Whedon created a cast with different personalities. The show's really funny and the cast worked well together. I guess Joss Whedon has a talent for looking at people who can blend well together. He did the same thing with Buffy and Angel.

Unfortunately, the movie barely grossed enough worldwide to cover cost, the DVD sales should put it in the black. Chances of another Serenity/Firefly movie is slim.

Mission Peak

2006-03-29T11:01:00.000-08:00

I went to SD West software conference a couple of weeks ago in Santa Clara, and on my way there I noticed this sea of bright yellow flowers along I-680 on Fremont, in front of Mission Peak. I figured it's a perfect place to test my new camera. I went back there the following weekend armed with my camera and allergy pills. Here are the shots from that outing.

Here are a couple of shots of Mission Peak from the field.

While shooting, I noticed these buzzing sounds and drove down the street to check out what it was. The sound was coming from Bayside R/C Club airfields. There, kids and adult alike where driving RC cars, planes and helicopters. They actually have their own airfield!

This picture is a panoramic view of Mission Peak from Warm Springs Rd.

I then drove up towards Mission Peak and found this nice view of Fremont and the Bay Area. The two hangers from far away are from Moffett Field in Mountain View, about 10 miles away.

Vallejo Panorama

2006-03-29T00:03:00.000-08:00

I took this a couple of weeks ago but when I tried posting it, blogger would resize it. Today, I finally found a free site that would host it's full size.

Click on the image to see the fullsize.

The shot was taken from a rest area in Vallejo. The center of image faces south. The mountain right above the trees on the foreground, 1/4 from the left is Mt Diablo in Danville. Sutro Tower in San Francisco is a little bit to the right of center, and so are the two towers of Golden Gate Bridge. The big mountain on the right is Mt Tam (Mt Tamalpais) in Marin County. Also visible on the right is Six Flags Marine World.

2006-03-27T22:55:00.000-08:00

I thought it was going to rain early today, but when I looked outside and it was still sunny, I grabbed my new camera and drobe around Pleasanton to take some pictures. I forgot to take my allergy pills so I paid for it afterwards, but some of the pics I took turned out nice.

Around the Park

Trees and Roots

Ranch

Chinese New Year Parade

2006-02-15T17:04:00.001-08:00

This year's San Francisco New Years Parade went really well. The weather was really nice and sunny during day time and it wasn't too cold at night.

I went to the city around lunch time and decided to take advantage of the nice weather by taking some pictures and doing some walking. I went to Embarcadero's Farmer's Market, and then to Chinatown, where a sea of people shopped at street vendors.

Afterwards, I went to a Chinese restaurant at Powell for lunch and then went to Union Square to relax and take pictures. I decided to take the elevator up to Cheese Cake Factory to get a better view of Union Square. I've forgotten how nice the view is from up there.

From there I noticed that people were starting to line up along Powell and Geary for the best view of the parade. I then made my way down and grabbed a nice spot in front of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel. I had to sit there with my MP3 player a good two hours before the parade to get a nice spot.

Below are Pics (As always, click to see a larger image):

Bay Bridge and Yerba Buena Island from Embarcadero

Perfect timing on this seagull

The famous Coit Tower

Farmer's Market and Bay Bridge

Arts & Crafts on Market and Embarcadero

Entrance to Chinatown

Chinatown street vendors

Macy's on Union Square. The top "Macy's" logo is where the Cheese Cake Factory is located.

View of Union Square from Cheese Cake Factory. In the center is a granite column commemorating Admiral Dewey's Spanish-American War victory at Manila Bay with a Victory statue modeled after Mrs. Adolph de Bretteville Spreckels, a San Francisco benefactress.

Corner of Post and Stockton, where you'll find Niketown

Saks, Tiffany and the Victory Statue

More of that Victory Statue

Corner of Powell and Post, where you'll find the Disney Store

iPod Ad, and more of that Victory Statue

The famous Mayor Gavin Newsom. I shook his hand the second time. The first time was during the Chinese New Year Parade two years ago, a couple of days before he tried to legalize Gay Marriage in SF.

Firecrackers!

Gigapxl Project and Photography

2006-02-09T01:53:00.000-08:00

Gigapxl Project is a really cool site. Basically they created a "giga pixel" camera. It's large format (film, of course!), and then they scanned it to make it digital. During my trip to SF last weekend, a photographer in the art show in Union Square was selling medium format pictures, the biggest of which was two-by-three feet in dimension and was selling for $600 framed. Medium formats are around 100GP to 400GP when scanned digitally. Obviously, the 1000GP camera is a large format film camera.

Also, when I was walking to Embarcadero to catch the bus to Pier 39, I passed by a person who was selling framed photographs at the end of Market Street. The pictures where printed off digital SLRs. I asked the person what camera they used and she said they used the 12 Megapixel Fujifilm FinePix S3 Pro, which is a pro-level digital SLR costing around $2000 without lens. The pictures she has were also two-by-three feet, but you can tell it was from a digital camera. The picture was decent when viewed from seven feet away, but a closer look shows that it can't be compared with medium, or even 35mm film. I think 35mm film is equal to a 45MP digital camera. She was selling her pictures for around $150.

I went to Pier 39 to checkout the Wyland Gallery and Rodney Lough Jr. Wilderness Gallery. The Rodney Lough gallery sells landscape pictures of sizes up to 3-by-6 feet in dimensions and costs thousands of dollars. I think they were also taken with medium format film camera.

Ken Rockwell has an article on how to build a 100MP camera system for around $2000. He also argues that medium and large format films are "future-proof" since today's film scanner does not show the maximum possible resolution for these formats. Better scanners will be built in the future. While you're stuck with what your digital camera can take today.

Anyways, going back to the Gigapxl project, below are pictures I stole from their website, clearly, these are copyrighted by them. They have lots of pictures in their Image Gallery, but I chose to steal the Half-Dome picture and post it here. It's amazing how much detail it retains when zoomed-in:

Nickelback (Recycled)

2006-02-09T01:45:00.000-08:00

I saw this online, it's really interesting. Basically they played two Nickelback songs side-by-side and it looks like the band used the same *formula* for the songs.

Disaster!

2006-02-09T00:52:00.000-08:00

I thought this picture was nicely captioned.

Power of Makeup (Before and After Shots)

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron." -Dwight Eisenhower

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." -Theodore Roosevelt

SF

2006-02-05T11:36:00.003-08:00

I went to SF yesterday (Saturday 2/4) for dinner with friends. I decided to go early and hang out in Union Square area...

I took the BART to the city, as usual. I was listening to my MP3 player and had my eyes shut when I noticed we've been stopped in Castro Valley stop for a while. When I opened my eyes I saw two cops with a bomb sniffing dog walking along the aisle. I take BART regularly to the city and I don't remember this happening before.

When I got off the BART station, I made my way to the restroom in the shopping center and then went to Blondies for some veggie pizza. Since it was a nice sunny day, I decided to take my pizza to Union Square.

There was an Art Show in Union Square. Mostly paintings and photographs. The exhibit was really good. The medium-format pictures on exhibit were from really nice part of the world. The detail and colors on the pictures were amazing.

Also on Union Square were these Heart Exhibit...

NBC 11 had these guys on olympic outfits promoting the upcoming olympics in their station:

While in Union Square, I saw this nice looking car...

The trip to the City was fun. I haven't been there in a while. The weather was really nice and sunny, and the Art Exhibit was fun as well. I saw several photography students from Academy of Arts SF with their SLR camera taking pictures of people and things around Union Square. That would have been a perfect time to have an SLR camera with me.

Dinner was really nice. We went to Osha, a really nice and cheap Thai restaurant on 2nd Street.

Super Bowl Weekend

2006-02-02T20:51:00.000-08:00

Just in time for the Super Bowl, Hooters Casino opened in Las Vegas. The Hotel used to be San Remo Hotel, which me and friends had a displeasure of staying in a few years ago. It was the worst hotel I've ever stayed in, with shit marks all over the wall. I can't believe they didn't burn that place down before building Hooters.

Digital SLR

2006-01-30T00:36:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm glad I decided not to buy that digital SLR camera. Just two weeks ago I was really torn. I spent countless hours researching the best ones I can afford, but in the end I decided to wait. And boy am I patting myself in the back right now. Prices for most has come down dramatically. THe only good deal two weeks ago that still holds true today is Canon's Triple Rebate, where I would have spent $1300+ upfront and get about $300 rebate. Nikon's D70s, which topped my list, was listed at $1120 two weeks ago. It's now down to $1000. Olympus also released a first ever digital SLR with a real-time electronic view finder.

In other camera news... Nikon has decided to exit the film camera market. The news came out a few days after I wrote something about "film is not dead" mantra. I guess, in term of market for it, it is dying. But there will, be companies that will supply film camera for a while. Maybe not for 35mm cameras, but for those that print magazines uses. Digital's resolution will have to increase to more than 100MP to match those with picture files in hundreds of megabytes. Plus there's all those nice landscape shots on calendars.

Also, Konica-Minolta has decided to exit the camera market all together. They sold all their knowledge to Sony. Pentax will be next. They signed a partnership with Samsung recently, and have released a Samsung-rebranded dSLR. Its only a few months before they sell everything all together. Before Konica-Minolta exited the market, they signed a "partnership" with Sony. So I guess it's gonna be Sony and Samsung fighting Canon and Nikon. Sony and Samsung are elecrtonic companies, and will probably out-do Canon and Nikon in CCD and CMOS technology, but it'll take them a while to catch up in optics. On the other hand, Sony has recently released a camera with, and has a partnership with, Carl Zeiss. A company known for their optics.

This means pressure will be on Canon and Nikon, two companies that combined to control 90% of digital photography last year. But with Sony and Samsung coming into the dSLR market, its only a matter of time before they catch up.

Bay Area On TV

2006-01-27T22:21:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I started watching this new ABC show called In Justice. An IMBD reviewer call it "A Crime Drama For Us Bleeding Hearts!". While most shows, especially the twelve Law and Order spin-offs, show eloborate ways a criminal commits a crime, this show's premise is getting criminals out of jail. Yeah you read that right, a whole show about people who got wrong convictions. Imagine my surprise when I found out the show supposedly takes place in San Francisco. Of course from the look of the show, it's probably filmed in ABC lot in Hollywood, or outsourced in Vancouver. I haven't really seen any landmarks that suggest it's actually filmed in SF. The cast is a typical Hollywood version of SF. Mostly white and black and some hispanics, but no Asian. Anyone who's been to SF will tell you the first thing they notice is how many Asians (mainly Chinese and Filipino) actually live in the city. Oh and those gays, hippies and homeless people. So far the show hasn't touched on that. I think last week's episode was about a Hispanic who was wrongly jailed. This week's episode is about a black guy. See a pattern here?

Anyways, it's nice, nonetheless, to see a show about the Bay Area. Of course this show is ON on Friday nights. The night when everyone is outside watching a movie, clubbing, or pretty much doing anything other than watch TV. Come to think of it, the fact that I get to watch this show, shows how stale my life is. But I have a valid excuse. I don't stay home on a Friday night to watch a bleeding hearth show like this, no self-respecting guy would do that. I stay home to watch either that geeky show for younger audience, Numb3rs on CBS, or that geeky show for old audience, Monk on USA.

Speaking of Bay Area on TV, I don't know if that old show Charmed is still on. That show supposedly took place in SF also. And true to its SF roots, that show is about witches. Where else but in the Mega-Church hatin', gay friendly Bay Area will three witches can live as crime stoppers. Had that show took place in Arkansas, those three sister witches would have been burned at the stake during a Wal-Mart celebration.

One old Bay Area show that they show reruns to is Nash Bridges. It starred Cheech and that white guy from Miami Vice that no one remembers. Oh wait, it's the black guy that one remembers. Nash is played by Don Johnson. The guy that gave me a bad habit of pulling up my long sleeves no matter what I'm wearing. If I'm wearing the right clothing, I'd look like a fat Karate Kid, and if I'm wearing a suit, I look like a fat Tony Montana with his sleeves pulled up... "Say Hallo to my little friend!"

Anyways, while watching In Justice, I saw a preview of another show that will be set in San Francisco. The show is called "The Evidence". Supposedly, the show will show the TV viewers the evidence of that week's crime in the beginning, before the detectives even do. This way, the audience can solve the crime, and tune in to other networks, even before the first commercial break. Imagine if you can watch a ball game this way. At the beginning of the game, they show you which fans are celebrating at the end, your job is then to guess who won. And they expect you to stay tune to see if you guessed right. My GUESS is this new show will take In Justice' Friday night spot come Sweeps time. Oh yeah this show has Orlando Bloom in it... wait, scratch that.. it's Orlando Jones. Sorry LotR fans (and gay guys from SF).

Jack and Tom

2006-01-26T14:01:00.000-08:00

I saw this video of Jack Abramoff, the conservative lobbyist who was indicted for fraud. He's introducing Republican sentor Tom Delay, who has his own legal problems, to College Republicans of America. Abramoff is also a Bush Pioneer, which means he had brought in at between $100,000 - $199,999 to Bush's 2004 campaign.

Jack and Tom

ABRAMOFF-CONGRESS LOBBY SCANDAL: “Never before has an individual who has been steadfast to our principles risen as high as Tom Delay… Tom Delay is who all of us want to be when we grow up.” --
Indicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff introducing indicted Representative Tom DeLay (R-TX) before the College Republicans of America

Random Thoughts

2006-01-26T09:10:00.000-08:00

I'm sick yet again. I think I picked it up from my friend's kids (again). I hung out with them all day Sunday and I've been under the weather since. They're just so cuuute, so I didn't care.

I was supposed to meet up with a friend in Sacramento. We were gonna meet in Fairfield and go to the PX/BX in Travis AFB and then maybe watch a movie. But I'm not feeling well today so we'll probably do it next week.

I just realized Chinese New Year is this Sunday. The SF CNY Parade is not until Feb 11th, so hopefully this sunshine we'd been getting extends until then. Actually the weather forcast the next few days is chance of rain. I'd love to go to the parade again, but I don't think I'll go if it rains.

Pacquiao TKO Morales in 10th Round

2006-01-21T23:42:00.000-08:00

In a rematch of last year's fight, Filipino boxer Manny "Pacman" Pacquiao TKOed Mexican Erik Morales in Las Vegas in front of mostly Filipino and Mexican crowd. The fight was sponsored by Wynn Casino, but the event was held in UNLV campus for a bigger venue.

I went to the same bar in Milpitas to see the fight. It was an exciting bout, as Morales won four of the first five rounds before Pacquiao won the 6th to 9th and the TKO on the 10th. The Pacman knocked down Morales twice in the 10th round, and the referee stopped the fight. Morales wasn't fighting much after the 6th, as Pacquiao connected with combos one after another.

The bar was packed with mostly Mexican crowd, which made the event that much more better. Me and another Filipino guy that I met on the last fight were the only Filipinos and there were about twenty Mexicans.

I was actually still buzzed after the fight and had to stay for another hour since I could drive. The guy who owns the bar gave a small bottle of Close Call just in case I get pulled over and need to pass a Breathalyzer test. I didn't need it since I stayed as long as I needed to to clear my head. Besides, my guy won, so I didn't mind staying.

Random Thoughts

2006-01-11T22:54:00.000-08:00

Jimmy Carter
About a month ago a friend told me to check out Jimmy Carter's book, Our Endangered Values. It wasn't available in the library at that time. But last week, they finally got it. I'm on the wait list for the book, but I noticed the list for the CD version is shorter so I added myself to that list as well. I finally got the CDs yesterday. I listened to the first CD and I'm surprised by what he said.

One thing I didn't know is the fact that Carter is an Evangelical Baptist. In today's America, where religious psychos like Pat Robertson, Ralph Reed and Jerry Falwell continue to erode the separation of church and state through the GOP, it's nice to know that there are religious people out there who still believe that politics and religion do not mix.

Arnold
I can't help but comment about Arnold. It's an election year, so it's no surprise he decided to distance himself from the Republicans. Last thing he wants to be is like his friend Jessie "The Body" Ventura. The other steroid freak who became governor and accomplished nothing. Anyways, I couldn't stop laughing when I saw Arnold's face after his bike accident. The fact that he doesn't have a bike license doesn't really bother me. He knows how to ride a bike. The guy he hit should be thankful Arnold wasn't riding one his ten Hummers, or he would have shred the guy's car into pieces.

Amazon.com
I got my electric keyboard from Amazon today. I was going to buy it from Costco's website, but amazon didn't charge tax and they even gave me free 2-Day shipping. I actually got it in one day. It came from their warehouse near Reno. Since I have never took any piano lesson, this should keep me busy for a while.

Obsession Muted (...Sort of)

2006-01-10T09:52:00.000-08:00

After spending countless hours researching digital SLR cameras, reading tons of reviews and looking at sample images, I've decided NOT to get a digital SLR for now. I just don't have the money for it. Actually, with rebates, I would be spending $300 less, but it's not the cost of the camera, but the total cost (TCO!) of having it.

I know if I have a nice camera, I would have to take it on the road, visiting National Parks and places where having a great camera would be useful. But I just don't have the extra money to go back to Yosemite, Crater Lake or take make my first trip to the Grand Canyon. Maybe in a few months. I also know that there's a camera show on February, and the top camera companies are expected to show case their next generation of cameras. Maybe by Spring season, they'll reduce current models even more.

The next item on my obsession list is getting an electronic keyboard and learn how to play it. I decided to go with a Yamaha that cost $200 at amazon.com. Costco has the same item on their website, but amazon offered free 2-Day shipping and no tax. I expect to get it on Thursday and it should keep me busy for a while.

Costco has a cheaper one in-store, but it doesn't have USB support. It comes with a traditional MIDI port. I looked around, and an MIDI cable cost up to $20. So I went with the one with USB support. The USB support will allow me to run tutorial software since I've never taken any piano lessons.

Anyways, the next item on my obsession list is learning a foreign language. My friend lend me his Japanese CDs. But I think I'm leaning more on learning either Cantonese or French.

Camera Obsession (Again!)

2006-01-08T01:30:00.000-08:00

So I'm back shopping for a digital SLR. Maybe I'm just bored. I bought Canon's Digital Rebel a couple of months ago, took it hiking a couple of times and then returned it. I knew I wasn't going to keep it then. I just wanted to see hope different they are from the usual point-and-shoot digital camera.

I also knew then that Canon's and Nikon's rebates doesn't end until January 15th. Well, now that deadline is just a few days away. So I have to make a decision of either joining the Canonites or the Nikonians.

Choosing an SLR camera is actually harder than choosing a religion. In choosing a religion, one can go by who's religion will take you to heaven the easiest. Some religion even give you perks like giving you virgins in heaven when you die, if you join them. While others embarasses you by sending their star to Oprah to jump a couch.

But choosing between Canon and Nikon can be more difficult. For one thing, you're stuck with the lens you have, so if you "invest" on Nikon lenses, chances are you will buy Nikon cameras in the future. This is kinda like the old "give away the razor handle and make your money on razor blades." Except camera bodies cost at least $600, so you can't just throw them away like a razor handle.

As for the question of who's better? Canon or Nikon? Well, I don't really know. From what I read online, I think Nikon has the edge. They're been researching lenses way before Canon. In fact, the very first Canon cameras came with Nikon lenses! Then of course, just as Microsoft learned to live without IBM, Canon learned to make they're own lens. Nikon also learned to make their own camera.

On New Years Day, I was at a friend's house for dinner. My friend has a huge framed picture, at least two by three feet, of a wave that I thought was cool. I asked her husband what he used to make it, and he said he used a film camera, not digital. I then ask him, foolishly, if he likes Canon or Nikon better. He said something like he doesn't want to get into that conversation. He then explained that he uses Nikon, while his friend, who was with us, uses Canon.

Of course, when it comes to photography, the only thing worst than a Canon vs Nikon topic is Film vs Digital. Hands down, digital camera's sales increase is killing companies like Kodak, Fuji, Agfa, other traditional film camera companies. Much like printers stopped Xerox's paper empire. Digital cameras can now be found in cellphones and MP3 players. But are film cameras dead?

On that same New Years Day dinner party, my friend's friend brought slides of his trip to Olympic National Park last year, as well as other National Park trips he took. He also brought a Leica projector to show us the slides. Since my friend and I went to Olympic National Park last year as well, I was looking forward to seeing his pictures. He used film camera to take his pictures, and for film, he went with the famous Fuji Velvia. I must admit his shots were much (much!) better than the ones I took. In fact, when I got home that night, I stayed up and went through the pictures I took. Most of it is probably due to the Velvia film. This is THE film that landscape photographers use on pictures you see in art galleries that are sold for thousands or dollars.

Anyways, from what I read online, in order for a digital camera to match what a 35mm film can do, it would have to be a 100+ megapixel camera. I'm not talking about a 3x5 inch print, of course, but the high-end max. So, is film dead? I guess the answer would have to be No. At least not until digital camera's can take 100MP. Even then, that's just to replace the 35mm format, not the medium and large format. This is kinda odd, since one can say that digital is more advance, yet it doesn't really replace what a film can do. Its just more convenient to use and people tend to settle for "good enough" images.

I'm tempted start typing about those people who has 7MP cameras but never really print anything larger than 5x7 inch. But I'll stay away from that. There is a great article though about this in Ken Rockwell's site. He calls it "The Megapixel Myth".

As for my camera obsession. I think I hit the peak of it when I was watching the USC vs Texas Rose Bowl game. When Vince Young scored the winning touchdown run, I was more interested at what cameras the photographers were using. Nikons or Canons?

If you like Apes...

2006-01-05T19:04:00.000-08:00

Only a retail store from Arkansas would link "Planet of the Apes" DVDs to films about African-Americans. You don't need to be a Computer Scientist to understand, that somewhere in WalMart's system, they associated apes with African-Americans.

This reminds me of the google search result for the "unelectable", the first match is always the biography of Bush Jr. But this is because people have associated "unelectable" to the white house page, and google's web crawler picked it up.

Billiards Money List

2006-01-05T11:44:00.000-08:00

Four of the top 10 money winners last year in billiards are Filipinos with Efren Reyes winning more money than anyone.

1 Efren "Bata” Reyes (Philippines) $279,169
2 Mike Sigel (US) $250,000
3 Marlon Manalo (Philippines) $199,500.
4 Francisco "Django" Bustamante (Philippines) $140,272
5 Allison Fisher (US) $111,200)
6 Wu Chia-ching (Taiwan) $109,500
7 Loree Jon Jones (US) $105,500
8 Johnny Archer (US) $100,104
9 Thorsten Hohmann (Germany) $96,635
10 Alex Pagulayan, (Philippines) $80,824

I like your Christ...

2005-12-29T22:01:00.000-08:00

I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ.
- Gandhi

Stupid Friendster Bug

2005-12-29T01:56:00.000-08:00

Last week I received a notice from Friendster asking me to confirm an account I recently created. This surprised me, since I never created the account. I do have a Friendster account, but I use a separated email for it, an email I use for "junk" stuff since I don't want SPAM on my real email. Anyways, I figured some idiot probably just typed in the wrong email, and that's the end of that.

Well, since then I've received Friendster messages on a regular basis telling about a message in my inbox, and people who wants to be added as my friends. So I decided to go to friendster and figure out what's going on. I just told friendster I forgot my password, and sure enough a second later I received the password used to open the account. The guy is a 18 year old guy from the Philippines. It seems like he's not very bright. He even used his own birthday as his password. I changed that right away so that he can't login to this account. I then read the messages on the account's inbox. Most of it are typical teenager stuff with messages typed in mixed upper and lower cases. The guy's girldfriend left a note written in Tagalog (which I understand).

Anyways, for a second I was tempted on messing with the guy. Maybe respond to his girlfriend's note and tell her she's ugly and far, or that I turned gay after watching that gay cowboy movie Bareback Mountain. Countless thoughts went to my mind, but in the end I decided to just delete the account. If the guy is dumb enough to use the wrong email twice to create an account, then I'll take more drastic moves.

I, of course, tried creating an account using one of my other email addresses to see what would happen if I never click on the link included in the verification email. Sure enough, I don't need to check that email. At least not to create and update the profile. I can even logout and log back in with no problems. What you cannot do is add friends to your account.

Anyways, this bug probably shows up rarely since:
1) Not a lot of people are dumb enough to type the wrong email address
2) Who the hell uses Friendster these days? Everybody had moved on to MySpace or Orkut.

But this bug can be used to SPAM people. Just create a dummy account using an email of someone you don't like, make the account a name of a celebrity that people would want to be added as friends, and there you go. Whomever owns that account will be bombarded with requests from Friendster users who wants to be added as his/her friends.

I can't believe a simple scenario like this escaped the people at Friendster.

Random Christmas Eve Moments

2005-12-28T22:47:00.000-08:00

So on Satuday, Christmas Eve, I wasn't feeling too well, so I stayed home instead of going to my parent's place. That's probably a good thing, since they'd probably just make me feel guilty for not going with them to church at 11PM at night.

Anyways, so it was 8:30 PM Christmas eve and my friend (he's a non-practicing Zoroastrian) and I were wondering what places to eat would be open around that time. We figured Chinese should be open, but since it was still early we thought we could always count on In-n-Out burger. They do have biblical messages on their soda cup and elsewhere, but we tried them anyways.

They were open and right before we went inside I say a huge pile of puke right outside their door. We figured somebody must have started Christmas celebration early.

Anyways, here's how my conversation with the gal taking my order went:

Me: Hi, I'll have a grilled cheese sandw...
Me: Oh by the way somebody puked outside, it's really disgusting, but I figured
I let you know since someone might step on it and slip.
Her: Outside???
Me: (smiling, and controlling myself from laughing) Yeah. Just outside the door.
(At this point my friend behind me was also laughing)
(She then turned to the guy next to her and told him)
Guy: Where is it?
Me: Just outside the door, you can't miss it.
(I then turned to the gal taking my order)
Me: So I'll have a grilled cheese sandwich, with grilled onions, extra lettuce tomatoes and pickels
Me: Oh, can you make sure the guy that cleans up the puke outside doesn't make my sandwich. Thanks.

While dining there, we were surprised to see white people in In-n-Out that late on Christmas Eve. We figured they'd be with their family celebrating the birth of their savior. I mean, I'm a non-practicing Catholic, my friend's an infidel just like the Indian people sitting close to us. So we have our excuse. What's there's?

Anyways, my friend then called his old co-worker, an Indian guy and he later joined us in In-n-Out. We then talked about everything from geek stuff, religion and politics.

One thing we talked about is that Punjabis in and from India are usually vegetarian after a certain phase of their life. These Indians are the once with the head gear that make them the favorites of airport security. Anyways they're actually a race of warriors in the old days... and they're vegetarians. I, or course, brought up the fact that Americans believe that you can't be "strong" and powerfull unless you eat red meat. This reminds me of a line from "That's 70's Show", when the mom was feeding the dad vegetarian dish because of his high cholesterol. He told his wife: "This is not food... this is what food eats!"

Another thing we talked about is how is it that less modern countries like India and even Pakistan have had female head of state, and the US has not. Pakistan! The same country where a man recently killed his daughters because one of them married for love, and he's afraid his other daughters would follow her lead. This same country has elected a woman as Prime Minister before the US has elected a woman for President. In addition, two of The Philippines' last four Presidents are women.

Recently Bush has tried to appoint a woman friend of his to the Supreme Court. Of course, she's unqualified and the only reason she was nominated was because she's Bush's friend. He then withdrew her nomination after the right wingers complained. That's a major blow to women's progress in this country. It sucks when there are lots of qualified women who can replace Sandra Day O'Connor that he can choose from, he went with an unqualified crony of his. My guess is he did that to give Affirmative Action a bad name.

Another Bush crony was former FEMA head Mike Brown. We all know how he did when Katrina hit!

Conservative Ice Creams

2005-12-28T22:12:00.000-08:00

I must admit one thing Conservatives are really good at is entrepreneurship. Just look at Rush Limbaugh. For only $50, he lets you and I can buy a US soldier in Iraq a subscription to his website! Of course, he could just give US soldiers access to his website for free, but that charity handout bullshit are for Liberals and he'll have none of that.

But I found these so-called Conservative Ice Creams really funny. It's for Conservatives who would have none of those left wing Ben and Jerry ice creams. Here are some of the flavors they have

Gun Nut
I Hate The French Vanilla
Iraqi Road
Nutty Environmentalist (Too bad they didn't made this with Green Tea with Nuts)
Smaller GovernMINT
Ara-Fat Free
Candy McCain
Cherry Falwell (blatantly ripped from Cherry Garcia)

The da Vinci Code Movie

2005-12-27T00:39:00.000-08:00

I went to see King Kong on Christmas Day. Its a family tradition that we watch a movie on Christmas Day. It brings our family together. Physically at least, since when we get there we ignore each other to watch a move. So... yeah, King Kong brought our family together, so we can ignore each other, for three hours.

The movie's really good. It has better dinosaur sequence that Jurrasic Park, and it's really entertaining.

But I must admit that the highlight of the day was finally seeing the full length trailer to The da Vinci Code. I actually got goose bumps just watching the trailer. The movie comes out on May, but I'm sure the media will cover the controversy surrounding the movie way before that. The book sold more than 25 million copies in 40+ languages, thanks in part to the media creating a controversy around it. A similar book by the same author, called Angels & Demons, was released two years before da Vinci Code and it didn't sell as much because the media didn't start a controversy about its topic.

I guarantee the Vatican will tell Catholics to boycott the movie, and you will see mega churches in the Red States rally against this movie as if "Hillary 2008" is upon us. Evangelicals are already telling director Ron Howard to place a disclamer in the beginning of the movie saying the movie is "Pure Fiction" or they will unleash the same fire that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah (and McCain 2000 and Kerry 2004, for that matter). I think Ron Howard SHOULD put a disclaimer in the beginning of the movie, and it should say: "This is a movie. Get a life, assholes."

Peace on Earth

2005-12-26T23:54:00.000-08:00

I love the Holiday season. It's the season of giving, and it's the only time you can wish others Peace without being called un-American. I know we are at war today, so spreading peace is un-American, but honestly, I don't know how far we have to go back to find a time when America is NOT at war against something or someone. War on drugs started in the 80's and will never end. The war on Communism started before WW2 and hasn't end. Which is kinda odd since we have normalized relationship with Vietnam and the Korean War is now the Forgotten War.

Before Saddam was kicked-out, we embargoed Iraqi oil since buying Iraqi oil means financing Saddam's military. The same thing applies with Castro. We let Cubans starve rather than give them food and medicine because we want they to rise up and kick him out. We started that when JFK was president. Let me see...(JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr, Clinton, Bush Jr) that's nine presidents in a span of more than 40 years that Castro has outlived in office. No one would say it, but the only reason we do that is because of the Cuban-American votes in the swing state of Florida. I don't really know any Cubans, but I've always wondered why they are still bitter toward Castro. I mean, most Vietnamese-Americans like the fact that the US have normalized relationship with Vietnam. This allows them to see their relatives in Vietnam. It also allows Vietnamese in Vietnam to experience American culture. In fact, even former US soldiers, including Sen John McCain, have gone to Vietnam to talk to their former Vietcong counterparts. If I could talk to people in in Little Havana, I'd tell them to talk to people in Little Saigon. It just might open their minds.

Anyways, if buying Iraqi oil during Saddam era finances his military, and buying Cuban cigars finances Castro's military, then can't we make the argument that buying Dell computers, which are made in China, finances its Red Army? I'd like to see a chart that shows what percentage of Dell's, other American companies' revenue, goes to the Red Army. In fact, although we don't say it, we are comfortable with China, and other 3rd World countries, oppressing its people since it provides American companies with cheap labor. Of course we don't want to hear that, so we call it Globalization.

Anyways, going back to the subject of peace, back in the days, the Department of Defense was actually called Department of War. Maybe we should go back to the original name since America never really plays defense, we're more of an offensive country, and we're always at war. There are actually people who are pushing for a Department of Peace. And yes, its those liberals again.

Anyways, this rambling is getting too long.

Peace.

Year in Pictures 2005

2005-12-24T00:54:00.000-08:00

MSNBC.com has a "Year in Pictures 2005" collection that I find very interesting. Some pictures are visually stunning, while others show human tragedies. Hands down, the best picture has to be the one that shows Buddhist Monks by cascading waterfalls (taken in Vietnam). Below are some of the pics I found interesting (as always, click the pics to enlarge).

SF Pics

2005-12-23T19:11:00.000-08:00

I finally found some time today to do some photo editing. I'm very new to photo editing, as I usually accept whatever the camera gives me. These pictures usually turnout flat and hazy. But I've always been fascinated with sunset pics I see on photo sites like photo.net and others. Today, I finally found some time to play around with Photoshop's color features. Here are some initial results. The pictures were take during a hiking trip in SF a few weeks ago. The couple of the pictures has a Before and After comparison.

This is the Before and After shots of the Great Highway. The dark area behind the condos on the left is actually Golden Gate Park. The "Before" shot looks greenish and hazy, while the adjusted image is more vivid.

Before

After

These ones are the Before and After shots of the Cliff House right after sunset. Again, the original is greenish and hazy, while the adjusted image jumps out at you.

Before

After

A Festivus for the rest of us!

2005-12-23T17:17:00.000-08:00

Happy Festivus to the rest of us!

More Movies

2005-12-19T00:23:00.000-08:00

I picked up a couple of DVDs from the library this weekend. I was going to see King Kong, but I figured I save that for next weekend. Our family has a tradition of watching a movie on Christmas Day. I figured, what better way to celebrate the birth of Christ than watching a semi-bestiality movie.

The first movie is the movie adaptation of William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice". One of my regrets in life is not finding time to read Shakespeare's work. The story deals with anti-semitism in Europe at the time. Al Pacino was at his best playing Shylock, the Jew. Overall it's a great movie except I'm not good at understanding Old English, so I had to rewind some parts of it.

The second movie is the epic "Kingdom of Heaven" with Orlando Bloom. I had low expectation about this movie. I figured it's another movie trying to cash-in on Lord of the Rings popularity. I mean, how many "defending the castle's wall" movie can they make? Also, rottentomatoes gave it a 40% rotten rating. But after seeing it, I don't think the movie was that bad. It's no LOTR, but it's much better than the Troy. I think Orlando Bloom has too much of a boyish look to play the lead role though. Viggo Mortensen would have fit the role perfectly. Overall, the movie was worth watching, especially when it's for free from your local library.

The third movie is "Iron Jawed Angels" from HBO. It's about Alice Paul, Lucy Burns and the suffragist movement who fought for women's rights to vote. I thought it would be a slow moving, but it's really entertaining and upbeat. The movie followed the women's movement and protests against Woodrow Wilson until they forced him to support the Suffrage Amendment. They used civil disobedience similar to those used by Suffragette movement in England. They were attacked and beaten by mobs of men who did not want women to vote. They were arrested for bogus charges, and, while in jail, were forced fed when they went on a hunger strike.

One thing that stood out in the movie was when they were labeled as traitors to their country when they protested for voting rights after the country entered World War I. Those who were against them claimed that they should support wartime presidents. This has an uncanny resemblance to those who question Americans who disagree with Bush. They claim that everybody should support Bush because we are at war.

The suffragist's counter argument of course is that we cannot defend democracy abroad by abandoning it at home. Wilson was preaching about how Germans need for self-govern at the time, yet he was against granting voting rights to half of Americans.

Funny how history repeats itself. During McCarthyism, Edward Murrow gave his famous comment of "We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home." And that same arguement is true today. We cannot claim to fight for freedom for Iraqis and security for Americans while our own President erode civil liberties and his advisers reveal identities of CIA agents for political reasons.

Photojournalism

2005-12-18T15:03:00.000-08:00

My interest in photography has increased the last couple of years. I think, partly, it's in my blood, as three of my uncles had photo studios when I was growing up. They used to do weddings, and parties. But its not a cheap hobby, as "decent" lenses starts around $500 and good once starts around $700. But with digital SLRs now starts below $1000, now is the best time to get one.

Mainstream camera users think small camera's are great, and focuses on "Megapixels" without really knowing what it mean. I'm always facinated to hear people say their camera has 6+ Megapixel cameras, but when you ask them if they ever print anything larger than 5x7 they'll say "No". That's usually how you can tell if someone got ripped off by marketing terms.

I recently saw a photo journalism documentary while house sitting for a friend. The documentary was in one of those In-Demand films by some indie studio (Sundance, I think). The documentary followed photojournalists that document wars and ther human sufferings around the world. The pictures they produced are too graphic to be shown in CNN and other mainstream cable news network. But they often appear in Time Magazine and Newsweek.

It was really interesting to hear their stories. How they are condemned for different reasons. One of the most common criticism they get is people would ask them why they didn't put their cameras down and help a guy about to be executed by a mob of people. Or that why do they profit from other people's suffering. The fact is, it's not a profitable profession. Most of them make barely enough to pay for their next plane ticket to another part of the world. The documentary focused on photojournalists that are NOT on the payroll of major news networks like CNN, MSNBC, NY Times and others. Mainstream photographers always stay in hotels protected by US or UN troops. But in return, their pictures are subject to US approvals.

Real photojournalists usually stay in condemned buildings, or with locals, and would hide their pictures from US soldiers on checkpoints. This reminds me of mainstream footage of Saddam's statue falling down. CNN, FoxNews and others showed Iraqi people pulling the statue down and celebrating. While photo journalist pictures that were not confiscated by US troops showed how it took the troops hours to set things up and then gather Iraqis to make it look like they're the one pulling the statue down.

But of course, war is all about propaganda. No one can forget the Jessica Lynch story as well as the Pat Tillman story. Both people and their family were used by the Pentagon to help their publicity.

Speaking of pictures, I saw a Before and After photos of Katrina and found it really touching. I don't think one has to be a bleeding heart liberal to understand what people down there lost. Also its easy for people who weren't there to complain about survivors staying in hotels paid for by taxpayers, but I think these side-by-side pictures show what people have lost in that tragic event.

Two Movies and a Funeral

2005-12-17T00:27:00.000-08:00

I recently saw George Clooney's political thriller, Syriana, and the kid movie, Narnia. I'm not really familiar with the Narnia series so I was surprised that it has some Christian angle to it. I thought it would be like Lord of the Rings, but it's not. I then did a search online, and found out that Disney heavily targeted the Narnia movie to Christian audience. They spent millions to hire the PR company that launched Passion of the Christ, and they previewed Narnia to 40+ Evangelical churches. I've always hated it when politicians use religion to advance their agenda, and I feel the same way with movie companies doing the same thing to make money.

Luckily, I didn't pay to see Narnia. I paid to see Syriana and watched Narnia after seeing Syriana. Syriana is a great movie. The Middle East scenes reminded me of when I used to go to Saudi Arabia when I was younger. For better or worse, the movie is not politically bias. Usually oil-related movie tends to be left leaning, but not this one.

Today is a sad day for West Wing fans like me. John Spencer, who plays Leo McGarry in The West Wing passed away last night. He's a great actor and was nominated for Emmy's five times, winning once. He's currently Jimmy Smith's running mate in the show, so I don't know how the show would continue without him.

Rest in Peace, John Spencer.

Books

2005-12-08T22:29:00.000-08:00

Its been awhile since I've read a non-techie book. I can't make it a habit to pick up the 7-Habits (and 8th) books by Covey, and I keep forgetting to read that book that helps improve one's memory. So when I was in the library today, I actually avoided looking into the DVD section and instead browsed the new book section. I ended up leaving with three books. Definately more than I can read in three weeks.

The first book caught my eye because on the lower right-hand corner of it was the word "Costco". I'm an admitted Costcoholic, and I'm not ashame of it. Anyways, the book is called "Built for Growth" and I think its about expanding business. Being a lefty, with reservations about globalization, a book like this would normally not interest me. But on the other hand, I have worked for franchise companies, and have always wanted to own a franchise. Besides, I do believe that it is possible for America to return to "Responsible Capitalism". Even in this era of Nike sweatshops, Wal-Mart, Enron, Haliburton and Bush Inc. I guess that's why I'm a Costco-guy and not a Wal-Mart guy.

Speaking of which, I saw a full-page PR ad in Vallejo newspaper about Wal-Mart. On it, Wal-Mart claims to be they are the largest employer of African-Americans. They forgot to add the part about they pay less than living wage and provide no health coverage, so their employees suck-out medical coverage from taxpayers.

Wal-Mart is currently building a Super Wal-Mart in Vallejo, just two miles from a regular Wal-Mart, the old K-Mart site. The shocker is that they are planning on keeping both stores until American Canyon's city council, approves the Super Wal-Mart there. American Canyon is the city adjacent to Vallejo. They would then close down the regular Wal-Mart in Vallejo. So in the end they will have two Super Wal-Marts within three miles apart on Highway 29!

This technique had worked around the country in shutting down mom and pop stores as well as grocery stores. What Wal-Mart does is it keeps two Super Wal-Marts near each other, while running one on the red, until mom and pop stores, grocery stores and other competition in the area shuts down. They then shut down one of the Super Wal-Mart, leaving one Super Wal-Mart with no competition. Also the employees who used to work for Safeway and Albertson's for higher wages and with health coverage, must settle for working for much less in Wal-Mart and to rely on taxpayers for their health coverage. Wal-Mart talks about how many stores they open yearly, you should checkout how many they shutdown yearly using this tactic, and you'd be surprised.

With that in mind, the second book I picked up is titled "The Great American Jobs Scam". I'm sure it'll have plenty to say about Wal-Mart and others like it.

The third is "Radicals in Robes" about right-wing judges. A perfect book since we just added one radical to the highest court, and another one is on the way.

Random Thoughts

2005-12-07T22:10:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted a real blog entry in a while so I figured I break that streak.

Last week I had to say goodbye to my Digital Rebel XT. It was fun while it lasted, but I had to spend major bucks on car maintenance. Canon has a rebate all the way until mid-Jan, so I might purchase it again before that. I don't really have any road trips, hiking or camping trips planned this coming weeks.

I can't help but comment on politics. I read that the Governator, fresh from an ass-whopping by the teachers and nurse unions, had dumped his old chief of staff (also, ex-GOP Gov Pete Wilson's chief of staff) and decided to hire ex-Democrat Gov Gray Davis' chief of staff. I guess he's waving the white flag. The new person is also a lesbian, so the Christian Right is complaining big time. Also, today Rob Reiner, of the "When Harry Met Sally..." and "A Few Good Men" fame declared he's not running against Arnold as a Democrat. Honestly, as bad as Arnold has done since taking office, I don't think there is anyone out there right now with enough name recognition to beat him. So unless Boxer or Feinstein decides to run for governor, Arnold is a shoe-in for another term.

A few days ago, a friend of mine woke me up at 6:30AM to tell me (by text msg) that I should watch the movie "Rent". I then texted her back and asked her if it's good enough to wake me up at 6:30AM and she happily said "Yes!". Of course, right now, she lives in Incestville, Arkansas (j/k) so the time zone difference is to blame. She's also a big musical movie fan. Rottentomatoes.com gave Rent a rotten rating, so I wasn't so sure about shelling out money for it. One movie I've always wanted to see though is George Clooney's directorial debut in "Good Night, And Good Luck". In these times of neo-McCarthyism, where you're expected to salute "Zieg heil" to the President Gasman, I thought it was appropriate.

Anyways, "Good Night, And Good Luck" was really good and deserves the 94% Fresh rating in rottentomatoes.com. I really like how McCarthy was played by Joe McCarthy himself, and I won't be surprised if David Strathairn wins best actor. IMDB says David Strathairn has done a ton of movie, but I only know him as Tom Cruise's brother in The Firm. Another good McCarthy era movie is James Woods' "Citizen Cohn". I found the DVD for that TV movie in the library a few months ago. Anyways, after I saw "Good Night..." I hopped over to see Rent. My car was in maintenance, so I had no where to go. I didn't see all of Rent, as I got a call from the dealer saying my car is done while I was watching it. Also, a friend of mine called and asked if I can babysit her kids. So I left Rent less than half-way through. From what I've seen in Rent, I think it has potential. I like how it's set in the present time. The last three musical movies I've seen are Moulin Rouge, Chicago and The Phantom of the Opera. All of which are set in the past, but it's hard to match those three.

Maybe I'll see Rent in its entirety next week. I plan on watching Syriana and King Kong together, so maybe I'll watch three movies while paying for only one. I used to work in a movie theater, so I know that the $10 you spend on soda and popcorn only costs the theater fifty cents at most. And if I do watch three movies, you can guarantee I'll need a large Diet Coke to keep me awake.

Hiking @ SF

2005-11-29T00:51:00.000-08:00

The day after our SF trip, we went back to go hiking.

We started the day in the Ferry Building in Embarcadero. We walked around the area and had lunch there. Too bad the flee market wasn't going on at the time. But it was a clear day and I was able to take better pictures than the ones I took during my Angel Island trip.

After lunch, we met up with the group in the Cliff House area. The hike started there and we went all the way to Land's End. Its mostly a coastal hike that has a great view of the ocean and the west side of the Golden Gate Bridge. We also saw the Sutro Baths ruins.

It was around sunset when we finished hiking. We then walked down the beach along the Great Highway. My friends threw freesbee, while I took pictures of the sunset.

Afterwards, we met up with a friend in BJ's Brew House in San Mateo for dinner.

Embarcadero Pictures:

Treasure Island, Yerba Buena and the Bay Bridge

Hiking Pictures:

Labyrinth we saw along the hike

Cliff House Area and Sutro Baths:

Sunset Pictures:
In some of these I played around with the camera's exposure settings to get a misty looking shot of the ocean.

SF Trip

2005-11-29T00:39:00.000-08:00

I went to SF a couple of weeks ago with my friend.

In Market and Powell we found the tap-dancing guy, those guys painted in silver doing robot moves, and some Native American people performing what seemed like rain dances. It was really warm that weekend and it was really nice in the city.

We went to FLAX art & design store in Market Street. It's a really cool art store with everything an artist would need. The walk from Powell and Market to FLAX exposes you to a diverse scene which includes a nice theater, strip clubs, homeless people, the UN Building, more strip clubs and more homeless people. Not really a place to be walking around with a brand new thousand dollar digital camera.

I taking my new Canon Rebel XT for a spin, and I figured the best place to try it out is from the 6th floor of SF Shopping Centre in Powell and Market. The camera did well in low lighting as I was able to get decent shot in ISO 1600.

Of course a trip to that area is not complete without going the usual places. We went to Blondie's for some yummy Pizza, we went to the Apple store to check out the latest iPod, and went to Virgin Records to check out the lates CDs and movies. We then went to Borders in Union Square to rest out legs and read some magz and check out the latest books. On our way home we ran into a friend who was out for shopping, what a coincidence!

That weekend was when H&M opened its doors in SF. I'm not really familiar with that store but when we passed it at 8:30PM on our way home, they still had lines around the block of people trying to get in. Supposedly, it's big in Manhattan and they have nice clothes at Old Navy prices.

Sacramento Trip

2005-11-29T00:31:00.003-08:00

These are old pics taken earlier this month in Sacramento downtown area. They were taken a week after the nurses and teachers kicked Arnold's ass in the special election he pushed for. Unfortunately, the Governator was in the mother of all Red States (China) when I went to Sac.

Capitol Building Pics:

View of Capitol Mall from the Capitol

Cathedral

Around the block from the Capitol was a theater where new immigrants were sworn in. Outside the theater were Democrat and GOP sign-up tables.

Dems

Grand Old Party

Much ado about nothin'

2005-11-09T01:02:00.000-08:00

So after months of campaigning, all eight Propositions to amendment the California Constitution went into defeat. Now will somebody ask the Gropernator for our money back. The taxpayers spent $50M to run the election. All in all, $300M was spent by all sides. If I could go back to college, I'd probably want to be a political consultant in California. My job can't be offshored to India, and $300M is spent on a non-election year. Last year, Kerry spent $240M and Bush Jr spent $306M running in 50 states. Somehow the Gropernator was able to make special interest groups spend $300M in just one state. I guess its his way of helping the economy, or at least TV companies that shows political ads. Just as the President started a war because it's good for the economy, or at least good for his friends in Halliburton and other contractors.

(not so...) Intelligent Design

2005-11-08T18:09:00.000-08:00

Today is an election day for some parts of the country, including the great state of California. But since I don't vote, I won't complain about the results. I'm always annoyed by people who don't vote, and then compained about what politicians do. If you choose not to vote, then you don't really have the right to complain.

Anyways, I'm probably more interested on whether Matt Santos or Arnold Vinick succeeds Josiah "Jed" Bartlet than whether the Governator terminates the nurses, teachers and firefighter unions.

What caught my eye though in looking at news headlines today is the fact that the Topeka Kansas school district has voted to allow the teaching of Intelligent Design in its schools. Topeka, of course, is famous for the "Brown vs Board of Education" Supreme Court decision where so-called "activist" Supreme Court Justices trumpled over states rights and forced desegragation of schools. They are also famous for banning evolution from schools a few years ago. The ban was lifted when some school board members where replaced by those with brains. Obviously, with the introduction of ID, which is a euphemism for creationism, the board makeup had shifted to the right again.

Angel Island Pictures

2005-10-29T10:27:00.000-07:00

Ferry Building Area

Farmer's Market behind the Ferry Building

Pretty flowers behind the Ferry Building along the pier

Ferry Building from Embarcadero

Pier 39

Sea lions behind Pier 39

That's Alcatraz in the background

Shots from the Ferry

Alcatraz Island from the Ferry

North Bay covered in fog, from the Ferry

Tiburon from the Ferry.

Pics from Angel Island

Camp Reynolds

View of foggy San Francisco and Alcatraz Island

View of the Golden Gate Bridge

View of SF and Alcatraz from Perles Beach

Golden Gate Bridge from Perles Beach

An old hospital in Fort McDowell

More Fort McDowell buildings

View of the East Bay from Angel Island

Immigration Station where Chinese Immigrants where detained

A Blimp over the Bay

Ferry Building at Night

From the back of Ferry Building

View towards Market Street from the Ferry Building

Ferry Building

View of Market Street

Speaking of...

2005-10-28T22:22:00.000-07:00

I haven't been writing much as of late. I've been staying at mom's place the past few months while I work on their house. Mainly painting the walls and replacing the carpet with laminated wood floors. I'm almost done, about another two or three days worth of work left. Hopefully I finish it this coming week.

I wasn't too surprised that Bush withdrew Mier's nomination. The conservatives really hate her. I guess they don't really know who she is, and they're not buying Bush's "Trust Me" pledge. After all, his father is famous for the "Read My Lips..." line. Also with Bush's approval rating the lowest since President Carter oil embargo era, he has to please the conservative base. I'm sure he can find a conservative woman justice who would favor ending abortion to make the right-wing happy.

It always makes me laugh when I hear conservatives talk about Supreme Court justices. Specifically, when they talk about how they don't like justices that "legislate" from the bench. And how they like "constructioninst". Which basically means they want justices the interprets the Constitution the way the framers intended it. That sounds good and all, but if the Constitution is interpreted the way it was in the 1700's I'd count as four-fifths of a person. So I'm sorry if I don't agree with them. I wonder if Bush can find a woman Supreme Court justice that would agree with the Constitution's framers that woman should not have the right to vote? Hmm...

Speaking of low ratings, California's Arnold has numbers never before seen since Gray Davis' energy crisis. Of course Davis had Enron and others to blame for gouging the state. Arnold on the other hand made the mistake of attacking teachers, nurses firefighters and police unions. Sometimes I wonder why Filipino-Americans are the only Asians who are predominantly Democrats. And then I saw Fi-Am nurses on TV picketing against Arnold and I remember why.

Speaking of old actors past their prime, I read today that Stallone is bringing back Rambo. A month ago he decided to bring back Rocky. I'm guessing he's broke and needs money. I don't think I ever saw the last Rambo, but from what I remember it was Rambo helping Osama bin Ladin fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. How times have changed. Now the Russians are our friends, and Osama has a $1B bounty on his head. I guess Stallone don't want people to remember Rambo as the American hero who helped Osama. That would be high treason.

Speaking of high treason, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby resigned today after being indicted for releasing the name of a CIA agent who was married to a person who didn't agree that Saddam was buying Uranium in Africa. That after all was the main reason Bush invaded Iraq. It's also the same lie that ended Colin Powell's hope of being a President someday. Or at least a person with any credibility. I feel sorry for the guy. I'm sure somewhere in the White House Karl Rove is typing his resignation. I just hope the special prosecutor wait until a year from now, right about when Americans are voting for Congress.

Speaking of prosecutors, last week I got another subpoena from the DA's office regarding the accident I witnessed a couple of months ago. When I called the court last time, the case got a continuance. This time I have to go there on Tuesday. This sucks coz I'm supposed to babysit that day. Hopefully this time the case goes forward so I get done with it.

Speaking of accidents, a video of Janet Jackson sunbathing is circulating in the internet. Honestly, I don't understand why she would need to work on her tan. But hopefully she doesn't need to take off her fake nose. Also hopefully she doesn't have those implant scars like Tara Reid. I don't admit or deny seeing the video, but I won't be surprised if she's into Brazilian waxing and spanking her own ass to the beat of a music.

Speaking of...

Angel Island

2005-10-24T08:36:00.000-07:00

Last week I finally bought my digital SLR camera. I bought the Canon Rebel XT from my local Costco. I figured I take advantage of Costco's liberal return policy.

On Friday I got an email from a friend about a hiking trip to Angel Island. Great! I've always wanted to go back there, plus I have a new camera I wanted to take for a test drive. I've only been to Angel Island once, during high school on our Asian-American club field trip. Angel Island is the Ellis Island of the west. It has an immigration station where Chinese immigrants were detained in the early to mid 20th century, until they were allowed to enter the country. I remember the place reminded me of concentration camps I shown in the movie Shindler's List.

On Saturday morning, I took the 7AM BART from Pleasanton to the city. I wanted to go to walk around Union Square to take pictures, but since I had a 5 mile hiking to do later in the day, I decided to just go to the Ferry Building in the Embarcadero. On Saturdays they have farmers market there, so it was a great atmosphere. I decided against taking pictures of people there since I didn't know if they would mind. But I did get some pictures of the Bay Bridge, Treasure Island, and the Ferry Building.

After an hour in the Embarcadero, it was time to head up to Pier 39. I was gonna walk, but I was short on time, so I took the street car MUNI up and enjoyed the view of the several piers along the way. There were lots of joggers and tourist walking along Embarcadero.

Pier 39 was mostly deserted. It was too early in the morning and most shops were still close. I decided to grab a coffee before I stroll around and take more pictures. The view of the city is really nice from that pier, too bad it was too foggy. I walked around pier 39 for about an hour taking pictures of the sea lions, shops and Alcatraz Island.

The ferry ride to Angel Island was really fun. I've never taken the ferry from SF so I was excited. I also have a new camera with me, so it makes it more exciting. On the way to Angel Island, we got a decent view of the city, the Bay Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz Island. If could have been better but the fog covered most of the view. The ferry stopped at Alcatraz and Tiburon, before finally stopping at Angel Island.

The 5 mile hike around Angel Island is not too bad, we had to stay on a paved road most of the time, but we managed to find trails to the beach. From the beach, we could see the Bay Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge. As well as Alcatraz and SF. Again, the fog enveloped most of them, but its alright. Its what the area is famous for.

The hike was also fun because we had a big group. We had 12 people of mixed education and professional backgrounds.

After the hike, I went to a friend's dental office in the Embarcadero. We had dinner at Chevy's and then went to a friend's place in Chinatown. We hung out there until midnight and a friend drove with me to Pleasanton.

Sunday is Sabbath where I pay respect to the football gods. Of course the football gods haven't been helping my Niners the past few years. They lost 52-... well lets just say, they got their asses handed to them.

I also went to a photography presentation in Pleasanton library. The speaker is an author of a new book and also the founder of BetterPhoto.com I talk was basically about taking good pictures, lighting, composition, etc. Stuff I've read about before, but always forget to do when I'm actually taking pictures.

Speaking of great pictures, I finally downloaded the pics from the Angel Island trip. The pictures didn't come out as great as I had hoped. Most of the shots are soft or out of focus. The fog around the bay really affected the lighting and that strong coffee I had in the morning made my hand shake while taking pictures. A tripod would have been really helpful, but I don't have $150 for a tripod yet. I'm also not used to taking pictures with a big camera, and of course the Rebel XT is famous for its small hand grip.

I'll take more shots with the camera to figure out if its a keeper. Three of the people I went hiking with have the Nikon D70. That was my second option. Its only 6MP, but its really easy to hold since it's a little bigger and heavier than the Rebel XT.

I'll post pictures of the trip when I find time...

Dig SLR & O Canada!

2005-10-13T00:13:00.000-07:00

I've been too busy to update my blog lately. I'm still working on my parents' house, painting and replacing the carpet with laminated flooring.

I was supposed to meet with the DA for an accident I witness a couple of months ago, but when I called about the case, the recording said I didn't have to show up. When I talked to the process server that gave me the subpoena, I was told that if the recording says I don't need to go, then either the guy pleaded guilty, or the case is just postponed. If postponed, he said I could be subpoenaed again. Anyways, I hope I don't hear from them again. Initially I thought it was exciting to appear in court, but now the excitement has died down. Anyways, if I do end up testifying I'll make sure to turn to the defendant and yell out: "Did you order the Code Red?!!!".

One thing I've been obsessing about is getting a digital SLR camera. I'm not aiming for the really expensive ones since money is tight. But from the look of things, it's gonna cost around $1000 for the camera, lens, camera bag, tripod and all that good stuff. My options are Canon's Rebel XT, Nikon's D50 or D70/s and Olympus' E500. All makes a great first SLR. But it's amazing how good lenses can cost a thousand bucks by itself. The lens that comes with D70s kit cost $300 by itself! I paid $200 for my niece's 5MP Canon A520. And that came with a free 256MB memory card. Really good lenses can cost $1000 easily. But for now, I think a good everyday lens is good enough. That, and maybe a decent Macro lens. I'm hoping to get it by Christmas. So hopefully prices comes down for the shopping season.

Right now I have a four year old 2MP. To help pay for my camera, I decided to sell my Nintendo GameCube along with all my games, and I'll probably sell most of DVDs also.

I recently read an article about a survey that named Vancouver as the "Best city to live" in. I've never been to Vancouver, but almost everyone I talked to about the city gave a very positive view of it. They say it's very diverse and progressive. Plus, it's close to Seattle and only 17 hrs from Le Bay Area! Oh yeah, one doesn't need to speak French to live there. It also has the second largest Chinatown in Northern America (only SF's is larger). It has a lot of Asians, about 17% of its population are Chinese, 3% Filipino and 8% other Asians. If I were to live outside the Bay Area, Vancouver will probably top the list, and then Melbourne or Sydney. There are also European cities I'd like to live in.

Laguna Beach

2005-09-26T14:44:00.000-07:00

Drove down to SoCal over the weekend for a friend's wedding. The simple wedding was in Laguna Beach on Saturday night. We also had time to kick it around Irvine, which we did in the Spectrum Center.

This is how the cutting of the cake looked when you mix Tokyo Tea and sleep deprivation. (...and a camera that can't focus in low lighted room)

I caught the wedding garter!

Mariposa and Solano

2005-09-22T14:37:00.000-07:00

(Originally posted on Aug 19)

I started this more than a week ago but never finished it until this morning. Anyways, here it is...
===============

The corner of Mariposa and Solano in Vallejo is a place I'm very familiar with. It's where the Burger King I slaved at in high school is located. Or as we used to call it, Love Connection due to several hook-ups that happened there when I was there. Hey, when you're slaving for minimum wage, you gotta find something positive about it. And there's nothing better than making out in a walk-in freezer right next to the frozen fries and burger patties while the cashiers call out orders that no one's making. The good ol days...

Anyways, a couple of weeks ago, while coming back from Home Depot, we were on the corner of Mariposa and Solano when we saw five police cars and a SWAT team armored vehicle heading east on Solano Ave towards Springs Rd. Their lights were on, but their sirens were off, meaning they do not want to reveal that they are approaching. After I made the right turn towards Springs Rd, my niece couldn't hide her excitement that we were following the storm troopers. Of course my first tought was that somebody finally turned-in our "neighborhood pharmacist" but after going over the freeway overpass, we saw the cop cars and the SWAT tank stopped at a house behind a used car dealer lot. The SWAT guy who's upper body sticking out on top of the armored car, pointing a machine gun onto the house looked a lot cooler than the fat asses with their hand gun drawn.

Of course I didn't want to rubber-neck so I just drove by and went home. Home was just two blocks away from it all. As we unload our stuff we bought at Home Depot, we noticed the chopper circling above us. It was pretty bright outside, so there was no need for a spotlight. Anyways, I walked back to the main street and watched cars scramble their way around the scene as the cops blocked Springs Rd, a fairly busy street.

My niece keeps saying that we should walk to Burger King to get food so we can see the action. The idea of maybe running to the scene with my camera take pictures and maybe sell the pics to the local newpaper and get credit for it, came to mind. Since lately I've been obsessing about photography and a digital SLR camera that I can't afford, it would be cool to be credited for a local news. Of course the better part of me reminded me that the headline could easily be something like: "Idiot amateur photographer shot by stray bullet." That should win me a Darwin Award instead of photojournalist award. So I passed on the chance of being a local Peter Parker and just went home to catch ESPN.

Fast forward a couple of days.

My niece, my brother and I were coming back from Sacramento. And after taking the Solano exit from westbound I-80, we found ourselves on the off ramp heading toward Mariposa and Solano. As we approach the intersection, I noticed the lights was green. I told my niece: "Hey, no SWATs this time.".... (lots ofstuff deleted)

(NOTE: I'm removing the rest of this since I got a subpoena from the DA regarding what happened. I didn't get a gag order or anything, but I might have to testify in court as a witness. I don't know if anyone died in the accident, but its now a criminal case).

Disneyland Trip

2005-09-13T23:51:00.000-07:00

Last weekend my family and I went down to Disneyland for my niece's birthday. The drive was tiring, but the weekend was really fun. I haven't been to Disneyland in almost twenty years so there's been a lot of changes since then. But the classics (It's a Small World, Star Tours, and that Tea Cup) were still there. The best part was the Parade of Dreams in the afternoon and the Fantasmic show at night.

Katrina

2005-09-13T10:32:00.000-07:00

I've always considered myself a news junkie, so when Katrina hit the Gulf Coast a couple of weeks ago, and my friend and I were away from civilization, checking out national parks in the Northwest, I felt like I missed a big event. But there are things that will not change. Republicans and Democrats spun the news the way that helps their party.

Bush Inc. was predictable when they claim that the disaster is a state and local government issue, and that the BIG FEDERAL GOVERNMENT should not meddle. Funny how when a car thief steals a car and crosses state boundaries, the feds steps in and considers it a federal crime. But when people are dying by the thousands on live TV because of an F5 hurricane that crosses national and state borders, Bush Inc. invokes the "Big Government" argument.

But the funniest thing I think came from Barbara "Momma" Bush when she said that these poor people living in Astrodome and Silverdome are better off now that before the hurricane. She said that before the hurricane, these poor, mostly black, didn't have a roof over their head, and now they do. That got me thinking, I think these people, displaced by the hurricane, are probably wishing they are refugees in Iraq right now, since Bush treat poor Iraqis better than he treat black people that never voted for him.

Another funny comment out of these came from the head of FEMA. While all news stations were airing starving people staying in the Astrodome and Silverdome, the feds didn't bother sending food for a couple of days. And when confronted on live TV, why that was the case, he said that it wasn't until after two days that they were "factually informed" that there were people in the domes. I guess the whole time, they thought CNN and others were using liberal Hollywood green screen tricks to make people appear to be in those domes starving and needing medical attention.

Of course wherever there are disasters, there are people looting for food and anything they want. I remember during the LA riots caused by Rodney King beating verdict, a friend told me he saw a bunch of Filipino teenagers on TV loading a Street Fighter 2 arcade game from 7-Eleven to a pick-up truck. Of course it's only looting if your skin is darker than a paper bag. Otherwise, it's called "finding".

Can you match the picture with its corresponding news clip?

Road Trip 2005 (Northwest)

2005-09-06T01:16:00.000-07:00

My friend and I took a 2400+ mile road trip through the Northwest last week. The trip took us to Seattle, Olympic National Park, Mt Rainier National Park and Mount St Helen National Monument in Washington state, as well as to Lassen National Park in Northern California. We drove (a lot!), camped out to save money on lodging, and hiked to waterfalls, beaches and really old and tall trees. We took lots of pictures, ate a lot of road and camping food, and managed to avoid getting speeding tickets.

On yeah, click the pics to enlarge them.

Seattle
Our plan was to drive as far north as we need and then work our way down. We left the Bay Area around 11PM on Monday night (Aug 29th). And by 11AM the following day we were in Seattle. We had lunch in Seattle's famous Public Market.

These figurines are made of ashes from Mt St Helen's last eruption (circa 1980)

Olympic National Park
Later in the afternoon, we took the Edmonds-Kingston Ferry across Puget Sounds to get to Olympic Nation Park. It was pretty dark when we got to Olympic, but the sky was clear, and we could actually see across the water to Victoria, Canada. We went to a YMCA in Port Angeles to shower and then camped for the night at Heart O' the Hills camp grounds.

The following day, we drove around the park and hiked to the coast.

Peaks of Mt Olympus from Hurricane Ridge Visitor Center

We hiked a couple of miles to see Sol Duc Falls

And then hiked a little more through the forest that leads to Third Beach on the Pacific coast.

We reached to coast around 5:00PM, which was low tide, so we saw lots of star fishes and other creatures on the coastal tidepool.

It was late Wednesday when we finally left Olympic to drive to Mt Rainier. Along the way, we stopped by a Costco for cheap food and gas, we saw Seattle's night lights.

Mt Rainier National Park
We got to Mt Rainier around 2 AM Thursday morning. We tried our best not to wake up our neighbors while we set up our tent. In the morning, we drove around the park.

View of Mt Rainier from Sunrise Visitor Center

We did a little hiking in Sunrise area

A little hiking in The Groves of the Patriarchs allowed us to see really tall and old trees. Some trees are 10 ft in diameter and are 10,000 years old!

In Reflection Lakes, we took pictures of Mt Rainier and its reflection.

We also hiked a little to see Narada Falls

This picture of Narada Falls, shows that even cameras can capture motions.

Mt St Helen National Monument
For Thursday night, we camped in Cougar Rock in Mt Rainier. The following morning, we left early and drove to Mt St Helen National Monument.

This is the view of Mt Rainier from Mt St. Helen's Windy Ridge

This wierd looking tree fascinated everyone. There are hundreds of these trees destroyed during Mt St Helen's eruption in 1980

Most of the land around this lake was part of Mt St Helen and was blown off during the 1980 eruption

Mt St Helen remains active until today. On June, its dome collapsed and steam begun coming out of its peak.

Lasssen National Park
We left Mt St Helen on Friday afternoon, and drove across Oregon, to California's Lassen National Park. While in Oregon, I called my brother to see where the nearest Costco is in Salem, Oregon so we can get some cheap food and gas. We got to Lassen around 2 AM, and once again we tried to set up our tent without waking up our neighbors.

Mt Lassen has a pretty interesting history. It's relatively new, as it was formed just 27,000 years ago. It was also formed "suddenly" (within a couple of years), when 2,000 feet of land was pushed off from the lava bed below. The same lava bed used to supply a giant volcano known as Mt Tehama. When Mt Tehama last erupted (400,000 yrs ago), it's top dome collapsed and formed several mountain peaks and a huge valley. A park ranger told us that 5 miles below Lassen NP is a huge pocket of lava waiting to get out! Also, Lassen's shaped was erroded during the last ice age (about 18,000 to 25,000 yrs ago).

Beaver Dam in Hat Lake. This 5 ft tall dam was built by beavers! The lake was formed when Mt Lassen erupted in 1915 and water from melted snow flooded the area. Mt Lassen was very active, and erupted several times, between 1914 and 1921. This eruption contributed to the government designating it a National Park.

We hiked to Kings Creek Falls

To the left is the cascading portion of Kings Creek Falls, to the right is a wierd lookind tree

We hiked to Bumpass Hell. Which reminded us of Yellowstone National Park. Here we saw boiling muds and steam vents. Oh yeah, the place also stinks just like in Yellowstone

It was Saturday night by the time we got back to Pleasanton. The trip was lots of fun. We didn't have time to see Redwood and California coast, but we figured that's within a few hours from the Bay Area.

Road Trip!

2005-08-29T09:54:00.000-07:00

My friend and I are planning a road trip this week. We'll probably take off tonight and be back on Saturday. Our destinations are National Parks between here and Seattle. So that should include Olympic, Mt Rainer, Mt St Helens in Washington, and Redwood, Lava Beds and Lessen in Northern California. We may stop by at Crater Lake in Oregon, but since we went there last year, we could skip it this year. We also plan to see as much of the Northwest Coasts as possible. Anyways, I'll post pics when we get back.

12:09 AM!

2005-08-29T09:28:00.000-07:00

On Saturday nite, I went to SF for a friend's birthday party. We went to Medjool Restaurant and Café in 21st and Mission. The place was really nice, they have tables on the first floor and a lounge type setup on the second floor. The rooftop had a bar and the view of SF's nightlights. Saturday nite was pretty clear, so we got to see stars, and I recall looking for Mars.

Honestly, my recollection of the nite was vague since I had a lot to drink. Okay, not really a lot, just one Long Island iced tea and three Tokyo Teas. Normally I just drink one, so having four is a lot for me. Also, we didn't really had dinner, just appetizer. Although i can vaguely recall stopping at one of the taquerias in Mission on our way back to BART station. I also recall going to the restroom a lot. But that's probably a good thing since I didn't have to pee on the street...

I also recall missing the last BART to the East Bay. 12:09 AM comes to mind. And I think that was the last train to the East Bay. We got to the station around 12:40 (I think). We had to call a friend to come back and pick us up. We ended up crashing at a friend's place in Fremont. He then dropped us off to BART on Sunday morning.

Anyways, it was a fun nite at the city, and I'm just glad we got home safe...

Deprecated!!!

2005-08-19T22:35:00.000-07:00

This blog has been deprecated in favor of a new one:
http://reyluv2.blogspot.com/
Oh yeah, if you're looking for Rachel Ray pics, you WON'T find them in the new blog.

Welcome to the Neighborhood

2005-07-04T07:27:00.000-07:00

"Why should people of color and others ... be humiliated and degraded to teach white people not to be bigots?"

The quote above is from a CNN article about ABC's cancelled reality show "Welcome to the Neighborhood". I never really heard of the show, but find the concept really funny. Basically the concept is families of different race, and lifestyles trying to audition to move into a conservative white neighborhood. The white families gets to interview the families auditioning and they choose which family to vote out each week.

Here's the article.

Weight Lifting

2005-07-02T23:10:00.000-07:00

I started lifting weights again two weeks ago. Of course, since I haven't lifted weights in months, the first time I lifted weights again, it took more than a week before I had full use of my arms. So, its really more like I've lifted weights twice the past two weeks. I haven't worked out my chest, backs, and legs yet either, just biceps and triceps. The last time I took a long break from working out and worked out my legs, I couldn't walk for a week. Anyways, tomorrow I'll be in the gym working out my legs, hopefully I can drive back home afterwards.

Anyways, I've been reading more about weight lifting. I still have creatine left from a year ago, I think I'll skip using that and do it the natural way. If I don't see results, then I'll go back to that, and maybe NO2 as well.

Here's a funny bodybuilding quote I saw today:
"Tomorrow you won't even care about how today's food tasted."

Rachel Ray Pics

2005-07-02T23:08:00.000-07:00

If you're in my blog looking for Rachel Ray pics, you're not the only one. If fact, more than 200 different users visit my blog everyday looking for Rachel Ray pics. I've removed them from my blog, so... sorry.

Famous Prayer

2005-06-28T00:49:00.000-07:00

"O Lord, give me health and strength. I'll steal the rest."

Pride and Geeks

2005-06-27T23:30:00.000-07:00

I went to SF on Sunday for NetBeans Day. Its a free event and part of JavaOne 2005. I haven't really used Java much lately, and I've never used NetBeans, so I figured I check it out. NetBeans is a free, open source IDE from Sun. They were giving away free NetBeans books, free USB drives, and a free lunch and drinks, so how can I resist. Plus, they had free T-shirts, and even free beer and wine afterwards. I'm sorry to say, but no geek can resist free stuff. The only thing I didn't get is a free pass to the JavaOne conference. I don't have the money for it, and I didn't win one of the five free pass they raffled.

By some coincidence, the Pride Parade was also Sunday. I checked it out, but I only saw the beginning part (the dykes on bikes) since I had to rush to the NetBeans thingi to get my free stuff.

Anyways, below are pics from Sunday.

Tinky Winky

Naked man on a bike

Tricycle

Dykes on Bikes

Rainbow

James Gosling, the father of Java

Rise from your Grave!

2005-06-26T23:04:00.000-07:00

"Rise from your Grave!"

This famous command from Altered Beast (dang, I'm getting old) doesn't really describe my return to bloggerland. But I'll use it anyways. I decided to shut down my blog for a while, but I decided to re-open it. I don't really have much time to update it, but I figured I re-start it anyways.

so... "Hello (again), World."