Tito's Tacos

Today we went to lunch at Tito's Tacos (if you know the place you should be saying, "Ooooh, Tito's!"). Boy was it fantastic. If you haven't been there yet, I highly recommend it.

Freedom Tower ?

Here's information on the latest proposal of the Freedom Tower, taking the place of the fallen World Trade Center.

DETAILS:

• Construction would begin next year and be completed in 2010.
• Estimated $1.5 billion cost
• Nation's tallest building (326 feet taller than Sears Tower)

BUILDING FEATURES:

• Height: 1,368 feet without antenna; 1,776 with antenna; 82 floors
• Office space: 2.6 million square feet over 69 floors
• Other floors: Include observation decks, restaurants, Manhattan Television Alliance facilities and mechanical floors
• Footprint: 200 feet by 200 feet (same size as each original World Trade Building)

SAFETY/ANTI-TERRORISM FEATURES:

• The building's base will be constructed of blast-resistant concrete walls, and those walls will be sheathed in stainless steel or titanium.
• Chemical and biological filters will be installed in the airsupply system.
• All safety systems (stairs, elevators, sprinklers) will be enclosed in a 3-foot-thick concrete core wall.
• A staircase dedicated for firefighters' use will be built.

And here are some pictures:

Movie Review: War of the Worlds

Great action film. I think it might be the most awesome "end of the world" movie I've seen (even better than The Core..."The core of the Earth has stopped spinning!"). The effects were great and the story was pretty good. Just don't expect anything awesome at the end of the movie. I don't think there's a good way to end a movie with aliens attacking Earth. Unless, of course, you can get Will Smith to upload a Mac virus to the Mother Ship.

Disneyland Fireworks Show !

Since Joanne and I are annual passholders for Disneyland, we try and make it out there every so often. Last night, we went in the evening time just to see the new fireworks show they set up for their 50th Anniversary. We only went on one ride: The Monorail. Boy, was that a good one.

The other reason for going was to get an evening snack. Mmmm, ice cream!

Disneyland has the best fireworks I've ever seen. Not necessarily the most fireworks, but the biggest variety and definitely the best choreography. This fireworks show is called "Remember...Dreams Come True." Boy, is that a cheesy title, but the show was pretty cool to watch.

Throughout the fireworks show several themes are presented representing the last 50 years. They had segments for the Indiana Jones ride, the Electric Parade, and Star Wars! Check out the video clips I took:

Electric Parade (Quicktime, 1.1 MB)

Star Wars (Quicktime, 1.5 MB)

The Lakers Draft Picks

Last night was the NBA Draft and the Lakers had a 1st round 10th pick and 2nd round 7th and 9th picks. Here's who we got:

Andrew Bynum was our 1st Round 10th pick. He's 7ft tall and weighs in at 300 lbs. He's only 17 and is coming from St. Joseph's High School.

Ronny Turiaf was our 2nd Round 7th pick. He's a power forward from Gonzaga.

Von Wafer was our 2nd Round 9th pick. He's a guard from Florida State.

Welcome to our new Lakers.

Fireworks !

I'm sure you have driven around (unless they're illegal in your area) and have seen the fireworks booths being constructed. It's fireworks time!



Just thought I'd pay homage to the classic fireworks that I remember as a child.




Ground Blooming Flowers - Old reliable. These are classics. They turn different colors and spin around on the ground. Even more fun to throw up in the air.






Cuckoo is your standard fountain firework with some decent noise-making ability.







The Killer Bee Fountain has KILLER BEES flying around while the fountain is going on.







And the classic. Piccolo Pete. Absolutely nothing to look at (other than a flame), but nice and loud.

10 Most Unbreakable Sports Records

A list was recently created on AskMen.com for the Top 10 Most Unbreakable Sports Records. I thought it was a pretty cool list of sports feats.

10. Rocky Marciano's 49-0
9. Michael Schumacher's 7 championships
8. Ty Cobb's .366 career batting average
7. Nolan Ryan's 7 no-hitters
6. Wayne Gretzky's 215-point season
5. Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point night
4. John Wooden's 88 straight wins
3. Cy Young's 511 wins
2. Jerry Rice's 22,895 receiving yards
1. Cal Ripken's 2,632 consecutive games

Who else do you think should have made the list?

Farewell, Tigger and Piglet.

Two voice actors passed away this weekend. Paul Winchell, best known as the voice of Tigger and Gargamel passed away Friday (age 82).

John Fiedler also passed away on Saturday (age 80). He was best known for his voice as Piglet. He also played a juror in 12 Angry Men (a movie from 1957 that I enjoyed).

Congratulations Miyuki and Dave!

On Saturday, we went to go see Miyuki and Dave's wedding. It was at the Hilton Waterfront in Huntington Beach. It was a beautiful wedding and the weather was fantastic. Everyone had a great time.

Here's the happy couple: Mr. and Mrs. David and Miyuki Leung

Here's what I learned. Immediately after the bride, groom, and bridal party exit the ceremony, head directly over to the prereception area. You want to be able to maximize your time with the hors d'oeuvres and the alcoholic beverages. They had the best hors d'oeuvres: shrimp cocktail, fried artichoke hearts, fried scallops wrapped in bacon, you get the point. Because we were the first ones at the prereception, we got all the appetizers we wanted! We didn't even care what was for dinner. Here's Amy going in for a few more jumbo shrimp.

We all had a great time. It was a great party. Congratulations, Miyuki and Dave!

Fondue Friday #2 !

On Friday night, we had another fondue with our friends that came into town. Alan (middle) flew in from Ohio just to hang out with us (and for work). Chang (2nd from the right) drove down from Mountain View. Eddy and Stephanie (on the far left and far right) drove all the way down from Hollywood (it's a pretty brutal drive on a Friday).

The fondue chocolate turned out even better this time. We had half dark and half milk chocolate this time and topped it off with a little Kahlua (my favorite).

Afterward we played some intense games of Speed and Pounce. Speed is not a very advanced or complicated card game, but definitely brought out some award-winning performances.
(Is that Episode III in the background???)

Here's Eddy about to be crushed by Chang.

And here's Stephanie (aka Stephi'ne), the evening's most intense Speed player.

Here's Joanne and Stephanie just chillin'.

New Photo Banner

Do you like the new photo banner I put at the top of the page? I think it's pretty cool. It shows you a random selection of high quality images I provide to you each day. If you hit refresh, a new set of pictures pop-up for your enjoyment.

Have a nice day.

NBA Champs, The San Antonio Spurs!

Well, if you didn't watch any of the NBA Finals Series this year, you missed out. Both the San Antonio Spurs and Detroit Pistons played great games and brought it down to Game 7, the first Finals Game 7 in 11 years. It's the Spurs' 3rd Championship in the last 7 years.

Tim Duncan received the MVP Award, his 3rd Finals MVP, categorizing him with Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, and Shaquille O'Neal.

Good stuff.

Tom Cruise needs to be stopped!

Did you know that Tom Cruise is a Sith? Look what he did to Oprah!

Ahhh! New computer.

Nothing is better than a new computer. And, in this case, nothing is better than a new computer for my parents. Last night we put together their new Dell Dimension 4700 with a 17" LCD flat panel monitor. What a deal! $550!

I will hardly even use it, but I am the most excited since it will mean that I will be able to spend less time on it when I am serving as tech support for my parents. I'm sure many of you have to deal with computer issues...and I'm sure many of you have to help out with the problems on your parents' computers. Nothing is worse than when you have a computer crunching for far too long to do simple tasks. It was pretty bad.

Now if I can just get my dad to change over to Gmail. It's just better. If you haven't changed to Gmail yet, let me know and I'll hook you up.

From Another Galaxy to Ours

Until recently, Princess Leia only existed in a galaxy far, far away. Now she is the Princess of Norway.

"Born on April 8, Leah Isadora is the second child of Princess Maertha Louise and writer Ari Behn, and the third grandchild of King Harald and Queen Sonja." (article)

Her name was inspired by the Star Wars heroine Princess Leia.

She said it herself:
"And I have to admit that I am a great Star Wars fan and Princess Leia has always been the most beautiful woman in the world," Maertha Louise said.

The question is: When she gets older, how will she do her hair?

AFI's Top 100 Movie Quotes

Last night I watched AFI's Top 100 Movie Quotes on CBS. It just got me captivated the entire time since I like movies so much. Thank goodness for Tivo. At least I was also able to watch the NBA Finals Game 6 (I can't believe the Pistons tied it up). That's 6 hours of TV viewed in about 3 hours. Not bad.

The most interesting thing about the show was that the quotes could almost be categorized into 4 categories (probably more): Quotes that represented the entire movie, quotes that occurred during the peak of the movie, quotes that became catch phrases, and quotes that are now used in everyday language.

The Top 100 Movie Quotes are... (click here)

Here is a list of the 400 quotes nominated for the Top 100: link (The winners have a star next to them)

Notables:

#29 COL. NATHAN JESSEP (Jack Nicholson): "You can't handle the truth!"
A FEW GOOD MEN, Columbia, 1992 (Chang loves this one, but mainly loves the entire monologue)
#25 ROD TIDWELL (Cuba Gooding, Jr.): "Show me the money!"
JERRY MAGUIRE, TriStar, 1996
#2 VITO CORLEONE (Marlon Brando): "I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse."
THE GODFATHER, Paramount, 1972
#85 GOLLUM (Andy Serkis): "My precious."
THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS, New Line Cinema, 2002
#80 ROCKY BALBOA (Sylvester Stallone): "Yo, Adrian!"
ROCKY, United Artists, 1976
#61 TONY MONTANA (Al Pacino): "Say 'hello' to my little friend!"
SCARFACE, Universal, 1983
#21 DR. HANNIBAL LECTER (Anthony Hopkins): "A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti."
THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, Orion, 1991
#44 COLE SEAR (Haley Joel Osment): "I see dead people."
THE SIXTH SENSE, Hollywood Pictures, 1999
#94 LT. PETE 'MAVERICK' MITCHELL (Tom Cruise): "I feel the need..."LT. PETE 'MAVERICK' MITCHELL/ LT. NICK 'GOOSE' BRADSHAW (Anthony Edwards): "...the need for speed!"
TOP GUN, Paramount, 1986

And the best one (of course):
#8 HAN SOLO (Harrison Ford): "May the Force be with you."
STAR WARS, Twentieth Century Fox, 1977

Lakers Analysis

So, the trade I mentioned last Friday is confirmed, but with a slight change. Looks like we are losing my favorite "Denko" instead of Brian Cook. The trade is Slava Medvedenko, Brian Cook, and a 2nd round pick in exchange for Indiana Pacers Jonathan Bender and a #17 1st round draft pick.

Bye, Denko. We'll never forget your 16 point game against the Spurs.

So, $30 million later we have Phil Jackson as a coach. Kobe Bryant and Lamar Odom will probably be the foundation of our team. Still can't get rid of Grant...maybe next year. We really need to strengthen our point guard, power foward, and center positions. Time to make another trade. Anyone want Vlade?

Father's Day

On Father's Day, we enjoyed a nice dinner with Joanne's family. Joanne's mom made an awesome dinner (of course) for all of us and her dad made Korean barbecue.

There was great weather this past weekend, so I took some pictures of their vegetable garden. Lookin' good!

Poker Night!

Well, here's my first entry in the blog about the 7 Card Studs. That's the name of our Poker group that gets together each month. We've been playing for almost 2.5 years and we play each time for a chance to be the holder of The Belt. Take a look at this bad boy:

This past Saturday we played for an astounding 9 hours until 6:45am. The sun came out and told us that it was time to finally stop playing. The winner from Saturday's game was Kevin. This was his second win of the year. Great job. In addition to The Belt, we also have a Loser Stick which is the prize if you hold the grand position of LAST PLACE. Alan took this honor and, in respect, we will not disclose how much he actually lost.

For dinner we ordered the world's largest pizza. 36 inches in diameter! (See the Coke can as reference of size) It was a monster. It had to be transported to my house in an SUV with the seats folded down.

And to wash it all down, the drink of the night was Grey Goose and tonic. The Goose treated us well.