Happy Halloween !

We had a Halloween Party on Saturday night and didn't make costumes mandatory. Sorry, we were just happy to have the party during our jet lag recovery. But, to our surprise, lots of costumes showed up! Check 'em out:

Donald Dog

Jacob the Monkey (a little unhappy after touching the Halloween tree)

The Sasaki Fire Department

with Amy as the Fire Engine and Daniel as the Dalmatian:

And Presto as the fireman:

Farmer Glenn

The Village People (with Hilari the Indian)

Jimmy the Hollywood Actor

Glenn and Denise as the Wedding Guests

Joanne as Sleepy Girl

Buster the Japanese Dog (he had 3 costumes)

And everyone loved our Halloween Tree, right?

Other highlights of the evening: Daniel working on his Yodagami (he only got through one and a half pages of the five) and Presto drinking from the big bottle.

Later that night, Joanne designed and carved our Halloween pumpkin. It turned out great! Say hello to Darth Pumpkin:

Hope you all have a great Halloween and hopefully I can post up pictures from our Japan trip soon.

Coors Light Challenge

Turn on your speakers for this one.



http://www.coorslight.com/iceswipe/

Thanks, Staci, for sending this.

I had a feeling this would happen...

I knew I wouldn't get around to updating the blog while we were gone. Just having so much fun over here. We've been just about everywhere and done just about everything...and more importantly, eaten just about everything.

Flew into Tokyo, went to Yokohama and Kamakura, then traveled down to my relatives in Iwakuni, visited in Hiroshima and Miyajima, then traveled to Kyoto, and now back in Tokyo. And we did all of our major traveling on the Shinkansen (bullet train). Here's a picture of one of the ones we rode on:

When we went to Yokohama, we went up the Landmark Building which is 69 floors tall and has one of the world's fastest elevators. It had a speedometer! Here's a view from the top:

We also went to Kamakura where we saw the Big Buddha statue (Daibutsu). Very cool.

My relatives also own a Gyu-Kaku restaurant in Iwakuni. That's right! The same chain that's in America! We ate there for dinner one night.

Tomorrow we will be back on the airplane making the slightly shorter flight back (the way up was just shy of 12 hours). But, it will be another fun flight since we barely slept on the way to Tokyo. They have a super entertainment system that has 60 on-demand movies (you can fast forward/rewind and start when you want), lots of TV shows, and lots of video games. They even had video games we could play against each other from our seats. The remote control doubles as a video game controller. Joanne and I played Battleship on the way to Tokyo, but we only played twice since I won both times.

We'll be back soon. Can't wait to be home.

We're off to Japan !

That's right. It's time Russell and Joanne take their first big trip together since their honeymoon. We're leaving this afternoon at 2:35pm on Singapore Airlines Flight SQ11. It's a 10.5 hour flight and we will be arriving in Tokyo at 6:00pm tomorrow. Japan is 16 hours ahead during Daylight Savings Time (we don't 'fall back' until October 30th) and is 17 hours ahead when it's not DST. Japan doesn't care about saving daylight, I guess.

Japan is broken up into 4 major islands: Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu. We'll be spending all of our time in southern Honshu. We'll be traveling as far west as Hiroshima and as far east as Tokyo. For reference, the actual train route distance between both cities is about 560 miles.

Needless to say, the blog entries will be a whole lot less frequent for the next 2 weeks. I'll try my best to update it while we're out there. I'm dedicated.

Sayonara!

Old Noodles

They found some really old noodles somewhere in China. Guess they had really good tupperware back then, because they look pretty good. (Article)

Speaking of noodles, I've added a new section titled "Essential Links" to the sidebar. --->

Now you can get quick access to oodles and oodles of noodles whenever you need your fix.

New iPod

There's a new iPod on the market. Slightly wider screen and video capability. They are starting with 2000 music videos available for download and they are partnering up with TV companies to allow for downloading of television episodes. You can even get some episodes of Lost.

They've also announced some new 5G iMacs with built-in webcams. Pretty cool.

What do you think?

Yes

Yes.

More Trailers

The previous post of the Shining trailer went over well. It was the winning film from a contest where students made movie trailers that twisted around the movie's original premise. Here are some runner ups:

Green Day

Saturday night was Green Day's concert at the Home Depot Center in Carson. It was their last stop on their American Idiot Tour. This concert was truly amazing. Green Day has been around for 17 years (are we that old?) and this was their biggest concert in LA. It was sold out and every seat was taken.

Going in, I told Joel that I was definitely bringing in my camera despite the stated rules. I had been to several concerts where it was no problem getting one through security and everyone seemed to have one anyway. Well, when we got to the front of the line, we noticed that they had the metal detector gates just like the ones at the airport. Damn. So, I came up with a plan and we decided to try anyway. Went through the gate, put the keys and cell phone in the basket, walked through, and the buzzer went off. They sent me to the secondary security guy. I put my keys back in my pocket (I don't know why). He busted out the metal detector wand and it went off by my pocket (of course). I pulled out my keys. He checked again. It went off by my belt buckle. I showed him my belt. Clear. Enjoy the concert. (The camera was hidden just behind my belt buckle) Nice. And for my troubles, here are some pictures and video.

Jimmy Eat World opened for Green Day and their performance was great. The pit area was huge (it's an entire soccer field) and it was packed. Here's what it looked like while they were setting up after Jimmy Eat World's set.

Our seats were in the closest seated section on the right side of the stage. Joel and I were worried that the seats would have a bad view, but it worked out great. The band members could run to the sides of the stage and get real close!

The lead singer, Billy Joe, is insane. He never seemed to run out of energy and provided the most exciting rock concert I've ever seen. (Right up there with U2) He was always doing something different. He even brought up a few people from the audience to play on the band's instruments (drums, bass, lead guitar). The first lead guitarist they chose was about 3 years old and the guitar was too big, so they found someone else. As a consolation, Billy Joe gave the 3-year-old his guitar! Billy Joe came out with different hats on from time to time. Here's some.

The band played about 7 tracks from their new album (great album) and some old favorites like Basket Case, Hitchin' a Ride, Longview, Brain Stew, Minority, and Time of Your Life. Thrown inbetween were Shout (originally by Isley Brothers), Stand By Me (originally by Ben E. King), and We are the Champions (originally by Queen). Very cool. Here's a view of the crowd with their cell phones and lighters during Wake Me Up When September Ends.

Their pyrotechnics were phenomenal. They had fireworks, explosions, and huge fire torches going off all the time. It got pretty hot from our seats. At the finale, they had the stadium filled with confetti.

Check out my video footage:

(reduced to 320x240, wmv)

(Songs from the American Idiot album)

(Old favorites, pyrotechnics, and the grand finale)

Good times.

Franz Ferdinand

Last night I went with Eddy to go see Franz Ferdinand in concert at the Greek Theatre. If you don't know who Franz Ferdinand is, they are the ones that do this song. If you still don't recognize them, oh well. Anyway, they were great in concert and they are very much British.

The highlight of the concert might have been during the last song when three of the bandmembers were bangin' away on the same drum set! Crazy!

The Greek Theatre is a great, intimate concert location at Griffith Park in LA. We had great seats on one of the terraces on the side. We had a great overhead view of the stage. Here's a view from our seats (apologies for the cameraphone quality):

Stephanie was sick so she wasn't able to go with Eddy (Why is everyone getting so sick?). That's where I came in. Thanks Stephanie for letting me go in your place. And get better soon.

That was Night 1 of 2 for my concert weekend. Tonight, I see Green Day!

Feeling Primm ?

It seems that if Joanne and I ever want to go to Stateline, Eddy and Stephanie are more than ready to go. Other than my family, no one gets too excited about staying at Stateline. Hard to beat $60 a night for direct access to some of the best gambling (meaning affordable) you can find. So when we asked if they wanted to go stay at Primm Valley this past weekend for our 1 year anniversary, they were in. As you can see, Stephanie was more than ready for the weekend since she brought her player's card and already had it attached to her hip.

Past History: Her "Vegas name" was invented here when the casino worker misspelled her name as 'Stephaine' (pronounced ste-fine).

The next day, Joanne and I went to her coworker's wedding at Tropicana. Afterward, we headed over to the Bellagio where they had a very interesting fruit exhibit. Can you count the apples?

Next, we went over to the Aladdin to go shopping and get some Starbucks. I think we might've had a Starbucks after every meal. The amazing thing was that Steph ordered the drinks and they very appropriately misspelled her name. What's the deal? How would you spell Stephanie?

We did some shopping in the mall and Steph found a massage chair at Sharper Image that was very hard to pass up. She did a lot of thinking and justifying why she shouldn't buy the chair. For some reason, Steph created a lot of blog material this weekend.

For our long awaited dinner, we went to Delmonico in the Venetian. It was Joanne and Steph's first time so it was exciting! We had some cocktails to start, followed by soup and salad. We all had the freshly made Caesar Salad (they make the dressing right there at the table) and Eddy had the fantastic gumbo. Mmmm...

But, that's not all! Eddy had the lobster and Stephanie had the veal. I've never tasted such good veal before.

And Joanne and I, of course, had the signature steak: the Bone-In Ribeye. It doesn't get much better than this (actually it doesn't get better than this). If you've had this steak before, you know what I'm talking about.

And to top it off, we had some desserts and celebrated Steph's birthday (this past Tuesday) and our anniversary.

That night, we went back to Stateline and we all played blackjack! Everyone did well...except for me. But, that's alright since I did well Friday night.

The next day we headed over to Makino, a Japanese All-You-Can-Eat place, for lunch. It's really good and I recommend it next time you are in town.

To enhance the sushi-eating experience, Steph created Soy Joy, a mix of soy sauce, ginger, and fallen rice casualties.

But, the one thing that we did more than gamble or eat was shopping. For some reason, everything we liked was on sale. We loaded up on so much stuff at the outlet malls we almost ran out of room in the car!

For Steph's birthday, we all got her a new Coach purse. If you ask her nicely, maybe she'll model it for you.

There, now don't you feel like you went on the trip with us?