Happy New Years Eve Eve !

Just enjoying my vacation until I have to go back on Tuesday. I have some pictures to post from the holiday celebrations.

Been hanging out with friends all week.

Fergie is leaving for her 7 month trip to Australia/New Zealand tomorrow. She has started a new blog just for her trip. Added a link to the sidebar 'Fergs Down Under.'

Even added a search box on the sidebar just so you can look for past blog entries. Looking for the map for "Trapped in the Closet?" Just type it in! (The search only finds entries from September on)

And the BBC put together a list of 100 things we learned this past year. Interesting. (LINK)

Take care all.

Rings around Uranus !

Whether you care about space stuff or not, you have to care about rings around Uranus! Get it? Hey, if CNN can say it, I can too. (Article here)

Yes, they found some new rings. Thanks for the article, Eddy.

4 days 'til Christmas.

Gotta love the snowmen.

Kobe with 62.

Mavericks vs. Lakers. End of the 3rd quarter. Lakers winning 62-61. Oh wait, that's only Kobe's points. The 3rd quarter score was actually 95-61.

Kobe scored 62 in only 3 quarters, the most in the NBA for 11 years. Amazing.

Boy, would it have been fun to see him play the whole game.

(Video Highlights)

Walker, Texas Ranger

In the process of looking for the clip from Family Guy with the Kool-Aid man, I ran across some great clips from Late Night with Conan O'Brien where he pulls the 'Walker, Texas Ranger' lever. Brilliant.

Check out the clips:

Conan Walker Texas Ranger Clip 1
Conan Walker Texas Ranger Clip 2
Conan Walker Texas Ranger Clip 3
Conan Walker Texas Ranger Clip 4
Conan Walker Texas Ranger Clip 5

Happy Birthday Michiko !

This past weekend, we celebrated Michiko's 3rd anniversary of her 27th birthday. We all had a great time. And today is her actual birthday. Happy Birthday, Michiko!

I was actually pretty proud of the candles on the birthday cake. I found these great candles called Fast-Lite Candles that are linked together by a common fuse. Just light one candle and it'll light them all! They're especially helpful when you have a lot of candles to light...ahem...not that we needed to light that many. :)
(Here's a sample video of the candles)

What's the 411 ?

Do you ever dial information (411) on your cell phone, but hate paying the excessive fee for it? Cingular charges me $1.29 for the service, but there's a new way to get 411 for free! Dial 1-800-FREE-411. The only catch is that you have to listen to a 12 second advertisement first. Sounds like I'm a salesman.

I haven't tried it yet, but here's an article about it.

See if you can solve this one.

I haven't been able to do this one yet. Click the picture.

King Kong

I saw this movie yesterday and I thought it was great! Very entertaining. Good action and good story development. Good performances by the main cast and Peter Jackson did a good job of remaking the 1933 original. The movie was very long at 3 hrs. 7 min., but moved at a good pace the entire time. The effects were very well done and they did a good job of remaking the 1930s.

Highly recommended...especially since there hasn't been too much to watch lately.

One-Handed Keyboard !

Check this thing out! Imagine typing with your left hand and mousing with your right all at the same time! Here are some details. (LINK)

New Gmail Functions

For all you people out there that are using Gmail as your email provider, there are two new functions available to you:

Group Contacts: Now you can finally set up groups so you don't have to type out the same list of people's names every time. (LINK)

Vacation Responder: This will send out an automatic response to people that email you while you are on vacation or away from your email for a while. (LINK)

Dodge a bullet.

How good are you at dodging a bullet? (Click here)

Beat my score!

Coca-Cola Blak

I love Coke. It's way better than Pepsi (argue if you must). And I won't knock it til I try it, but Coca-Cola is going to try mixing with coffee!

Check out the article.

Programmer or Killer ?

Apparently, I am not good at judging a book by its cover. Click the picture.

How does he do that ?

His second illusion is crazy. (Click here)

Mouse Game

Try this one out. Just move your mouse around. Start at the white dot. No clicking! Don't you love work distractions?

(Click here)

Yet another new mapping program.

MapQuest - Yahoo Maps - Google Maps - Google Earth - Virtual Earth - Yahoo Maps Beta - now Windows Live Local (previously Virtual Earth)

With Windows Live Local, you can get a bird's eye view for available areas. A little more helpful than the satellite views we've seen previously. Check out our home:

Fergie is leaving us !

Finally. :)

It's true. My office mate, Karen (aka Fergie, the victim of our styrofoam peanuts/pink streamer prank), is leaving our company at the end of the year. She'll be on a 6 month vacation to Australia and New Zealand then moving to Colorado. So, on Saturday night she and her husband had a Farewell Party. We had a great time and Joanne finally got to meet some of my coworkers.

Thanks, Ferg, for the great party. And thanks, Steve, for the great brew!

The Costumes of Star Wars

On Saturday, Joanne and I met up with Stephanie, Nancy, and Kevin to go check out the exhibit for the costumes of the Star Wars movies. It was held at the FIDM (Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising) in LA. It was the last day of the exhibit and it was pretty cool to see so many of the costumes up close. Thanks to everyone for tagging along and dealing with my slow walking through the exhibit. Here are some pictures:

They had a life-sized X-Wing Fighter!

C-3PO, R2-D2, and Obi-Wan Kenobi:

Han Solo and Chewbacca:

They had tons of Queen Amidala costumes:

And Sandpeople!

Father and son: Jango and Boba Fett

Afterward, we all went to go have lunch at the Original Pantry on Figueroa and 9th. Good breakfast (for lunch). And Kevin, yes, Richard Riordan bought that place. Oh, and by the way, I saw Drew (fellow blogger) there on the way to the Kings game!

Holiday Party at Hollywood Park

Our company holiday party was this past Friday. We had a lunch buffet and spent the afternoon at Hollywood Park to bet on some horses.

It was a good time and I had yet another chance to exercise the telephoto lens.

Won a few bets, but not enough to let me take any winnings home. Not a bad day. Even better, both of my drinks were bought for me. How was your company's holiday party?

Clippers Fan ?

Glenn was nice enough to have me join him at the Clippers game last night. They played the New York Knicks, and since the Clippers also play in the Staples Center, it was just like watching the last Laker game I went to. The best part was that we were in a suite! It was my first time and did you know that there's free hot dogs and drinks?

The only strange part was that I was supposed to be a Clippers fan. For that night, I was just a basketball fan. Always nice to watch some good basketball. It's too bad both teams weren't playing well during the first half. I, of course, snuck in the telephoto lens without any problems since I now know the system. Here are some shots I got:

The Clippers beat the Knicks 84-79 with a very close 4th quarter.


And on a final note: I'm sure you've seen those guys that help guard the hoop during timeouts. Doesn't that look like a fun job?

Click Wars !

Bring it! Who's the quicker clicker? I got 19 in 5 seconds! (Click here)

Disregard the high scores. They're ridiculous and rigged!