$16 Gas !

Now that gas is getting more and more expensive, let's just go all out and make gas $16 per gallon. BP just created a specially formulated 102 octane gas (you probably use 87 or 91) that is formulated just like the fuel for F1 cars. It's only $16 a gallon! BP didn't have the best timing in the world since everyone is complaining now about gas prices again. (ARTICLE)

I can't wait to see how much gas will be in Baker on the way to Vegas this weekend. It was $3.42 two weeks ago...and that was when gas was $2.80 here!

Go Lakers !

Don't count them out just yet. The Laker Show is in town and ready to dominate! Lakers beat the Suns 99-93 last night in Game 2 of the Western Conference 1st Round. Game 3 is this Friday at 7:30pm. I'll be rushing to Vegas to check out the game.

Photo courtesy of ESPN.com

Check out the video highlights on ESPN here. Especially the dunk over Steve Nash.

Cross the river.

Here's a game that is sometimes used as a form of IQ test to job applicants in Japan.

The goal is to get everyone across the river. Since the first screen is all in Japanese, here are the rules:

1. Only 2 persons on the raft at a time.
2. The father can not stay with any of the daughters, without their mother's presence.
3. The mother can not stay with any of the sons, without their father's presence.
4. The thief (striped shirt) can not stay with any family member, if the policeman is not there.
5. Only the father, the mother and the policeman know how to operate the raft.

Click on the big blue circle on the right side to start. (LINK)

Don't worry, it's not impossible.

Free Ben & Jerry's !

Hurry! Get to your local store NOW! (okay...just get there today between 12pm and 8pm). It's Free Cone Day! Find your local participating shop here.

Parking fun.

One of the things we like to do here at work is to park our cars in such a way that we can prevent our fellow coworkers from being able to get into their cars. Today we were doubly successful as we were able to get Dobby's car (the silver Celica) AND Michael's car (the black 9-2x). The best part of it was that Michael was in on the prank until I decided to block him in. And now he can't even get in through the hatchback since he's up against a concrete wall. Check out our parking job:

Fun facts.

Looking for something to do? Here's 100 scientific facts, some more interesting than others. Did you know that 10 percent of all human beings ever born are alive right now? (LINK)

And on another completely random note, here's a cool map of the US depicting where people refer to soft drinks as "soda", "pop", or "Coke". As much as I like Coke, soda is soda.

And there's a new poll up. Check it out. Are you more like a giraffe or a koala?

Steve Miller at USC.

Taking advantage of random spontaneous opportunities is fun. With her connections in the USC School of Music, Stephanie got us tickets to see Steve Miller perform with the USC Jazz Orchestra on Tuesday night. It was a great activity since Alan just came into town from Ohio. The performance was very enlightening since I'm not much of a Jazz fan. And never thought I'd go see Steve Miller perform live. (The Steve Miller Band did "Fly like an Eagle" and "The Joker" if you're familiar)

After that, we went to go enjoy some beer at The 3rd Stop up near Beverly Hills. They have a crazy collection of beer (several with 9% alcohol!) and a cool atmosphere. I recommend the Chimay.

Look who's 1 !

More like look who's been 1 for 3 weeks now (Sorry, I've been laggin'). It was Presto's 1st birthday last month and he had his birthday party two Saturdays ago. The party was huge! Preston's grandparents hosted the party and we dominated the outside patio at BJ's Pizzeria. Here are some birthday party highlights.

The Birthday Boy

Tons of birthday gifts and lots of time being held by everyone.

Photo cakes are definitely my favorite. Look how great his turned out!

...and someone's got to eat the cake.

For all 17 pictures, go here.

Happy Birthday, Eduardo !

Today is Eddy's birthday. Everyone wish him a Happy 28. To celebrate his birthday, we went to Vegas this past weekend.

We drove up on Friday and caught all sorts of rain and traffic. Took us about 7 hours to get to Stateline. The first thing I noticed is that I forgot to bring my camera! So, the weekend had to be documented via cameraphone. On our way up, Stephanie gave Eddy one of his many birthday gifts...cupcakes! She got them at this place in Beverly Hills called Sprinkles. Each one was fantastic and they all had different flavors. What a treat!

We pretty much stuck to our standard activities throughout the weekend...gambling (lots of blackjack), outlet shopping (always successful), and lunch at Makino's (all you can eat sushi). We went down to Palms for dinner at Little Buddha. The food was great as were the cocktails (right Joanne?). After dinner, Stephanie and Joanne couldn't pass up the opportunity to try out the psychic reading right there in the Palms. The psychic did a palm reading, tarot cards, and answered two questions for them. What two questions would you ask?

Eddy drove us the whole weekend long and we rode in his new Dodge Magnum! Check out the gas prices in Baker!

It was a great weekend and we had a great time. Happy Birthday, Eddy.

Google Calendar

In their ongoing march to dominate the world, Google has released their free online calendar. Google Calendar is great because of how it adds to Gmail's abilities. If someone sends you an email with a date in it, you can click a button to add it to your calendar. If you have a large email conversation going, you can just click a button to send an event invitation to everyone. You can even have reminders sent to your mobile phone as text messages. On top of all that, you have a great Google interface as always. I'm a huge fan of online calendars since I can never keep my events straight.

The only thing I wish it did was more effectively synchronize with Microsoft Outlook since that's the program I use.

Happy Mars

Have you seen the Happy Face crater on Mars? Now you have. (ARTICLE)

I wanna know where da godes at!

Yup, the leprechaun videos are getting bigger and bigger. Check out the remix video here! (LINK)

Even more amazing, the amateur sketch of the leprechaun (shown below) sold on Ebay today for $1100! Now that it has been sold, I recommend just printing it out for yourself to enjoy for free. Here's the final auction: (LINK)

Inside Man

Went to go see Inside Man on Friday. Good movie, but a little long and a little slow. More action would have made this movie great. Good story though. I still recommend you go see V for Vendetta. Speaking of Denzel Washington movies...I just saw Crimson Tide for the first time last night. That was a good one.

Try Coke Blak.

It's interesting. More like Coke-infused coffee. I thought it had an Irish Cream aftertaste, but overall it wasn't too bad...but pretty sweet. Definitely not for everyone. $1.50 per bottle! (and that's 8 ounces) How many calories? How much caffeine? Here's the lowdown: "Coke Blak has 45 calories and 46 milligrams of caffeine per 8-ounce bottle, compared with 140 calories and 35 milligrams of caffeine in a 12-ounce can of Coke Classic. Diet Coke has 1 calorie and 46 milligrams of caffeine per 12-ounce can."

Come on, go try it...fall into the marketing trap just like I did.

Indie Flicks

Here's a list of the Top 50 Independent Films of all time. Good list if you are looking for something "interesting" to watch. (LINK)

Happy Birthday, Daniel.

We all got together Saturday night to celebrate Daniel's 29th (!) birthday. We met up for dinner at Outback Steakhouse. Dinner was at 5pm per the evite although everyone could've sworn it was at 6pm. Did evite pull an April Fool's prank? Anyway, starting dinner at 5:00 worked out since we watched the first half of the UCLA game (vs. LSU) at the restaurant and the second half at Daniel and Amy's place. U-C-L-A!

Presto finally fits into the Mariners jersey I got him almost a year ago! Hi, Mom.

After dinner, we went back to the house to watch UCLA continue to dominate LSU. Soon after, we had birthday cake and Daniel blew out the inferno of candles on the cake Amy made.

Daniel later opened his gifts, including the placeholder gift that was necessary since I forgot his gift at home. (DANG) But, Daniel wasn't the only one with gifts. Presto got a new drum set and Piggley Winks from his favorite TV show, Jakers!






Later that night, we started up a $5 Texas Hold'em tournament with 9 of us!

We actually had 2 women at the table!



Shuji was the first person to go ALL IN! And he was also the first person to go ALL OUT!

It was a great party. Happy Birthday, Daniel!

For all of the pictures, go here.

...and go UCLA! Beat Florida!