Google Power !

Google is on fire lately. They recently added IMAP capability to Gmail which allows you to have your mobile Gmail synchronized in real-time. On top of that, they just added Group Chat to Gmail. Finally! At the same time they added in more animated emoticons to Gmail Chat.

Just this past week, they also added "Terrain" view to Google Maps which is like a relief map showing mountains, but also tall buildings like in Downtown LA. Oh, and if you're looking for "Hybrid" view, they changed it to a click box option under the "Satellite" view.

The one function they released but won't work for my phone yet is the "My Location" feature on Google Maps Mobile. It's like GPS for your phone even if you don't have GPS. It uses the location of the nearest cell phone tower to provide you with your approximate location. Just type in "0" to find yourself. Download the latest Google Maps Mobile 2.0 beta program here.

Enjoy the new Google features!

Thanksgiving Fun

It was a great Thanksgiving weekend packed full of eating, shopping, and visiting with friends and family. Of course we had 2 Thanksgivings, spread a few days apart to optimize our eating experience. We celebrated at Glenn and Michiko's Thursday evening and then had Thanksgiving again on Saturday at my parents' house. The good news is that Joanne had off the entire weekend so we were able to enjoy it all as a family. What is that green drink?

Jack enjoyed his first tastes of turkey, mashed potatoes, and Thanksgiving dinner rolls.



Jack's been a whole lot of fun lately...still very active, but always ready to laugh.



Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving weekend.

Black Friday Madness

After the Thanksgiving festivities Thursday night, we went home and I went on the computer to check out if there were going to be any online deals for Amazon's Black Friday. Of course that meant I had to stay up until midnight to see what the deals were. I picked up a top of the line wireless mouse, a webcam, and a 2GB USB flash drive and ended up making $13 in the process (after rebates). Not bad. I felt accomplished. So I went to bed around 1:00am and decided to wake up at 2:00am to meet up with my sister to line up at Fry's in the morning. Why did we do this?

Well, that's where the fun began. My goal: a 46" Samsung 1080p LCD TV for $1299. Our second goal: a 19" Samsung LCD TV for my parents for $199. We showed up at Fry's around 3am only to see that the line was out the door and wrapped around the building. It was madness (but nothing like the lines at Circuit City or Best Buy). The doors opened at 5am, so were waiting outside for a couple hours. Once we got inside, we dashed over to the TV section and saw boxes and boxes of TVs on the floor so people can just go up and grab what they wanted. We looked everywhere and I couldn't find the one I wanted. They had passed out vouchers for several of the popular TVs to the people at the front of the line, so I just about gave up on the TV. Luckily the TV section was completely disorganized. These LCDs and plasmas come in such huge boxes that the entire area was packed full of people sliding their TVs all around. I decided not to give up just yet so I went to look through their inventory to find my TV. It was ridiculous...Samsung makes several models of 46" 1080p LCDs so I had to look for a LN-T4661, not a LN-T4669 or LN-T4671. Insanity. The good news is that I was successful and got the last one of three that the store had in stock. Whew! Even better news...Steph got lucky and found the 19" Samsung, too. What a successful adventure, of course that meant we had to wait in the 2 hour line to purchase our stuff. No big deal. :)

Now I can enjoy the fruits of my labor. Ahhhh.

Anyone else have a fun Black Friday?

Jack loves apples.

The beauty of the blog is that I can put anything up that I want. Jack just ate his first apple now that he has 8 teeth! Once he took his first bite, we couldn't take the apple away. His bites aren't very big, so it would probably take about a month or so for him to finish one.

Take a big bite, Jack!

Go UCLA Basketball !

What a great game last night against #11 Michigan State. UCLA was down the entire game and came back in the last 30 seconds to take the win. Huge victory for UCLA, 68-63. Still undefeated at 5-0, UCLA is #1 in the country. The freshman center, Kevin Love, has been a huge contributor for the team. Ah, it feels like March Madness already.

Cloverfield Trailer

They just released the full trailer for the 1-18-08 movie by lost creator J.J. Abrams. It's now officially called "Cloverfield". Check it out here.

Free Coldstone's !

Buy one, get one free "Love It" size ice cream at Coldstone's. Click on the coupon to print it out.

Jack's First Auto Show

After lots of begging and pleading, I finally gave in and brought Jack to his first Auto Show. Jack really wanted to see the new Lamborghini. How could I say no?

The LA Auto Show was great as always. But it doesn't take much to satisfy me. The show runs until this coming Sunday. Details here. There was lots to see, but I'll just go over a few highlights.

The new $1.4 million Lamborghini Reventon


Aston Martin DBS


Ferrari F430 Scuderia


Chevy Tahoe Hybrid. Huge, but a 2-mode hybrid with 25% better fuel economy.


Nissan GT-R. 480-hp, twin turbocharged V6. 0-60 in 3.5 seconds. I'll take one.


And the VW Up! (The exclamation point is part of the name) Chang's next purchase.


Honda FCX Clarity. Their first Fuel Cell production vehicle. It runs on pure hydrogen, generating electrical power from the bonding power of hydrogen and oxygen into water. Its only emission is water.


The highlight of the visit was seeing this Lexus IS-F (415-hp) on a dyno running through all 8 gears (well over 100mph). All you had to do was stand in line and you could be the driver!

Jack loved the show...watching all the cars. Although he was equally as excited when he saw this shiny silver wall in the Concourse Hall.

Since I've been to every LA Auto Show since 2001, I went back to my archives to see what my first picture was. It was taken with my mom's old Sony Mavica...the one that puts the pictures on a floppy disk. And to my surprise, photos 0001 and 0002 were the Pontiac Aztek!!! I miss that car.

If you want to see all my pics, go here. Make sure you choose "Options" at the bottom right if you want to see the photo captions.

Bubble Wrap

If you love popping a sheet of bubble wrap, then this may be the next best thing. Unlimited virtual bubble wrap. Don't forget to click on Manic Mode. (LINK)

Bye Bye Frontier

The Frontier Hotel and Casino was demolished a few days ago to make space for the new Plaza Hotel...a $5 to $8 billion project based on the Plaza Hotel in New York City. Like all things in Vegas, the Frontier went out in style.

I sure miss the days of visiting Vegas as a child seeing the strikers in front of the Frontier for what seemed like forever.

New Frontier Demolition! - The best video clips are right here

Point Break Live!

This past Friday night was an evening never to be forgotten. It started off fantastic with me standing on the corner of 5th and Spring in Downtown LA. It was obvious I was a social minority waiting for his friends to show up as I watched a guy peeing on the sidewalk just 20 feet away. Luckily the evening went uphill shortly afterward.

We were all meeting up to catch the new show in town, Point Break Live! It's a live stage adaptation of the ever popular Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayze action flick. If you're wondering how they would adapt an extreme sports action movie to the stage, then you'll understand why it was such a great show. The best part is that they randomly select the part of Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) from the audience each night!

Joanne, Lara, Kristine, Eddy, Stephanie, and I were all in attendance. We bought $1 survival kits which included a poncho (for all the water, beer, and blood that were in effect) and some fake money (for the robbery sequence).

They randomly selected about 12 people from the audience to try out for the part of Johnny Utah. They each had to say a few lines and test their stunt skills. Before the show, I met the guy who ended up being selected for the part. He was so pumped and had the entire movie memorized. He looked exactly like Keanu Reeves, too!

He was fed his lines via cue cards. Here he is reading lines with the Gary Busse character.



Bodhi's character (Patrick Swayze) was hilarious. Here he is in his skydiving gear.



The show was extremely low budget. Very high school. Check out the skydiving sequence.



The classic robbery scene with Utah's famous line:
"Bodhi, this is your f***ing wake-up call man. I am an F, B, I, Agent!"



And the final sequence at Bells Beach. Johnny Utah always gets his man.

The show was awesome. For $20, you can't go wrong. Shows are every Friday and Saturday night at 8pm. Get your tickets here.