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?

Have you seen this movie?

Don't know if you've seen this movie before. It's one of Jack Nicholson's older movies. Check out the trailer.

That's unpossible !

If you haven't used Wikipedia already, it's the greatest catch-all online reference. Well, they have now added an entire section to include all made-up words derived from The Simpsons. Many of these cromulent words should be officially incorporated into the English language. For example: avoision, craptacular, embiggen, lupper, and unblowuppable.

If D'oh can make the Oxford English Dictionary, all of these words can.

Happy Birthday Fergie !

Karen's 27th birthday was last Thursday, but that didn't stop us from celebrating here at work yesterday.






After work on Monday, our Party Team went in to take over her office. The theme: Pink. We went all the way this time. Pink streamers, pink balloons hanging from the ceiling, rainbow confetti scattered everywhere and, of course, the snow on the floor.

I think we did a pretty good job. Here's the Party Team after mission complete.
(Dave also helped)

And Karen sure enjoyed her newly pinked office.






To top off the day, we went to have lunch and cake afterward. Of course it's always a photo cake. Here was her design. The explanation of the quote on top is that Karen likes to eat warm yogurt. (Don't ask.)

It was a great day and I'm surprised she didn't kill us.

So, when's your birthday?

Happy Anniversary !

Just thought we'd wish ourselves a Happy 1 Year Anniversary. (It was yesterday, October 2nd)

I can't believe it's been a year already. Amazing. Boy have we done a good job. :)

One year after our wedding also meant that we were able to have the digital images from our wedding photographer, Joe Latter. He took some great pictures. We'll have to upload some of the images soon...not all of them (since there are 819 of them) and not full resolution (since the file sizes are about 7MB each)! Here's one:

Here is what I got Joanne for our anniversary. Vera Wang perfume and a diamond butterfly pendant. She was very happy.

We celebrated our anniversary with Eddy and Stephanie in Las Vegas. Pictures from the weekend will soon follow.

Everybody Hates Chris

The second episode of Everybody Hates Chris is on tonight. It's all about Chris Rock's life as a kid. The pilot episode was pretty funny. We'll see how tonight's show goes.

If you haven't seen the pilot episode yet, Google Video has made the entire pilot episode available for you to watch. (Click here to watch) Although, I think it will only be available for the rest of today.

What's your brain's sex?

Looks like I'm only half a man.

Go take the Brain Sex quiz. It's actually quite interesting. I learned I have a very male brain (spatial tasks), I can use landmarks to get from place to place, I'm right brain dominant, I am better at systemizing rather than empathizing, I prefer the appearance of feminine faces, and I am definitely an engineer.

Mini Golf

Still haven't caught up with this past weekend's haps. Last Friday, Joanne and I met up with Glenn and Michiko for dinner at OG (Olive Garden). After dinner we were so stuffed that we were sitting there at the table thinking, "I'm ready to go home." But, we soon realized that it was our defining moment. Go play mini golf or go home and be old. So, obviously, we went to play some miniature golf at SpeedZone in Puente Hills.

We played skins and Joanne and I took all 17! The last one didn't count. Lame hole.

Joanne got a hole-in-one! Here's Michiko working around the rocks. And Glenn going full swing with his putter on the 18th hole. FYI: The key to chipping your ball out of bounds on a mini golf course is to come down on the ball pretty hard with your putter.

Afterward, we got in some air hockey and video games in the arcade. It was impossible for me to win at air hockey...the machine stopped counting my points after 1. You can see the score is 1 to 5 when I was playing Glenn. Then, Joanne took on the hammer game where she is trying to squash some bugs.

See, we're not old yet.