3D Monitor

Not quite as amazing as my friend Chang's transparent monitor, Planar came out with a 3D monitor. Pretty cool, but for $4K, you better need it.

The image on the bottom monitor goes through the glass while the image on the top monitor is reflected. The two together creates a 3D image.

Family Guy

The Family Guy Season Premiere is tonight at 9pm on Fox. Start watching now!

What's your favorite table game ?

Per the last poll, Adidas beat Nike 7 to 5. Surprising.

Time for a new poll. Check it out on the right. --->

Party Poker !

We really wanted to play poker tonight and since it was already too late to get the guys together, we decided to play some Texas Hold'em....online. It's 3:15am and we just finished playing on PartyPoker.net (it's the free online poker game). Pretty enjoyable. And with GoogleTalk, it was like they we were in the same room. Here you can see our table. Glenn is Iggy, Daniel is Nemesis, and I'm Russtang.

Dodger Game

Last night, my parents and I went to go see the Dodgers play against the San Diego Padres. They lost 1-3 and have no chance of making the playoffs, but it's always nice to visit Dodger Stadium. And, it was a fundraiser for my mom's school, Thomas Starr King Middle School (of which she is the Principal). It was fun, however, putting my telephoto lens to practice.

My coworker Michael was also at the game, but was sitting way across the stadium from us, so I had to go full zoom to catch him. (He's the guy looking through the binoculars and talking to me on the cell phone at the same time)

Maybe next season, Dodgers. Maybe next season.

Chit Chat

We got a new toy at work today (mainly for me). As a huge company, it takes a while for us to catch up to yesterday's technology. We now have instant messaging capability at work. I'm having fun with it although it's supposed to increase our productivity. Whatever.

Speaking of instant messaging, I've been pretty excited about GoogleTalk (www.google.com/talk) lately with the VOIP (voice over IP) technology. It's just like a phone, but clearer, free, and better since you can find out who is just sittin' at their computer waiting to shoot the breeze. If you haven't already, you should sign up! It uses Gmail to set up your contact list, so if you don't have Gmail let me know. I'll invite ya!

Ping Pong Madness

These guys went crazy. (LINK)

Labor Day Festivities

While Stephanie and Eddy were arriving in Aruba for their honeymoon, Joanne and I had friends over at our house on Sunday. Daniel and Amy brought over baby Presto (aka Preston) to hang out with the guys. Check out how cute he is now!

Preston even went with us to Best Buy. We were there for 2 hours! We went through the entire store and just when we were ready to leave, Daniel and I got caught up playing the World Series of Poker video game. Presto was a good boy, too. He didn't even cry once. I guess when you are surrounded by big screen TVs, video games, and DVDs there isn't much to cry about.

The game of the day was darts. We played so much that my elbow was hurting the next day. We had a pretty awesome run of 6-man 301 between Daniel, Kevin, Chang, Alan, Gina, and I. How does 301 work? You just keep scoring points until you countdown from 301 to zero, and zero out without going over.

Here's Chang and Gina throwing some darts. Gina looks real happy while Chang has his game face on. It's just darts, Chang.

After a while, things start to get more creative when we start creating new challenges like throwing 11 darts at once. (Good job, Chang) Here you can see Alan trying to hit bullseye with two darts, one left and one right handed.





Meanwhile, the girls were playing pounce (group solitaire) downstairs. I'm sure it involved quick hand-eye coordination and resulted in some nail scratching.

Chuckle.

Barry Bonds and Michael Bolton. That's all I need to say.

Bunny Time !

What's better than cartoon bunnies performing your favorite movies in 30 seconds?
That's what I thought. (LINK)

My personal favorites are Pulp Fiction, The Shining, and Titanic.

Check out Earth !

The spacecraft, Messenger, on its way to Mercury was able to capture a few hundred pictures of the Earth over the course of 24 hours (1 Earth rotation) using its wide-angle camera.

Comprising 358 frames taken over 24 hours, the movie follows Earth through one complete rotation. The spacecraft was 40,761 miles (65,598 kilometers) above South America when the camera started rolling on Aug. 2. It was 270,847 miles (435,885 kilometers) away from Earth – farther than the Moon’s orbit – when it snapped the last image on Aug. 3.

Take a look!

Stephanie and Eddy's Wedding Weekend

This past weekend, our friends Eddy and Stephanie got married. They had a beautiful beach wedding and everything turned out perfectly. They had a rehearsal/dinner Friday night and had the wedding ceremony on Saturday at 5pm. It was an awesome wedding and now they are already off in Aruba on their honeymoon. Their flight left Sunday morning at 7am! I'm sure they are enjoying themselves on the beach right now as I type this.

I posted pictures of both Friday's and Saturday's events right here (LINK). Take a look, but beware...there's 124 pictures!

On Friday night, we all met up at the Kayak Kafe for the rehearsal. Our friend Alan was the officiant for the wedding (he was granted 24 hours of wedding ceremony powers by the state of California). It was his chance to put it all to practice. He did a good job and everything went well, but he would still be worried until the real deal the next day. We had dinner that night at Domenico's just down the street from the ceremony location. We had lots of pizza and spaghetti and I made off with some sweet 'thank you' gifts. Check out my Mini Cooper Robot and Thundercats Season 1 on DVD!

The next day, my responsibility as Best Man was to get Eddy there on time. The alter and chair arrangements on the beach were awesome with a nice ocean backdrop. Joanne is responsible for many of these daytime pictures since I had decided to film video instead. Good work, Joanne!

The groomsmen and bridesmaids all met up at the Coast Hotel of Long Beach, near the Queen Mary. The bridesmaids stayed there the previous night and it was there that Eddy and Stephanie had their first meeting on their wedding day. I got it all on video (maybe Chang will put up some pictures). It was a very special moment for them. We took some group photos there and then loaded up all 16 of us in the Hummer Limo. It was a sweet ride and it was huge inside!

On the ride over to the wedding location, Alan put his bartending skills to work. He managed to prepare over 2 rounds of shooters for all 16 of us! (I think it was Jager Bombs and Red Headed Sluts) And it was a short drive, too!

As soon as the Hummer dropped us off at the Kayak Kafe, it was time for us to hurry up and make our entrances for the ceremony. Alan executed an amazing wedding ceremony that was personal and very professional. Great work, Alan. Eddy and Steph read each other their vows; yet it was Eddy who stumbled while reading them, bringing the audience to tear a little. They kissed and were then pronounced Mr. and Mrs. Eddy and Stephanie Viola. Congratulations!

Alan was extra happy since his work was finally complete.

Shortly after the ceremony, the bridal party headed to the beach to take some pictures just before the sun set. The scenery made for some great pictures. As groomsmen, all we had to wear were green hawaiian shirts, khakis, and flip flops. It was very relaxed.

Chang got a little jealous of all the attention Stephanie was getting from Eddy, so he made his move.





At the reception, we enjoyed some mai tais, made our entrances, and went straight to the toasts. That's where I came in. I didn't feel very prepared, but my speech went over alright. I did manage to fit in Eddy's feat of eating 27 hot dogs back in college, so I guess it went well.



And, as is the duty of the father of the bride, Stephanie's dad came up and made a very emotional speech. There was not a dry eye in the house.



Later on, it was time for the father/daughter dance as well as Steph and Eddy's first dance. Awww....

Then, it was party time!

Here's Gina, Chang, Jill, Jeff, and Joanne enjoying the party.

By the end of the night, the alcohol served some of us very well and others too well.

It was a great night and a great wedding spent with friends and family.
Thanks for the great times, Steph and Eddy. And congratulations again!

Just when you were getting used to spinners...

Have you ever driven down the road and seen some pimped out SUV with wheels that are spinning when the car is not? Or that aren't spinning when the car is moving? I know you have, because the spinners have taken over. BUT, what's the next annoyance to hit the streets? They're Tire Tagz! (www.tiretagz.com) Using the best in LED technology, these bolt-on items create images that appear on your wheels while you are moving. Aren't you pumped?

And as Chris Rock would say, "They spinnin'! They spinnin'! They spinnin'!"



Note: This picture is not really moving, it's just your imagination.

Best Man

My friend Eddy is getting married this weekend. He was my Best Man and now I'm his. That means it's my turn to make The Speech. I've run through some ideas, but I think I'm still not settled yet. Keep it simple. Don't make it too long. I'll let you know how it goes after this weekend. It's quite a title, Best Man...no pressure.

I never made time to make a blog entry about the awesome Bachelor Party we had for Eddy. It was awesome and we had a great time! We spent the weekend in San Diego betting on horses at Del Mar, partying in the Gaslamp District, playing poker, and going 9 holes at a disc golf course. I posted up some pictures from the weekend (finally). Check them out.

Chang wrote a great writeup about the entire weekend. You can check it out here.

Enrique ! Porque' ?!

Saw a great commercial yesterday. You can enjoy it, too. (LINK)

Sudoku !

I surrender...It's taking over and there's nothing we can do about it. I have not personally gotten into this craze, but it seems like everyone else is. Joanne is all over this stuff, but she's always loved puzzles. So, this entry serves as nothing more than an acknowledgement of its popularity. If you like to work it out on paper, just check your LA Times or USA Today or go to www.dailysudoku.co.uk. If you are computer based, this site is pretty cool.

(Just pick the number then select the box. You can use the scrollwheel on your mouse to select the number. Also, hold the space bar while selecting the box to leave a guess there.)

Another mapping option.

MapQuest. GoogleMaps (still my favorite). VirtualEarth. Now A9 (It's an Amazon website). So many options. Not the best interface ever, but definitely something interesting. You can view images of what you would see while looking on both sides of the street. Pretty cool. Is it useful? Eh.

(Check the box to view which streets have viewable images)

40-Year-Old Virgin

I thought the 40-Year-Old Virgin was a pretty funny movie. Joanne and I went to check it out last night. I enjoyed it almost as much as Wedding Crashers. Some people may disagree with me, but comedies are viewed very differently from person to person. The movie was solid...nothing to criticize (thus the high Rotten Tomatoes ranking 86%), but I don't think it made me laugh out loud quite as much as Wedding Crashers did. Worth a viewing.

Just remember that I thought The Office was a pretty hilarious show. By the way, it's back on TV and is on tonight at 9:30pm on NBC (repeat).

Pee Power !

While checking out a news article that Glenn sent me regarding the rotation of the Earth's core (the premise behind the movie The Core....brilliant movie. *wink*), I noticed a story about pee. Had to check it out.

Pee = Power. That's right. Next time you step up to the plate (aka toilet) just remember that you are throwing power away. Now I know what the doctor's office is really doing with my sample.