If this town is just an apple, then let me take a bite.

As cheesy as it sounds, these past few days, I’ve been eating/breathing/living Trender. And it’s been a good couple of days. I’ve gotten back into school mode, and seeing as how it only takes up a small portion of my day, I’m able to allocate the rest of my time to Trender. We’re definitely making progress now. Here’s a small little sneak peek:

In the meantime, I’ve spent some time with friends. Crystal came over on Sunday and we did what we do best. Drive around, talk, and eat. We stopped by Genki Living (on Jeffrey and Irvine Center Drive). Marvin brought me to the one in Rowland Heights a year or two ago for some Takoyaki, it was pretty good and that’s what I was planning on getting. Upon arrival, I found their secondary hot food item: Okonomiyaki (okonomi = whatever you want; yaki = grilled). Calvin and I tried stopping by one in Long Beach the last last time he was here, but it was closed. So this was my chance to give it a try, no matter how unauthentic it may be. I ordered the more traditional Osaka style okonomiaki, while Crystal got a crepe dessert dish. I gotta say, they were both pretty damn good. I gotta get back to that one place in LBC. Some pics:

I know it’s hard to tell with all these posts of food, but I’ve actually been trying to save money by eating in. Jon and I went to Trader Joe’s last week to ration some food. We got some bread, frozen foods, turkey sausages and this little hidden treasure better known by it’s chinese brand name: Trader Ming’s. Now honestly it’s nothing really all that good. but it’s got incredible packaging that serves as both spectacular eye candy and a quick 2-minute microwavable box that prepares and serves the food. Trader Ming’s comes in 3 flavors: Satay, Pad Thai, and Kung Pao. The Kung Pao I don’t even remember, so it must be pretty bad, and I kinda remember the Pad Thai noodles being too dry, but the Satay flavor always leaves me with a lasting impression of “this is gross”. Then I always look down the little imitation chinese take out box and think that Trader Mings is so fuckin’ cheap only filling up half the box. But by the end of the meal i’m pretty satisfied wanting more. It’s pretty stupid, I know…but I want to make a website full of these cheap eating solutions for lazy people like me that just don’t want to prepare food. I’m pretty sure that there’s already a bunch out there, but I don’t think they could think of the type of stuff I’d put on there. Anyway, pics:

P.S. During the making of this post, my internet went down sometime after midnight, and now it’s the following morning. It’s something that we take for granted these days. I remember back in the 90’s up in Nor*Cal when Fremont was still testing TCI Cable internet (later to become @home). We’d have to reset the cable modem 3 times a week. It was just something we had to sacrifice for our 56k-ass kicking service. In the more recent years, internet uptime has gotten so reliable that I’ve forgotten about a time when you never knew when your internet would go down, so you would always have to constantly back up anything you were working on online. On the plus side, you could usually get away with not finishing “web assign” because of internet woes. To get back to the point, the only times the internet service has dropped on me in the past 3 years has been because of detection of illegal internet activity. And it’s gotten to the point that I get scared our service provider will boot us. But last week we’ve gotten our 4th strike, and Jon was still able to give them the “my neighbors must be stealing our wireless signal and doing bad things – don’t worry, we’re putting a passcode on it as we speak” story. So I went to sleep last night a little uneasy, but good knowing that I could count on being back online in the morning. Thank you internet god.

Rhythm projects ’round the next sound

Nothing really new to report. Just some funny stuff I found on my RSS feeder today:

A little diddy about how lenses are made:

Both fun AND educational!

“The Real Camera Behind Cloverfield”
Just cause while watching the damn movie, you can’t help but keep wondering what the fuck kind of camera are they using?!!?!?!. Not only does it get better throughout the movie. The lens is seemingly blood resistant, only needing 3 wipes to return it’s clarity to HD. Check it:
link (courtesy of Gizmodo)

Some peculiar ebay feedbacks:
– NEGATIVE: Honda R-Type sticker did not add horsepower as advertised.
– POSITIVE: Plain brown packaging seemed to fool my wife. Thanks!
– POSITIVE: The way you wrote my zip-code makes me weak in the knees. Such smooth strokes. A+!
– NEGATIVE: Though you did nothing wrong, I am giving you this negative feedback to teach you that the universe is arbitrary and unfair.

“10 Of The Most Amazing Sand Sculptures In The World”
Seriously pretty sick. Check it:
link (courtesy of TravelBurner)

That’s about it.

P.S. The stock market is going down!! Good thing I didn’t buy any last week, like I wanted to.

Damned Indecision And Cursed Pride

This past weekend Calvin came down from Chicago, as planned. It was actually a lot more eventful than I had originally planned, but most of the events were just eating. We started off on Friday night, where I picked him up from LAX with James and Kwiri. We met up with Marvin, Candace and Crystal at Los Chiles Locos. It’s becoming another tradition. The soft tacos were fantastic as usual, and ended the night with a couple monster visits to the toilet.

Saturday we hopped over to our other local spot in Costa Mesa, Side Street Cafe. It’s been a while, but with some tabasco sprinkled over the breakfast entrees, the food there is still tasty as fuck. It’s a definite must stop for any Orange County visitor. We did some work and before we knew it, we were heading out again to meet up with Dan, a friend, at UCSD. We had some all you can eat sushi at Tadashi Sushi, in La Jolla. The service was nice and fast at the bar, and the food was very satisfying even at the $24.95 price. It’s nothing too fancy or spectacular, but it definitely leaves you satisfied. Afterward we hit up a little on-campus rave thing at the UCSD student center area. It was definitely pretty weird being the oldest mofo’s in the place. I can’t stress how much trance/techno/house sucks ass…but after being forced to listen to it for an hour, you can’t help but start to find a little rhythm in the music. We got up to the DJ area, and I was able to confirm how little skill is needed to DJ raves. You fucking spend 5 minutes beat matching and 1 minute throwing your hands up in the air taking pictures of the crowd to post on your myspace page. The kids there are just grinding on each other, or high on E, flailing their little glow sticks.

If you really want to rock a party, get the crowd involved. Play the good shit, and nothing but. Here’s Z-Trip @ Bonnaroo:

Calvin and I were discussing this on our way back home, while listening to some real DJ mashups, a la Z-Trip and Girl Talk.

On Sunday, we met up with Calvin’s bro, Howard. We took him out for some eats over at The Counter, in the south side of Irvine. It’s a little place that started in Santa Monica (I think), that let’s you combo up your own burger with a plethora of ingredients. However, I still order the standard “The Counter Burger”. It’s a good combination of stuffs. And also the fried pickles appetizer is pretty bomb. Check it:

We got some more work done at home, and then went back out for Cloverfield in Monrovia. The movie was a piece of work. With all the hype, and J.J. Abrams backing it, I expected a hugely in-depth monster movie. It was great with special effects and locales, but the plot was pathetically thin. I would’ve rather had them make it another Independence Day-type. I really wanted to like the movie, and I do. But just overall it was disappointing. After the movie, we went to Marvin’s hood for some classic hot pot in Rowland Heights. Calvin hates the shrimp and seafood crap that comes with most traditional chinese hot pot meals, but we didn’t have any, so he actually dug the food.

Monday I had to wake up early for an IT job my bro got me in Murrieta, at a place called Provenance Fighter Sales. They sell WWII planes to collectors and private buyers. I just had to repair VPN settings and fix some printing issues. It took me about an hour to get there, two hours to get the stuff done, and another hour to get back home. But it was all worth it for a little tour of the back warehouse:

For lunch, Calvin and I got some bibimbap at the local Korean market, Freshia. We did a little shopping afterward, and found a catering truck outside. I’ve been trying to locate it for a few months now, after seeing it on ElmoMonster’s food blog: Koo’s Catering Truck. The truck looked like shit, which made the food look even better. Apparently it’s called hotteok (pronounced ho-duck), and is a common street food found in Korea. More pics:

Plus, here’s a funny chicken snack we saw, while waiting to check out:

That’s about it for the weekend. I dropped off Calvin at LAX, to finish up my record driving weekend. I filled up the tank 3 times in 4 days.

P.S. I got my Zojirushi Rice Cooker Creations book:

I thought for once it couldn’t go wrong. Not for long! I can see the way this ends.

It’s funny how it seems like I’ve been away for so long…but I’m back in SoCal now. It was a nice trip up north, and now i have a few pictures to share…

Here’s Jon and me installing the security cameras at his work:

Here is a little something I found in one of my boxes of old junk:

I plan on making a lot of money off it someday…

This is Tuesday morning @ 5am; Jon and I are just arriving at the Macworld line to find about 500 people already waiting in line ahead of us:

Damn Apple fanboys are crazy. It’s awesome.

My expo pass (check the company name…remember it, cause you’ll see it again soon):

The long awaited Modbook by Axiotron:

And last but not least…a shot of the people at the Apple booth, waiting to check out the Macbook Air:

So that was my vacay up north…And now that I’m back, I’m learning to get back into a school/money-saving mode. I invest two Benjamins on a Zojirushi rice cooker: NS-ZCC18. I’ve been hearing a lot of great things about these things lately, and I just had to buy one. Apparently they can make meat loafs and upside down cakes, and a bunch of other amazing shit. Check the vid:
http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=-2392567185712439475&hl=en
(courtesy of japanprobe.com)
So now I’m really working hard on become a good rice cooker chef. I think it’ll be a phenomenal breakthrough in lazy person technology. I even ordered an official Zojirushi cook book specially made for their rice cookers: Rice Cooker Creations: 40 Simple Recipes. It should be coming any day now…so look forward to that.

Calvin will be coming down tomorrow to work on Trender stuff, and play Rock Band. It should be a fun weekend.

Peace.

let’s go see paris, wake up in tokyo

I’m up in the bay for a bit for a little business and a little pleasure. I came with Jon to help install some security cams for his company. They’re actually pretty sick, equipped with fish eye lenses: AXIS 212 PTZ Network Camera. They come with built in a built-in browser app which works perfectly when powered via PoE, though they can still be plugged with an included AC adapter. We chose to use the first option for ease of installation. Mounting was simple and we had three up and running in 2 hours.

Tomorrow I’ll be heading over to San Francisco to submit our LLC-1 Article of Organization form to the CA SOS office for Trender. Mailing it in would supposedly tack on an additional 6 weeks to the process, so hopefully we can get it approved on the spot this way.

Tuesday and Wednesday, Jon and I will be attending Macworld Expo @ the Moscone Center. It’ll be my first time watching a Steve Keynote live. Seriously can’t wait. So far there’s been a lot of talk about the banners seen from outside saying “There’s something in the air.” It’s typical Apple to throw around something so abstract to keep us guessing. Fuckin’ Awesome.

In the meantime I’ve been spending some time with Jon and Jen, just chilling around the house. We watched a great film called The Ultimate Gift (2006). It’s a little cheesy, but it’s got an awesome message and great concepts that everyone should take an ear to. Check it out at the IMDB link I just posted.

One thing I’ve been trying to work on is get myself a little more knowledgeable about the whole political scene going on right now. I’m 22 now, and have no idea what issues there are and who supports what. So I’ve come across a site that helps list out each candidates stance of each issue plain and simple: OnTheIssues.org. It also gives detailed info if you’re not sure what the issue is about. There is even a quiz that you can take to find which candidate matches your views and opinions most. It’s probably pretty rudimentary when you also want to consider the measure of the man (or woman), but it’s a start.

Last but not least, I’d like to post a couple images of upcoming cars for production and concept. Click on the pictures for links to the full galleries:

fuckin’ Rick Levine…

“Friday, January 11, 2008 – It’s hard to know what is real today, for the volume on your imagination is turned up high. Fortunately, you also have a strong practical streak now, creating conflict between your emotions and your responsibilities. You often err on the side of excitement, but it’s not a good idea to avoid current material concerns. Try not to make any major changes, for this instability is not a long-lasting influence.”

It’s always hit or miss…

math.

4 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 3 = 10