Friday, November 30, 2007
Wanted Dead or Alive
Sometimes, you come across a song with this kind situation. You hear a song, you know you heard it before. But, somehow you cannot name it. Wanted Dead or Alive for me is one of this type. This song is famous. I like the drumming part particularly. Thanks to Rock Band, I learn how to appreciate the drumming part.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Where to find it
Bistro Elan
We heard this restaurant from a friend. He loves this restaurant and highly recommends it. We went there and wow, so crowded.
The place may not be designed to be crowded and noisy. But, due to its popularity, Bistro Elan becomes a hot dinning place. This place is good for people with small stomach. The rock shrimp appetizer, mussels, and fish fillet are recommended. If you are a meat person, you can try Elan's steak. Tender, moist, and with fragrant smell.
Location: 448 N California Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94301
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
CNN Center
Atlanta is where CNN's headquarters locate. Totof and I drove to Centennial Park and decided to participate the CNN tour. CNN Center did not look fancy. It was ordinary. The inside was huge. We took 2 min to cross the corridor and arrive the atrium. We found the ticket center. We looked at the price. Wow. $12. One thing we learned from Atlanta was that tickets were expensive. For example, the sky ride for Stone Mountain is $9. The Atlanta aquarium is $27. The CNN tour is $12.
The Studio tour was behind-the-scenes type. Our group had a guide with us. The first stop was a long escalator (we were told this was the world's longest escalator.) The second stop was a cinema room. The guide introduced the basic CNN program shooting. We learned how executive producer, director, and technical director led the CNN team. We saw CNN's robot cameras. Then, we went to the third stop which was CNN Headline News. We saw through a glass. Of course, CNN staff could see us but not hear us. They must be quite familiar with tourists. They might be annoyed by tourists sometimes. Or maybe just feel distracted. The fourth stop was CNN (no real time news were produced in Atlanta at that time.) We were told the supervisor editors had the power to select, edit, link, and air videos (and supportive stories.) The fifth stop was CNN International Network. Then, we were led to CNN Espagnol. Along with each stop, the guide briefed the histories. By all means she tried hard to insert some jokes. The last stop was in another cinema room. This time, we saw four main CNN anchors. The guide told us that the salary among anchors varied. From $300,000 to $14,000,000. Larry KIng was the most expensive anchor.
If you are interested in journalist type work, then try to attend one of CNN's studio tour. You can see more reality about anchor, journalist, editor, technical editor, lighting control, audio control, and program producer.
Café 101
My brother brought us (7 people) to this restaurant. This place is one of my sister-in-law and brother's favorite dinning places. The restaurant is stylish. High ceiling, brown and black theme, wood decoration all over the place. A quite dizzying and delightful place.
What we ordered
Braised tofu: my brother highly recommended this dish. The tofu was tender inside and with nice sauce. Totof is not a tofu person. We encouraged him to try it. He liked this dish.
Basil chicken (a.k.a. three cup chicken): this is Totof's and my favorite dish. We wanted to see if Café 101's basil chicken was better than the Bay area's basil chicken. The dish was unexpectedly spicy. Other than that, this dish was good. (hard to tell whether this dish is better or not than its counterpart in the Bay area)
Corn soup with ham: Totof told me the soup tasted funny. I tried it. Oh no. It was sweet. I asked my brother to try it. The consensus was that Café 101's chef must put sugar instead of salt to finish the cooking. The owner came and apologized. He said the kitchen would give us another soup.
Chicken soup with dried bamboo (free): this soup was a bonus due to the corn soup. This soup was quite expensive according to my sister and brother. The chef put some ginger and Totof somehow did not appreciate the strong ginger smell much. He told me my chicken soup was better. Well. I was glad to know that. But, in my opinion, this soup was great.
Cashew chicken: Josh ordered this dish. The chicken part was tender. But somehow Totof said the chicken was tasteless.
Pea sprout: a vegetable dish.
Leeks with smoked ham: Totof wanted to order this dish when he reviewed the menu. I was hesitant since I was not sure if this dish would turn out good. My sister said it was harmless to experiment. So we ordered it. It turned out quite tasty.
Dessert
We were all quite full after these wonderful dishes. But, we still asked to look at the dessert menu. My sister-in-law told us Café 101 had some nice desserts. Of course, no one wanted to miss to taste some nice dessert. We ordered three desserts: two mango shaved ice and one green tea and red bean shaved ice.
Mango shaved ice: my sister-in-law told me this dessert was gorgeous. So, around the dessert time, we ordered two mango shaved ice. The mango was not sweet at all. Maybe due to the wrong season. We were disappointed.
Green tea and red bean shaved ice: Josh and my sister ordered this. I did not try it since Josh was having a severe cold. According to my sister, this shaved ice was excellent.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Stone Mountain
On a cold Friday, four of us decided to visit Stone Mountain. Four people: my sister, Josh, Totof, and myself. We did not know we could hike up to the top of Stone Mountain. So, we spent 45 min waiting time on the sky ride station. The weather was cold. Not friendly. We four people needed to entertain ourselves to kill the waiting time. Of course, the entertaining work was mostly done by Totof and myself. (we played silly to entertain ourselves, Josh, and my sister)
The sky ride was spectacular by all means. We took a nice picture of the carving when we were on the cable car. The ride was quick. Around 5 min. There was another station on the top of the mountain. We walked out and saw a fantastic view.
We took some pictures. Some were quite stupid but fun. I am not ready to share them. So I will not exhibit these pictures. When we were on the top, we came across a couple and the couple told my sister and Josh that we could walk up and down to the bottom station instead of getting another ride. This information was valuable. We liked hiking (they three people are hiking type and myself like short hikes.) We decided to abandon the sky ride. The hiking was not too long. I did not check but guesstimated the time would be 30 min. Of course we took some other fun pictures and videos. Among them, I wanted to share a picture with you. This picture was in memory of the chewing gum art. What? You may ask. At the first glance, we thought these trees were decorated with some small color stones. At the first glance, they looked pleasant. If Josh did not say these ruby like things were chewing gums, none of us would pay attention on this detail.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
It was an informative tour. Totof and I went to Martin Luther King, Jr. Historic Site at Atlanta yesterday. We had some knowledge on American Segregation and Dr. Martin Luther King (due to the holiday) before we visited the historic site. But, we did not have a big picture of the histories and the non-violent protests.
My sister highly recommended us to spend some time there before we took off. We were supposed to visit the historic site on Sunday. But we did not go due to the gloomy and windy weather. (we wanted to visit the historic site and Centennial Park together.) It was a good decision to visit the historic site on Monday. Not too many people. The site was quiet. The historic site was huge. Based on the parking lot size, I assumed this site was quite popular during the holidays. We saw Gandhi's statue there. We did not know why at that time. We entered the main exhibit hall. We wanted to take a tour. But, since we could not stay there long, we decided to pass the chance of the tour on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. birth place.
Many small sections in the main exhibit hall. Each section has a TV and the TV is surrounded by relevant posters. The videos on TV are informative. We spent 10 min at each section on average. I felt emotional when I saw those videos. The colored people signs and vivid execution pictures made me shacked. With various emotions: anger, sympathy, and surprise.
We heard there was going to be a 30 min video on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and we decided to go. The video was well done. The message from the video was clear. We were glad we went there. The video briefed the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his vision: all men regardless of skin color should be equal and free. The video contained some Dr. King's speeches. I liked the one presented in front of the Washington Memorial Hall the most (I have a dream speech). The mountain side speech was also touchy. I looked up to Dr. Martin Luther King. Jr. after this visit.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
We got Rock Band
Yesterday was Rock Band launch day. Totof went to Best Buy and got one home. I could not wait. We opened boxes after boxes to get all elements out. The packaging was quite sophisticated. By all means manufacturing requires good amount of knowledge. We removed all protections and assembled elements with extreme care. The bass was not hard to be assembled. But the drums were not easy at all. Parts were all over. We took the instruction and put elements in order. We followed the instruction and connected the drums to X box 360. But somehow, the drums did not get connected. We tried to do trouble shootings by ourselves. It turned out the USB hub came with the Rock Band package needed to be charged. After 10 min, everything was ready. We put the disk inside and wow. We were all standing up to appreciate the introduction of Rock Band. The intro and the menu and the background were aesthetic. Absolutely prettier than Guitar Hero. (Rock Band vs. Guitar Hero = 1:0)
In Rock Band, you can create your own characters. A similar way to Wii. Quite fun. (Rock band vs. Guitar Hero = 2:0) Just one thing to complain. The name entry part is not intuitive and not easy-of-use. Totof, myself, and Fabien created our own characters. We all looked cool.
Good thing is that the Guitar Hero guitars are compatible in Rock Band. We got our instruments and started our worldwide tour: Totof played guitar, myself played drums, and Fabien played bass. We chose San Francisco as our hometown. We started our tour from a small pub. We were thrilled to know we got fans and gigs after our performance. So, here is a major difference between Guitar Hero and Rock Band. In Guitar Hero, you perform and gain money and advance your band. In Rock Band, you perform and gain three things depending on your performance: money, fans, and gigs. It was entertaining to see the number of fans increased. (Rock Band vs. Guitar Hero = 3:0)
The drums were not easy to perform. We spent some time to understand the coordination. We should have consulted the manual but we did not. We realized the orange horizontal line was for the foot part after several songs (we failed many times). Rock Band is totally about team work. If a member fails, other members need to save him/her by using star power. Every member has three chances to fail. If a member is permanently failed, then the team will be in danger. The team will fail quite soon. It is like reality. Your band cannot survive if the drum or the guitar member fails her/his duty. Your fans will get annoyed or upset.
Another difference is that if you give up trying a song in Rock Band, you will get penalty by losing some numbers of fans (oh, no). It hurt when we abandoned a song.
We also tried the vocal part. I can tell you Rock Band will bring us tons of fun.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Alexander's Steakhouse
As mentioned in the previous post regarding Las Vegas, Totof and I came cross this restaurant. The spectacular entrance and the high end looking printed in our minds. We told ourselves some day we would give it a try.
So, we waited and waited... unless our wallet was full as well as the occasion was right.
The welcome thing at Alexander's entrance was unexpected. Their reception area was quite inside. We passed a 50 ft long corridor. 50 ft was alright. No one would complain or feel surprise. But, 50 ft with lots of raw meat in front of you was a different story. Imagine you walked in a high end restaurant. You expected something extraordinary or extravagant waiting for you. Right? You expected to see, to feel, to listen, or to smell something. Not too strong. Something subtle but memorable. Something would print in your mind so that you could tell others your own story about this high end place. The last thing I would imagine was arrays and arrays of raw meat. I would not say the meat looked attractive.
We sit down in the reception area. The reception area was spacious. Some nice sofa for people who needed to wait for their tables. I looked around. Some people dressed formally. But some other people just dressed casually as us. Alexander's liked arrays. One corner of Alexander's reception area was filled with wine bottles (arrays and arrays of wine bottles). Based on Totof's limited wine knowledge, he told me these wine bottles were quite expensive.
We were led to our table after 10 min waiting time. The table was pretty secretive. We looked at Alexander's menu. Absolutely, its menu revealed Alexander's dishes were fusion type. We spent a joyful time dinning out there. To share with you, I listed what we ordered and highlighted some of them.
Filet Mignon with seared Froi Gras:
The meat was super tender. I never had seared froi gras on top of my filet mignon. It was an excellent combination.
Cow & Crustacean:
Don't get confused by the name. This dish was basically two kinds of steaks: one is beef steak and the other is lobster steak. Nice portion, not something you would be overwhelmed. The filet mignon part was smaller but as good as the one just mentioned. The lobster steak was quite tasty.
Creamed Spinach:
This was a side dish. To be honest, it was the least liking dish among that night. The spinach was too dry.
Dayboat Scallops:
This was one of the small dishes Alexander's served. I googled Alexander's before that night. Many critics and customers recommended Alexander's small dishes. Besides, some of them claimed the small dishes were the most fabulous part in Alexander's part. So, we particularly ordered this dish for our small appetite. This dish was theme with scallops. Came with corn coulis, cauliflower purée and corn salsa. Dashed with rosemary essence. A nice touch.
We did not order much. But we were so full afterwards. A side track. We saw some people were served with super large steaks (Bone-In Dry Aged New York 26 oz or T-bone 24 oz). It was amazing to see people finish something more than 20 oz. 20 oz steak may take Totof and myself 2 meals to consume. Another interesting thing was that you could order hot rock and put your steak or dish nicely on top of the rock. A fancy and witty idea for Alexander's.
Location: 10330 N Wolfe Rd, Cupertino, CA 95014
Afterthought:Alexander's is absolutly an upscale steakhouse influenced by Asian touch.
Rock Band is available today
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/NYTU07620112007-1.htm
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
Gyros House
Gyros House is on Castro, Mountain View. The food is authentic (our Turkish friend confirmed). If you want to have something quick but with a good quality, Gyros House is one of your choices.
Many people would recommend you to take Lamb and Beef Kebab Gyro. But, not me. I wanted to recommend you to try something else. Lamb and Beef Kebab is already good. But, if you try Adana Kebab Gyro, you will say to yourself "oh la la, this is a gold in a small and plain looking restaurant."
Adana Kebab 101 (from Wikipedia)
Adana Kebab is a long, charcoal grilled, minced meat brochette mounted on a wide skewer. Only salt and dried red pepper flakes (sweet or hot according to desire) are added to the meat. Red bell pepper can be hand chopped into very small pieces and be used instead of red pepper. 4 or 5 ounces (100 or 150 grams) of meat are mounted on a special skewer which is about 3 feet long (80-90 cm) and about an inch wide (2.0-2.5 cm). Then it is grilled over hot charcoal. During the grilling the fat melts and burns on the charcoal. The fire is not allowed to reach the meat; otherwise it leaves black soot on the meat. The dripping fat is usually removed by a piece of fresh flatbread - pide (also known as berberi) bread or lavash.
Location: 212 Castro St, Mountain View, CA 94041
Visa IPO
http://www.epaynews.com/index.cgi?survey=&ref=browse&f=view&id=1195080963837043222&block=
Monday, November 19, 2007
Guitar Hero 3 - Even Flow
The more I play this song, the more I appreciate it. I did not know Pearl Jam until I came across their song in Guitar Hero 2. On Guitar Hero 3 song list, I recognized this name right away. Even flow is a good song. Very Guitar Hero. If you are a Guitar Hero fan, don't miss to try it out whenever you can. You will say to yourself "I was thinking to do something else. Luckily I did not"
House warming cocktail party
The party was hosted by Yasemin and Dustin. We knew Yasemin through Fabien. Yasemin used to live in Los Altos. Her previous house mates were quite fun. The crazy kind fun. Her house was a party generator. We have been there some times.
This summer, Yasemin told us she might go to Los Angeles for education. Both Yasemin and Dustin were students in Foothill college. They were trying to apply USC and UCSC. They got the admissions from UCSC at that time. But the USC decision was pending. We did not know if they would move to Los Angeles. No one knew.
Then, around a month, we got the news that they decided to enroll UCSC. After a month, we got an invitation from Yasemin. A house warming party. Why not? As mentioned in the lost key post, the day was quite eventful. After this tiring and worrisome event, we were happy to relax ourselves. We four people went to Yasemin and Dustin's house: Herve, Fabien, and us.
The house is cute. It has its own yard. With Santa Cruz air, the house looks laid-back. We started to entertain ourselves by Chess. It was an accidental decision. It was a team vs. an individual game. The team was led by me. My team had Fabien, Dustin, and Totof. The individual was Herve.
Herve was quite experienced. At the second move, he almost checkmated me. The beauty of our team was that each individual contributed but not contradicted. Each individual in my team would not have a chance to win Herve. But, as a team, we were strong and smart. We reacted fast and defended tactically. We converted the attack-defense situation. We survived from some severe Herve attacks. We wonderfully positioned chess and got some fantastic moves. As a team, we won.
After the chess, other guests arrived. We had 8 people. The first course was a Turkish appetizer with some cheese. Wonderful. We chatted and knew the other two guests were exchange students. One from Spain and the other from France. Of course, French would not miss this wonderful chance to speak French. So, French conversations were here and there. The Spanish guest was on my side. We protested. So, the conversation went back to the English mode.
The main dish was a Turkish dish. Apparently Dustin had Yasemin's mom's cooking. So he knew the original version. Personally, I liked the dish. Quite tasty. Yasemin complained that the meat was too dry (she convinced us the meat was supposed to be very dry. wink, wink) The meat was on top of arrays of tomatoes and potatoes. The juice was great.
The main dish was followed by Dustin's mom's Brown Belly. Brown Belly is a kind of Apple pie. Dustin's family live in Fremont hill. The family has many apple trees. So, when the season is right, the house will be stocked with piles of apples. Fabien and Totof had a Brown Belly before and they praised it a lot. I was curious about it. The pie turned out good.
After the dessert, Dustin showed his skills of making fire and S'mores. S'more is an American thing especially for camping. S'more is the abbreviation of some more according to Dustin. S'mores start from mash mellow. You grill mash mellow. The mash mellow then becomes brown outside and melted inside. You take two graham cookies and put the grilled mash mellow inside. Under the mash mellow or above, you put a slice of chocolate. Then, you have S'mores. Interesting.
The entire party was always with cocktail or wine. I did not try any so I could not comment any. But, the rest was very fun.
Lost key
Yesterday after the surfing, we were told Robin lost his car key. Oh, no.
Robin's key did not attach to any key chain. Besides, he did not have any spare key. Herve asked Robin if Robin and Sarah could leave their car in Santa Cruz and go home. The answer was negative. Robin and Sarah's belongings were in the truck. Their apartment keys were in the trunk. Their money and ID's were in the trunk. Their cell phones were in the trunk. Without their belongings, they were stuck. How to open the trunk? The answer was not normal. Robin could not open the trunk from the driver's seat. He needed to use his key to open the trunk.
OOPS, but the key was gone. How to deal with this? A random guy said he could help open the window and then used a hanger to unlock the handle. Sounded good. So we did a scavenger hunt and got a wadge and some wire. We managed to open the passenger window a bit (not too hard). The guy put a wire hanger inside the window. But the wire was too short. The action did not go successfully. Everyone was frustrated.
So the plan B was to get some longer wire. Herve went out and returned with a roll of wire. These three boys worked hard to get the door open. In the meantime, Sarah and I looked into the yellow book to get some lock smith's phone numbers. On the yellow book, they claimed they operated 24 hours and 7 days. It was not true. We contacted all lock smith's. None was reachable. I asked Sarah to go back to our car since she apparently was pretty pale due to the cold. She said yes. Sarah looked much better after some bites of LU Le Petite Ecolier. She looked calmer. She told me how bad this lost key event would be. She needed to get the key and her belonging. She had an important presentation tomorrow and there was no way to cancel or put the meeting off. She did not have her colleagues' phone numbers. She did not have her boss' number in mind. She always used speed dial. She did not remember her friends' phone numbers either. She used speed dial. Her parents were out. So her parents could not help in this bummer either. Her brother was around. But she used speed dial to call him (everyone got a lesson - you need to remember some important numbers by heart)
I tried my best to make her feel better. I tried to make her look positive. At least, she and Robin were fine. The worst case was that they needed to stay in a hotel nearby and got AAA's help tomorrow morning and got a half day off from work. (AAA said they could not help with this make model and year car. Quite disappointed) Robin and Sarah may need to spend some money to get the trunk open and remake a key. But, at least they were fine.
After 10 min, Totof called me and told me a good news - the car door was open. Sarah was relieved. Right now, boys were working on how to unscrew the backseat and reach the trunk. It was a matter of time. Sarah wanted to go back to the car. We went back. The Subaru doors were open (it was a coupe). Herve was gone for some special tools. Robin said they needed to have a hexagon driver to unscrew the attachment. Sarah said she was chilled. We went back to the car. I tried to turn on the engine but could not. I asked Totof to come over. It was a manual car and I did not know how to turn a manual car on. After the car was on, I proposed to have some hot drinks since Sarah's face was quite pale. We drove around and found a coffee shop. Since the coffee shop just grand opened, all drinks were free. We got two large hot chocolate. One for Robin couple so at least they could warm themselves with some hot chocolate.
Things went on better and better. Herve returned with a tool kit. After 10 min, Robin managed to dismantle all backseats and racks. The passage to the trunk was just ahead. Robin removed the last obstacle and the victory was his. He searched the mechanism inside the trunk to open the trunk (the safety mechanism in the trunk). After 2 min, the trunk was open in front of everyone. We were all yelling load to celebrate this moment. We took some pictures of Robin and the trunk. In memory of this special event. After this memorable moment, one lock smith called back and said he could arrive at 45 min.
Everyone was glad this lost key thing was with happy ending.
Pre-Thanksgiving dinner
We arrived as the first couple as the tradition (we did not know why but we always arrived before other guests). Sara and Mathieu gave us a warm welcome. Glad to see them. Sara asked me if I would like to have a cranberry cocktail. Normally I would say no. But this time I said yes due to the holiday atmosphere. Sara took a champagne glass, put 1/3 amount of champagne, and then filled the glass with cranberry juice. After the filling, she put two cranberries inside. The cocktail absolutely looked pretty and Thanksgiving.(we were told cranberry was commonly used for Thanksgiving)
We noticed Mathieu and Sara had a new piano. It was a grand piano. Mathieu did not hesitate to say yes for our ask. Mathieu sit still in front of the piano and put his hands on the keys. Then, the fun began. The first song was performed by pure memory. A nice song with professional performance. Impressive. Then Reda and Julien arrived. Mathieu continued to play some nice songs for us. With the nice piano performance and red theme decoration, the house was filled with holiday atmosphere.
The dinner table was huge. A long table with 11 seats. Guests were Eureka, Julien, Reda, Clara couple, Robin couple, and us. Guests gradually arrived. Greetings and chats were all over the place. Mathieu took a huge tray out. It was a turkey tray. Mathieu disappeared a while and then returned with an apron (it was a blue apron and we teased him of this). Then, the following 10 min all guests were standing around the table and witnessing how Mathieu and the turkey dualed each other. Of course, Mathieu got an K.O. at this turkey thing (so we guests had a nice turkey slice to eat). Sliced turkey meat got laid out nicely on a plate. During the turkey fight, we were chatting with Robin and Sarah (Robin's girlfriend). Everyone got some appetizers: Pate, Blue Bree, Bree, and olives. The Pate was tasty. The cheese was excellent. The olives were of high quality. Other side dishes were subsequently taken out. It looked like we were going to have a feast.
No one could resist the delicious looking dishes. Everyone got a plate and started the buffet like serving. I got some turkey, cranberry sauce, string beans, potato gratin, and bread scrambles. All dishes were traditional Thanksgiving dishes. The sitting was casual. Totof and I sit side by side. I sit across Clara couple (during the serving part, I accidentally discovered Clara was from Taiwan). Mathieu sit on my left side. Lots of fun conversations were here and there. One conversation was about the turkey. Apparently not many people there were fans of turkey (majority were not Americans). Indeed tonight's turkey was good. But, people could not resist to asking this question. Mathieu said he was not a turkey fan either. But since Sara would like to have a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, they got a turkey. Then, the talking turned to how to clean turkey. We heard the turkey bath story, the turkey package story, and the turkey defrost story. Quite entertaining.
Dinner topics were with no restrictions. We talked fun things, serious things, casual things, and silly things. The dessert part was as good as the dinner. Metieu and Sara served us three deserts: an apple crumble pie, a pumpkin pie, and madeleines. Everyone was amazed by Metieu and Sara's hosting. It was absolutely a wonderful dinner. A wonderful pre-Thanksgiving dinner.
Friday, November 16, 2007
Porsche
How many Porsche's can you bump into per day? Not in dealership. Just on the road.
My most fantastic experience was 7. It was a Thursday. I recall I had a dinner gathering on Castro. On 101, two Porsche's were on my side at some points. That triggered my interest in knowing how many Porsche's I could see per day.
I took a Palo Alto exit. I saw another 3 Porsche's on Alma. So the number jumped by 3 to 5. I was pretty happy already. Wen I approached Castro, I saw one on the other lane. Ok, I got 6. After I parked my car, I saw another one. 7, good job. On my way to the restaurant, I saw a Ferrari. What a day.
Detour
Traffic became worse these days. I did not like being stuck on 101 (who would like it?)
I got stuck on 101 Embarcadero ramp. I was not on 101 yet but already became a victim of the traffic jam. I suddenly had a thought - how about take El Camino to work? It was a crazy idea. I went back to Embarcadero and thought of my options hard. Would El Camino be a good option? I may have many traffic lights and may lose more time on waiting. Then, da la la. I saw Middlefield. How about trying Middlefield? Middlefield should allow me to go at least Willow Rd. Good thinking.
I made a turn and drove on the narrow Middlefield. It was not a short way. I was careful since I never took this way to Willow. I paid attention on each cross road. I saw Halmiton, University, and knew I was on the right direction. I continued and saw Willow was ahead. I was glad to see it. I went on Willow and after a while I saw 101 sign.
Before I went on 101, I glanced at the traffic. OMG. Pretty packed. I gave myself a precaution. It turned out the way I saw was on the south bound. I was taking the north bound. The north bound was ok good. I arrived at the office 10 min late compared to the normal schedule.
Middlefield is a way to avoid traffic on 101. If your commute is similar to mine, you can give Middlefield a shut.
The Legend of Zelda - Mercay island
Mercay island was where your character was saved. I would use "you" instead of "your character" in the rest of the post.
You were awaken by a white little spirit. She told you to meet the Grand Pa. You used the stylus to move yourself around. You crossed a bridge and saw a house. You entered and saw the Grand Pa. He looked kind and wise. He told you to go to the harbor on the other side of the island to meet a guy called Lineback. You left the house and realized the bridge between the west side and the east side of the island was broken by the earthquake. You did not have the choice. You needed to go to the north part where many monsters presented.
You went there with bare hand. Of course you got yourself killed by the monsters. After a revival, the spirit told you that you should get a sword. (shouldn't she told you earlier?) You followed her suggestion to visit the Grand Pa. He told you to get a sword from a cave next to his house. The sword control was a piece of cake. You became a sword expert in a second. You revisited the north part and defeated all monsters swiftly. You saw an Oing-boing and got a hint stating that a tree on the north side of Mercay would return a treasure. (Oing-boing is a device that is meant to tell you info in Zelda) You entered a cave with scary background music. You knew something must be waiting for you. You explored the cave, and slayed some other monsters. You got through the cave exercise and arrived at a harbor. Lineback was not there. You went to a bar and the bartender told you Lineback went to the Temple of Ocean King.
Then, you went to the north part of Mercay. Before you left, a guy you bumped into told you many scary monsters were on the north side. You prepared yourself and took off. After some time, you arrived the Temple of Ocean King.
Stay tuned
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Rock Band - Welcome to the Jungle
Name: Welcome to the Jungle
This song was chosen by both Guitar Hero 3 and Rock Band. So, people can see feature and design difference between these two hot games through this Guns N' Roses song. You can have some basic understanding from my previous post on Rock Band. Throught the attached clip, you saw four tracks: three on the bottom and one on the top. The bottom three were for Guitar, Drum, and Bass. The top one was for singing.
The clip will be replaced by another better image quality one if there is any on YouTube.
Rock Band
Fame sometimes ruins the collaboration. The success of Guitar Hero 2 destroyed the team. Harmonix and RedOctane split. The fights between these two former partners got heated. RedOctane announced to launch Guitar Hero 3 in late October and Harmonix said Rock Band would be released in November.
Good for gamers. It meant there would be two high quality video games on the market soon. Excited.
Totof and I went to Best Buy last week and accidentally saw Rock Band's demo. Wow. It looked super cool. The design was quite aesthetic. We alternated with other customers to try different controllers. Basically, Rock Band had three main controllers: Guitar, Bass, and Drum. You could sing in Rock Band. Since we did not try it, I did not know how the microphone functioned in Rock Band.
We were glad to find out the Guitar Hero guitars were compatible in Rock Band. The Bass looked cool. It had 10 buttons instead of 5 buttons in Guitar Hero. The Drum was crazily difficult but super fun. Go to try Rock Band. It will surely delight you.
SAW IV
The movie showed two men. Both were chained together. The left man was a disability because his eyes were sewed. The right man was a disability because his mouth was sewed. So, they could not communicate with each other (or could they?) These two men were in an extremely angry and desperate condition. The man who could not see asked questions to the man who could not talk. By no means the right man could say anything to the left man. The misunderstanding made the situation worse. Accidentally the right man found the key to his chain was on the back of the left man's neck. He wanted to get it to save himself. See, the greedy and hope made this weak looking man different. This man decided to get the key by force. He got advantage which was that he could see. His plan did not go well so he got violent resistance. The right man succeeded after 5 min. The price for his success was the death of the left man.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
May this music soothe you
It is from Smashing Pumpkins. The name of the song is Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
At the beginning, you thought your ultimate goal was to rescue the princess (Tetra) from the Ghost Ship capture. You were wrong. The game was full of layers. The Tetra part was just one of the touch. I listed all layers here.
18. Temple of the Ocean King revisit
25. Isle of the Dead
Monday, November 12, 2007
Cicero's Pizza
Another Power Grid night
Ratatouille
Friday, November 9, 2007
Tamarine
More and more friends recommend this place. I was told this place was for special occasions (due to $$). I have not tried it. And will post my review once I have tried it.
http://www.tamarinerestaurant.com/main.htm
Arturo Sandoval intro
So here comes the answer. Arturo Sandoval is a Jazz trumpeter. He was born in Cuba. Due to his talents, he managed to create a new Jazz style. Besides, his talents allowed him to link to other great musicians. He is quite essential to today's Jazz world. You can see many stories about him online if you are of interest. But still, why I listed his music here?
I was in Trumpet team when I was in a Marching band (another post). I have left my music trail for a long time. But, still, particularly like to listen to good trumpet music. Before I discovered Arturo Sandoval's music, I preferred classical music. A good example is Peter Tchaikivsky's 1812 Overture.
Someone introduced me Arturo Sandoval's music. I spent some time on enjoying Arturo Sandoval's music. The more I listen, the more I like his music. His style is more Latin. You may need to rewire the music clip many times before you start to appreciate the beauty of his music.
8 AM meeting symptom
The pain grows when you know you are going to meet some tough people. My 8 AM meeting symptom varies. This time, I suffered from yesterday. I did not have a good appetite. I could not join friends to F & A in Palo Alto. This morning, I needed to get up at 7. No matter how reluctant I was, I needed to get up and leave my warm blanket alone. I needed to put water on my face to wake myself. I need to get my hair right so that those old gentlemen would not make fun of me (these tough people like to tease me and they think it is fun to do so.) Right, I also needed to water my roses (roses looked as sleepy as me.) I did not eat any breakfast. I went straight to work.
The traffic was good. I arrived 10 min before the meeting. I saw my manager. She was on the phone. I was hesitant to knock her door. Maybe I should just call in instead of walking across buildings to cold myself (Foster City is quite windy). I was so sleepy. I went to the kitchen to get some hot tea. Did not work. Still sleepy. As time approached 8, my heart beat increased.
I knew my mind strongly against this 8 AM meeting. I called in. Right, only two gentlemen were on the bridge (this term is widely used in my company for a conference call). I recognized one person's voice but not the other. I called the wrong name. Shisky. How could I anticipate HIM would be there?
8 AM meeting. You saw how director level people managed or manipulate small potato.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Your company doesn't provide free snacks?
It seemed like I worked at a horrible company. No free drink, no free water, no free chips, no free snacks, no Foosball table, no pool table. Well, after a series of questions, the person gave up. Somehow, I sensed strong sympathy from this person.
Think on the bright side. At least, I will not be eating chips all day long and then accumulate some unwelcome fat on my belly and hips. Think on the bright side...
Wii
http://images.bestbuy.com/BestBuy_US/en_US/images/musicmoviegame/videogames/features/wii/mov_01.wmv
Guitar Hero 3 - Paint it, Black
Band: The Rolling Stones
Something good for you to listen to at work
What would you interpret?
Around 5 days ago, I got an email reply from a friend for a game night.
"i have succumbed to the bug that was circulating around the office"
With my first glance, I assumed this person was talking about a bug, a programming bug. I assumed this person could not join the game night since he needed to fix the bug. So, I replied something. It turned out... this person was talking about Influenza :p
Guitar Hero 3 - Cliff of Dover
Eric Johnson
This is another Guitar Hero 3 song. Guitar Hero is cool. I always discover new songs from playing. I like Cliff of Dover's melody. I have not tried this song in Expert yet. Don't know its difficulty. I will keep you posted.
Guitar Hero 3 - Knights of Cydonia
Band: Muse
This song is at level 8. I barely can finish this in Hard mode. And this person, he finished it in Expert mode. Insane.
If you want to see the original performance by Muse, you can click on this, http://asyang.blogspot.com/2007/11/knights-of-cydonia.html
Nintendo Wii
Significant other
It is interesting to learn something like this. Significant other is not specified. This term can refer to married or unmarried life partners. Perhaps it is because gays and lesbians are quite active here. It is common to have gay or lesbian coworkers. It might be hard for life partners to disclosure the role. So, people tend to use a common term like "significant one" in conversations.
AUDI or LEXUS
Test drives are fun. Totof and I went to three different dealers, 1 Audi dealer and 2 Lexus dealers. We tried Audi A4 and Lexus 250.
Audi A4
Audi was and still am one of my favorite brands. We went to Anderson Audi in Palo Alto. At that time, they only had a few A4s available. We tried a smoky one. The outside looked luxurious. The front bumper area looked gorgeous. But, the interior disappointed us. We had a friend who got an A4 (same model) in 2004. His car's interior was exactly identical which meant Audi had not changed A4's interior for 4 years.
I drove. Neither I nor Totof appreciated A4's horse power. We did not feel its power at all. Besides, Anderson's sales was quite lame. He was not enthusiastic in talking. He even gave us a wrong brochure after the test drive.
Lexus 250
We went to Stevens Creek Lexus first. I had seen 250 many times. Still, I felt wowed when I saw it in front of me. The exterior attracted me a lot. The car looked sexy. The interior was elegant. Its elegance and luxury were implicit. What I liked the most was its safety design. Lexus 250 had 3 air bags.
I drove. The car was quite powerful. We could feel it. We liked the sport design gears. We also liked Lexus put the gear control around the steer area. We felt like we were playing Arcade.
Next week, we went to Fremont Lexus. We picked a black car. It was around afternoon time. The weather was hot. We were surprised to discover another Lexus design: Lexus used tech to reduce the heat absorb so that driver and passengers were not overwhelmed by the heat at hot days.
This time, Totof drove. The laid-back style of our sales astonished us. He did not come with us for the test drive. Basically, he just gave us the key and let us play around. How nice.
Conclusion
Overall, we preferred Lexus 250 than Audi A4.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
300
If you like computer effect oriented movies, if you enjoy fighting scenes, if you like to know Battle of Thermopylae, if you like to hear people screaming Sparta, or if you are a geek, you will enjoy this movie a lot.
Or if you just want to be wowed...
I saw this movie at a movie night. 300 is a fictionalized Battle of Thermopylae (I knew this history after the movie). The main characters are Spartan King Leonidas, Spartan soldiers, and Spartan Queen Gorgo. The beginning part was to show how Spartan men were raised, what Spartan boys had to go through before their manhood, and how strong Leonidas was. The middle part was to let audience understand what was going on between Persians and Greeks. You saw how determined Leonidas and other Spartan soldiers were, how strong Spartan soldiers were, how insane Spartan people could be (Spartan men's specialty was to kill, to fight, and to protect), and how corrupted and shamed an politician could be. Of course 300 vividly showed how Spartan fought against Persians. Tons of fighting scenes during the movie. Interesting and creative fights were here and there. The producer and film script writer had a lot of imagination. Many scenes were filmed aesthetically.
If you want to know more detail on 300, you can click on this link, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/300_(film)
I really enjoyed this movie. The story is quite straightforward. But, the way the film was produced makes 300 stands out. Totof and I were totally wowed from the beginning to the end.