Good year

Apparently, there's a lot of "good arts" (by my definition) in SF this coming year. For starters, there's Les Miserables (July), Stomp (end of July), and Wicked (August/early Sept) this summer.

Then, over at the SF Symphony for the 05-06 season, we have some great programs with Beethoven's 5th symphony, Grieg's piano concerto (it's THE piano concerto), Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, and Mozart's 39/40/41st symphonies.

Next June, Madama Butterfly will be performed at SF Opera. This is a Puccini classic, and I would very much like to see this one... if only just to see "Un bel di" performed live. =)

Anyone interested in any of them??? My top three choices are Madama Butterfly, Wicked, and the Grieg Piano Concerto in A minor. It'd be nice to see all of them, but transportation to SF will be hell, and that's a lot of ramen to eat to cover the ticket costs.

Vacuum Tube Car Stereo

Oooh... This is so geeky that it's almost... sexy.... yeah, anywayz. Too bad it wouldn't look good in my car. You'd need some interior with wood trim (like Lexus or Mercedes) to go with it.

Kevin's Wedding

Had a fun but hectic weekend at home in LA, mainly for Cristina and Kevin's wedding. Still tired from the trip, so I don't feel like writing too much. Just gonna upload the pictures, partly to share it with people who want the pictures.

[Note: Click on each picture to get a larger version to download. And send me your pictures!]


As a rule of thumb, girls will always run late, even if you give them a time. So, when planning weddings, never start it on time. Here's my paparazzi shot of Yolanda as she "slowly" makes her way to the car.


For the back connoisseurs, the backs of Kevin and Mrs. Koyama.


Kevin's dad and Cristina's mom.


Another rule of thumb: Always include cute little kids in the act. They'll put a smile on your guests' faces, and it's even better when the kids screw up, because they're meant to. You can't blame cute little kids for messing up; but when adults screw up, they make your wedding look bad.


Amy. I'm only posting her picture because she has a cool car, like me.... j/k.


The wedding was held in the couryard of the Marina Beach Marriott. Here's a shot of some bored hotel guests with nothing else better to do. C'mon, it's a Saturday afternoon and the weather is awesome, who'd want to stay in their hotel room?


My paparazzi shot of two onlookers from their hotel room balcony. It's a pretty good shot considering that my dinosaur of a camera is only 3MP with 3X optical zoom.


For some strange reason, this picture reminds me of the infamous shot of bigfoot (try googling for "picture of bigfoot" if you don't know what I'm talkig about). Anyway, it's Herr Schuelke, my high school Deutsch Lehrer.


Shot of Cristina awaiting her turn down the aisle.


Here comes the bride.




It's times like this when I wish I sat closer to the front, or that my camera had better zoom. I think the light from the dude's head is throwing my contrast off.


Same shot with the help of digital zoom. Kevin's expression is kinda funny. I think I zoomed in a bit too close.


A better picture, less affected by the aforementioned external light source.


"California's newest married couple". With Ryan and Josh in the background (and a bunch of people I don't know).


Kevin doesn't look stressed for once. =)


Shiny and Scott.


Shiny and Scott, with multiple flashes going on simultaneously.


Great view from the top floor. Bay Area's got nothing on the beaches in So. Cal.


Our mini high school reunion.








Toast from best man.


Josh was all too eager to bang on his glass. Sadly, this was the final shot I took before my battery died. =T

All in all, it was fun seeing one of my best friends in HS get married. Even though I was unfortunate enough to have my camera die on me, hopefully other people got me covered. More people should get married so we can have more mini high school reunions. Speaking of reunions, it was a startling realization when we found out that it's only like 3 more years until our 10-year reunion. Dang we're getting old.

Choco Tour

We went to the Scharffen Berger chocolate factory in Berkeley today for a tour. Can't say that I'm much of a chocolate fan, but I figured that I should give it a try from time to time. Here's a photo recap. I'm tired, so put in the details yourself. =P


Before we knew any better, we were all eager to go tour the chocolate factory.


Giant vat of chocolate getting worked on by this roller machine thingamajigy..


Ever wonder why some chocolates are so sweet? (No, there's no sugar content in the cacao beans)


End of our somewhat disappointing short tour of the factory. And we thought chocolate-making was some glorious involved process. =T Can't believe I had to wake up early for this. Maybe we should have taken the online tour.


That's $50 for 96 5-gram pieces of chocolate... which comes out to around $200 per kilogram. While the price isn't as exorbitant as illegal drugs, $200 is still double the price of Kobe beef. When I went to Japan last year, the market price for Kobe beef was around 10000 yen.

Lessons learned today:
1) Chocolate making is not that exciting.
2) You can find Scharffen Berger chocolates for a cheaper price in supermarkets than in the gift shop.

The Future is Now

I remember talking about holographic storage with Chris, my college roommate, back when a CDR holds 2 or 3 movies encoded in ASF or RM, and your storage fantasy consists of something that can hold gigabytes or even terabytes of data. Pssh... with CDRs rated for 10, 20 years, it'd be quite some time before we're forced to re-archive our old movies in higher density media.

Well, quite some time has passed since then. Nowadays, it's not uncommon to download full, uncompressed images of DVD movies. Those 200MB movies look so... antique. My cellphone probably has higher resolution than those RM-based movies. Anyway, some company came out with portable holographic cards capable of holding 30GB. Looks like we'll be downloading and storing some serious amounts of data in the not so distant future. =)

No Heats-Spurs Showdown

Sigh, too bad the Heats lost. I would've loved to see D Wade and Shaq against the Spurs. Here's the best part of game 7... Here we see Shaq skillfully execute a blinding dunk that rendered his confused defender helpless.

Dog-powered scooter

Ed, you guys need this to help your dog lose weight. =)

And for those who have an iPod Shuffle, check this out.

Bridge Fun

I had the opportunity to learn some bridge basics this weekend with various people. Since I haven't posted in a while, I thought that I'd share some of the "action shots" I took during our bridge games.


Check out Ed's cool cards. They look cool, but are hard to pick up, and shuffle/deal. Since they're transparent, you feel naked when you play using these cards.


Check out the funny little dude in the middle of the Jack of Clubs card.


Kai -- in his default thinking position. Since he's my partner, and I usually get really crappy cards, he had to do a lot of extra thinking so we don't get beaten down too badly by the Jen and Ed machine.


I think Jen is pondering about her next move... (with the help of the Food Network on TV).