Belen Alumni Get Together at Loyola

Belen Alumni Get Together at Loyola, originally uploaded by Tommy.Chang.

LAPD Protecting and Serving

LAPD makes arrest of a homeless guy that had his pants off, yelling and screaming obscenities while taking a crap in the portable potty only to let him walk free later.

Eliot Spitzer's Prostitute

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past week or so, you've probably seen, heard, read about the Eliot Spitzer sex scandal. Well here's the prostitute that brought down the governor. Ashley Alexandra Dupree...

Tiger (Zodiac)

Today is Chinese New Year and given that I know little about my culture (sad, I know) and did some reading on wikipedia about my own Chinese zodiac sign - Tiger.

wikipedia had this to say...

Tiger people are difficult to resist, for they are magnetic characters and their natural air of authority confers a certain prestige on them. They are tempestuous yet calm, warm-hearted yet fearsome, courageous in the face of danger yet yielding and soft in mysterious, unexpected places. They enjoy life full of challenges and unexpected events, like visiting unusual places and meeting interesting outstanding people. Other people in their area are easily attracted by the tiger's enthusiasm and course of life. Tigers find pleasure in the unpredictable, and while other people would rather make a backward step, they are not afraid to explore the new and unusual. But it is not that simple to interest the Tiger. What they really need is first-hand experience. Usually open and frank, these people are likely to withdraw and can be aggressive when trapped. As soon as the Tiger has regained their sense of security their confidence also returns, enabling them to set out once more. These people usually tend to trust their instincts, though there is another side of their personality, which assesses situations thoughtfully before they launch any actions. Their friends usually secretly admire their determination and optimism, though sometimes may find it complicated to share the Tiger's enthusiasm and can be pushed away and left behind. In spite of the fact that Tigers can be courageous and generous friends, if they are not able to achieve what they want, they can be inflexible and self-centered. So if your friend was born in the year of the Tiger, there will be highs and lows in your friendship, but the friendship itself will remain firm.

Ideal jobs for tigers include entrepreneur, military officer, politician, musician, writer, poet, artist, theater director, stockbroker, athlete, film star, trade union leader, company director, stunt person, explorer, and lawyer.

Positive Traits: Independent, brave, confident, dynamic, intense, energetic, sacrificing, faithful
Negative Traits: Moody, reckless, hot-headed, selfish, impatient, impulsive, opinionated, rebellious

Its scary how accurate this description is.

Source: wikipedia

Amazing Optimus Prime CG

Vehicle mode:




Transforming:



Robot mode:



CG Movie: http://www.3dblasphemy.com/OPTIMUS/OPTIMUS_HIGH.zip

Source: CG Society

 Technorati Tags: Optimus Prime, Transformers

renovatio - 118 wallypower

Since seeing the movie, The Island (great flick by the way), I've always wondered about that boat featured in it, named Renovatio, Latin for rebirth. Was it just a movie prop or it is real? So while researching the latest and greatest boats, I came across the 118 wallypower aka the Renovatio.

This is Gotham City meets IKEA, stealth speedboat meets New York City loft. It is powered by three 5,600HP waterjets and if thats not enough, it also has two 370HP Cummins diesel engines used for secondary power. Top speed is 60 knots (70 mph). Inside the 118 wallypower is adorned with plasma TV's, sofas, king size bed in the main stateroom, guess suites, luxury bathrooms, a kitchen/galley that Emeril would happily approve of and even a carbon fiber dining table... yes a carbon fiber dining table.

Price? A measely $27 million.







Photo source: Wally

 Technorati Tags: renovatio, Wally, 118 wallypower

Gung Hee Fat Choy

Gung Hee Fat Choy! (Congratulations for striking it rich!) Happy Chinese New Year!

This is the Year of the Dog and according to the Chinese zodiac, people born in the Year of the Dog possess the best traits of human nature. They have a deep sense of loyalty, are honest, and inspire other people's confidence because they know how to keep secrets. But Dog People are somewhat selfish, terribly stubborn, and eccentric. They care little for wealth, yet somehow always seem to have money. They can be cold emotionally and sometimes distant at parties. They can find fault with many things and are noted for their sharp tongues. Dog people make good leaders. They are compatible with those born in the Years of the Horse, Tiger, and Rabbit.

 Technorati Tags: Chinese New Year, dog

Cy, the one-eyed kitty

Cy, short for Cyclopes, a kitten born with only one eye and no nose, is shown in this photo provided by its owner in Redmond, Oregon, on Wednesday, Dec. 28, 2005. The kitten, a ragdoll breed, which died after living for one day, was one of two in the litter. Its sibling was born normal and healthy.

Source: yahoo.com

I don't know about you, but I find little Cy disturbingly cute. Poor kitty. RIP Cy.

Holy high gas prices Batman!

Damn $28 in Gas!

Shameless Plug - Miami Pixel Studio

Some good friends of mine just launched their new business/website - Miami Pixel Studio. They provide "the ability to choose from a pre-designed, customizable website, based entirely on the size and needs of your business." Their site looks awesome and they have a great business idea! Good luck Karina and Eddie!

Frustrated.

I suck at autox. Simple, straight forward course yesterday but I still sucked. My best time was an 56.xx while the best times for the day were in the 48.xx range. In my BSP class, an 2004 S2000, stock but on Hossier racing tires, won the class with the best time of 50.xx, 6 seconds off mine. I came in a distant second, beating out a Corvette ZR-1. I suck. I need more mods to my S2000. I need racing tires. I need more practice and attend an autox school to learn more. I hate losing.

Been Busy

I've been very busy this week with setting up my new home theater system, researching different receivers and speaker systems (I think I'm going with a harmon/kardon receiver and Polk Audio 5.1 speakers), work and dealing with the rain. Tropical Storm Arlene doesn't have Miami within its cone of death, oops I meant uncertainty, but we're still getting all the rain. Welcome to South Florida summer raining weather season...

Our Home Theater System is born.

SONY KDF-42WE655 42" Grand WEGA LCD Rear Projection HDTV
SONY SU-GW11 A/V Stand
DirecTV H10 HDTV Satellite Receiver
Samsung DVD-HD850 Hi-Def Conversion DVD Player
Microsoft Xbox
SONY PlayStation 2
SONY PlayStation 2 (JDM Version)
Monster Component Video/Audio and HDMI Cables
SONY RM-AV2500 Universal Remote Commander

I was a bit disappointed Saturday afternoon turning it on for the first time after Best Buy delivered it. The picture was way off, seemed very pixelized, no where near the picture we saw at Best Buy. After some research on avsforum.com, I adjusted the settings and it looks much, much better. On SD, the image isn't as good as I would like it to be, so I'll still be trying to adjust that a little bit much. On HD, its amazing. The picture is almost, life-like, the sound is crisp and clear.

I tried out Gran Turismo 4 on my PStwo and WOW! Running it at 1080i resolution is insane.

Another piece of hardware that is a must get for any HD setup is a HD DVD Player. Theres a few choices out there from SONY, Samsung, Toshiba and LG. Being the SONY freak that I am, naturally I looked at SONY first. However their DVP-NS975V was getting a lot of bad reviews on cnet.com so I passed for the Samsung instead. Before I was viewing my DVDs on my PStwo at its native 480i resolution. Now I'm running it on my Samsung player at 1080i via the HDMI port and what a difference! The video and audio are simply stunning!

All and all, this setup is worth every penny. Next up... SONY Dream System to complete my home theater setup.

Went to buy my SONY 34" HDTV

So Maria and I went to Best Buy last night to buy the SONY 34" HDTV that I posted about a few days earlier. We walked out with a SONY 42" Rear Projection LCD HDTV, the matching SONY stand and an extended warranty instead.



I'm still wondering how this happened! We got an unbelievable deal that we couldn't say no to. Its being delivered tomorrow. I can't wait to start playing GT4 in all its 1080i glory!

BS in TV Science

Buying a new TV is complicated these days. You have CRT, Flat Screen, Flat Panel, Plasma, LCD, LCoS, DLP, Rear Projection, Front Projection, 16:9 widescreen, 4:3, SDTV, EDTV, HDTV... the choices seem endless. Then you have to decide if you whether buy in a offline, brick and mortar retail store like a Best Buy or Circuit City or you go to pricegrabber.com for full retail price and buy it from the cheapest online store and take a risk at shitty service or at worse, getting scammed. You almost need a science degree to buy a TV these days.

I'm in the market for a new TV. The little 27" SONY we moved out from the bedroom to the living room isn't cutting it anymore. I want something state of the art, big and bad and HD is a must.

So I started my search with plasmas. Thin, cool looking but expensive. Since I'm a PS2/GT4 freak, potential burn-in is a worry. Last thing I want is for Maria to be watching Emeril's cooking show with a picture of a White S2000 imprinted in his forehand. So I then looked at LCD, but the picture quality was questionable on the models that I saw. Then I looked at Samsung's Pedestal DLP TV. Beautiful design, good picture quality. Maria liked it too. Expensive but still within our reach. As I researched this TV more, I was led to avsforum.com where I read some positive and negative reviews. But one complaint caught my attention... video/audio sync problems. It seems that Samsung up-converts any 480i or 480p signal to its native 720p and in doing so causes a lag between audio and video. For a $3,500 TV, this is unacceptable. I briefly looked at JVC's LCoS TV but I'm not too sure about JVC. So I turned back to the good old reliable and bulky CRT. SONY has an incredible 16:9 widescreen HD CRT TV and Best Buy has it on sale for only $1,500 (25% off MSRP).

We're going Friday night to take a look at it and hopefully purchase it. Looks like at the end of the day, CRT wins.

The Start of our Home

Maria told me about this new sofa set that was on sale at American Signature Furniture. We went Sunday afternoon to check it out and it was OK. I wasn't too fond with the light color since it would dirty easy and she didn't like the switching. As we were walking out we came across this mint green sofa set and loved it! Unique color, very comfy and the leather was nice and soft. The price was good but we decided to go shop around at different stores but making a final decision. After going to El Dorado and Ashley and finding nothing, we went back to American Signature to purchase it and added a bookcase to the order as well. An hour later, its a done deal. Our new furniture is being delivered Saturday to my house. We're very excited!