seasonal

Season's Greetings to everyone! Yeah I know it's a little late for the Christmas/Hannukah/Festivus holidays, but better late than never. And I can get a head start on the Happy New Year wishes.

Lest you think it was 100% laziness that prevented me from posting recently, 'tis not true... well maybe 50% laziness. The other 50% can be attributed to some last minute craziness at work, that resulted in my spending a week, with very little notice, in NY and Boston for a hearing. Let me just say, it's pretty dman cold out on the East Coast. At least it didn't snow while I was out there. On the upside, I got to take some photos of mid-town Manhattan just before Christmas -- enjoy the photos here:



I also haven't had the time to post up the photos from our SE Asia trip. I took probably over 6000 photos in all, but here are some of the best shots I rounded up in my first pass through them. Hopefullly more to come at some point (and a little more story to go with it), but this should give you a taste of our trip -- and maybe spread a little more warmth than most of us are experiencing this winter:

Thailand:


Singapore:


Malaysia:

portable

Coming back from two back-to-back trials, the return to normalcy is almost a bizarre and unsettling experience. After being accustomed after over a month away from home, to working 100+ hours a week and sleeping for a few hours during the daytime, returning to a regular work week and sleeping at night is somewhat difficult. My sleep pattern is still a little out of whack, but I am historically a fairly nocturnal person. I think I almost kind of thrived on staying up all night and going to bed in the morning. It's certainly nice to be back home but I almost don't know what to do with all the extra free time I now find myself with; it's like I suddenly gained back 40-50 hours a week that I didn't have. Well, sleep is certainly high on the priority list. But when I returned home my honey V. had also bought me a few toys and games to help kill some time with. Specifically she bought me both the PSPgo and the PSP 3000
"Slim" so I could try them both and see which one I liked better. She also picked me up a copy of the newly released Halo 3: ODST game for the X360.

The PSPgo is a real neat little device--all the abilities of the previous PSPs but in a smaller package. The slide-down controls allow most of the frontal area to be a screen, and it's about the same footprint as an iPhone when closed. Because it doesn't include a UMD drive it's ultra light and quiet. And with its launch in early October the online Playstation Network Store saw a barrage of new digital downloads added to the roster.

The thing is, the older PSP 3000 does everything the PSPgo does, plus it has a UMD drive to play the older sold-in-stores PSP games. They both have wifi to connect to the internet and a basic web browser. They both use bluetooth to connect with other players. And they both have large, bright displays which look great with games and videos. The downside is the 3000 is larger, bulkier, and doesn't come with onboard memory -- you have to buy a Memory Stick card in order to download and store games on the PSP 3000 whereas the PSPgo comes with 16GB onboard. Although when you add up the cost of a PSP-3000 and a Sony 16 GB Memory Stick card it still comes out to less than the list price of a PSPgo. And when you compare the 3000 with its predecessors (the original 1000 and the "slim" 2000, the 3000 is significantly thinner and lighter.

I downloaded several demos on both PSPs such as the addictive Patapon 2, the speedy reflex-testing Wipeout Pulse, and the slash-tastic blood-splattering God of War: Chains of Olympus. I played the same games on both so I could really compare and contrast the two, get a sense of their strengths and weaknesses. And then to really put them through their pace, I bought a digital copy of the newly released Gran Turismo for PSP, which the Playstation network gratifyingly allowed me to install and play on both handhelds at the same time. Sweeet. Some of my coworkers also had GT on their PSPs so we got together several times after work and had some hilariously fun racing parties. Plus with the game's ability to share cars we were able to give each other the cool rides we had been accumulating on our own. I highly recommend this game for any racing fans, it's like having the old GT4 game from the PS2 in your hand wherever you go. Good times.

So what's the verdict? Which version of the PSP did I choose? It was not an easy decision, but ultimately I chose the PSP 3000. Mostly for the way the controls just felt better in my hands, on the PSP-go my fingers felt a little cramped when playing for anything more than a few minutes. I will have some disadvantage from the fact that the 3000 won't fit easily into the pocket like the go does, but when you factor in the UMD drive, the lower cost, and better controls I felt the 3000 had the best combination of features.

That's not all in the gadgets department... in anticipation of our upcoming vacation trip to SE Asia (Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia) we also decided to also pick up a netbook for convenient portable internet access, and an HD camcorder. V. really wanted a pink laptop so I ordered her a ASUS Eee PC 1005HA 10.1-Inch Pink Netbook. And then we got a Sony HDR-XR200V 120GB HDD High Definition Camcorder to document our travels. So you can look forward to plenty of photos and video clips from our adventures in Asia! We're getting pretty amped up about it, we leave for Bangkok in just three days!

resurgence

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions." - Old English proverb

It's me, back from the dead! At long last I've returned from my two back-to-back trials in Washington, DC. I barely had any time to take photos on this last trip. I was pretty much working around the clock, no time for monkey business. I previously would use the expression, "I'm busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest." Reviewing some of my time records, I managed to work 116.55 hours one week. It was also a long time away from home, 33 days in total this time. The funny thing is I hear that you can qualify for residency in DC if you've lived there for 30 days, so I could in theory apply for it. I don't think you'd want to though, after all, the city motto that's stamped on every auto license plate says, "Taxation without representation".

While I was gone I missed a few major events -- our 5th wedding anniversary on Sept. 26, and then my mother's birthday on Oct. 4, and my own b-day on Oct. 10. Like that Adam Sandler movie Click, it does feel sometimes like some part of life has passed me by. Fortunately my family has been waiting patiently for my return and welcomed me back with open arms.


Loyal readers may remember that I ordered a new set of wheels for my Lexus way back in March... well they did finally arrive in July but I just realized that I hadn't found the time to post up photos of them on the car yet. Here's a link to some photos I took:

new rims

Anyways now that I'm back with some free time and some overtime paychecks to spend things may pick up around here again... as always stay tuned. And hey, just a quick reminder, if you happen to like shopping on Amazon.com, just help me out by clicking through on the links to the right or at the very bottom. Thanks.

provider

Time to sign off for a while -- I'm heading back to DC for two trials back-to-back, so I'll be gone for 5 weeks.

Goodbye beloved one.


See you in October.

DC

Last month I made two business trips to Washington DC and fortunately found the time to take some photos and see the sights.



I got to visit the National Air & Space Museum, and the National Gallery of Art as well as walk around the Washington Mall. A lot of my walks were at night after work so I was able to practice lots of night photography and try out my new 35mm f/1.8 prime lens.


View my DC photo album here


View my Air and Space Museum photo album here


View my National Gallery of Art photo album here

beef

This is the first volume of "Beef", an 8-part documentary series about battle MCs, feuds and rivalries within the early days of hip-hop and rap. Great stuff if you are a hip-hop fan, a must-see!

lunchtime

Miniburgers @ matchbox
(with onion straws)

iconography

By now the entire free world has heard the news -- King of Pop Michael Jackson has died. I don't think it's hyperbole to say that he was probably one of the most significant individuals of the 20th century... who else can you name besides religious figures, world leaders and tyrants who are recognized worldwide and had such a huge impact on society, culture, and of course music? For those of you who grew up the same time as I did, who doesn't remember listening to Billie Jean or Beat It, and trying to moonwalk like MJ?



For sure MJ was a controversial figure, ever since he grew up and stopped being the cute kid singer from the Jackson 5. His clothes were wild, his songs filled with shrieks and grunts, and his videos broke the mold of what music videos were expected to be. And of course there's countless things that could be said of his oddly changing appearance and the scandals involving him and children. However, society tends to try to focus on the positive aspects of an individual after they have passed on, and in my mind there is clearly a wealth of phenomenal music, pop culture influence, and humanitarianism that MJ left behind for us to remember him by. MJ we'll miss you, but because you were so prolific you left so much for us to enjoy and so in a sense, you live on in our hearts and minds.

Here are a few of my favorite MJ videos for you to enjoy.

Rock With You

Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough

Never Can Say Goodbye

Beat It

Billie Jean

longshot

Long exposure shot, taken one night after work.

flashback

My dad's Nikon 35mm camera, taken with Nikon D60.

Over 30 years ago, my dad bought a Nikon SLR 35mm film camera and started carrying it around to take photos of our family and our travels. It was pretty big and heavy, and I remember one time as a kid we were in Las Vegas and somehow I got smacked in the face with the camera hanging from my dad's shoulder, giving me a bloody nose. After I got over the initial pain and commotion, my dad had me pick out numbers for Keno, saying that my bloody nose was "lucky". Ah, such a wonderful childhood...

Fast forward to present day, and I find myself retracing my father's footsteps. I started getting more into photography as of late, partly due to some work that involved digital camera technology, and decided to get an dSLR. After much research and deliberation, I decided on a Nikon D60... ordered it on Amazon and started clicking away. As far as entry-level dSLRs go the D60 is not the top of the line model (that honor goes to the Nikon D90), but I thought it would be plenty enough for me to learn with. When my dad found out I bought a new Nikon, he offered to give me the old Nikon body and lens. I probably won't use the body to shoot film, but the 50mm prime lens he had is in reasonably good condition (for being 30+ years old) and can be used with modern Nikon SLRs in manual mode.

Well, after nearly 30 days of shooting with it I decided to return the D60... and get a Nikon D5000 instead. In the last month I've tried to rationalize not getting the D90... after all it's over double the price of the D60. But Nikon just came out with the D5000 which has nearly all the features of the D90 crammed into a D60 sized body. Upgrading from the D60 to the D5000 gets me better auto-focusing abilities (11 vs. 3 AF points), slightly more megapixels (12 vs. 10 MP), a LiveView function, the ability to record HD 720p video clips, and a swiveling LCD display. I don't think I need the few additional features that the D90 offers (support for much older autofocus lenses and a better high-res LCD display) for several hundred dollars more, hopefully that money would be better spent on getting better lenses and other accessories.

My dad's 50mm f/1.4 prime lens should work fine with the D5000 in manual mode as well but as it totally predates autofocus technology, it has to be manually focused. I'm going to keep trying to use it and hopefully the LiveView with magnification will make manually focusing it on distant objects easier. Here is a photo I took with the D60 and my dad's 50mm lens, stay tuned for more when I get the D5000 in. I've also got some extra batteries and a tripod on the way, and eventually I'll start shopping for more lenses... at the moment I'm considering either the Nikon 35mm f/1.8G AF-S DX Lens or the Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR Zoom Nikkor Lens ... wow isn't that a mouthful.

portfolio

Photography has been an interest of mine for quite some time, though until fairly recently I have not been that seriously into it. I bought my first digital camera ( the Largan LMini 350 Digital Camera) back in 2001, and it had a barely adequate 640x480 resolution. A few years later V. took pity on me and bought my first Sony DSCP9 Cyber-shot digital camera, and that had 4 megapixels. I took lots of pics when we traveled and some of them were even decent. Continuing our love affair with Sony, she bought me another camera, the 7.2MP Sony Cybershot DSC-P200. For her birthday this year I bought her, you guessed it, another Sony camera, this one is a pink Sony Cybershot DSC-T700. Even though the T700 is a fantastic 10 MP camera that's super compact, I just can't take it seriously because it's pink (though it does come in other colors such as Grey), so I continued to carry and use the P200. The nice thing about the P200, is it has a larger than average sensor compared to the ultra compact point-and-shoot cameras out there, including the T700. So even though it loses in the megapixel wars, I tend to think the image quality on it is slightly better than V's new camera.



But no little P&S camera can hold a candle to the superior sensor of an SLR camera. The much larger sensor means far better image quality and low-light sensitivity. The downside of course is the much-larger camera body and significantly more expensive hardware. I tried to hold out for a while, learning as much as I could while sticking with the P200. Some basic stuff about composition, shutter and exposure settings, aperture, etc. And so I think I started taking better pictures. Well some of them are still stinkers but maybe more of them turn out ok now.



So how do you know when it's time to move on to a digital SLR camera? For me it's the need or desire for better equipment to do the same job. Will my photos look that much better? Probably not in a huge way--sure, in some low light situations it will be easier to get non-blurry shots with a SLR. But I think more of it has to do with being able to quickly and accurately control the settings and take the shot you want instead of fiddling around with a clunkier device. So I've decided to make the move to a dSLR. More on that soon... but this might be a surprise, it's not a Sony.



While I wait for my new camera to arrive, I thought I would go back and take a look at the shots I took with all these P&S cameras -- somehow some of them actually turned out decent. So I'll share with you what I think are the "greatest hits" of my pre-SLR photography. Enjoy this best of the mediocre collection, and maybe some day this post will be followed by a part 2, from my SLR era.

http://s78.photobucket.com/albums/j118/pmok_mr2/?start=all&mediafilter=all&action=tags&current=best

for some of the really old Lmini shots: http://s78.photobucket.com/albums/j118/pmok_mr2/photography/lmini/?albumview=grid

loanshark

I dropped off my IS350 at the local Lexus dealership on Friday morning for some warranty repairs and several service campaigns.  They said it would take several days so they sent me on my way with a loaner car ... they gave me a 2003 ES330, wait it gets better, it came in white with chrome wheels and gold badging.  Talk about NOT my style... I feel like an old man driving in it, this car seems to be perfect for someone 60 or 70 years old.  Which is to say my dad would probably love it.  Not me.  It's like driving a boat, instead of reacting to my inputs like a well-tuned road-carving instrument, it kind of takes them as suggestions and grudgingly moves in the general direction you want.  The power steering is super boosted and has no feedback at all.  The brake pedal mushes like you're stepping on tofu.  The power coming out of corners is... almost nonexistent.  It can barely move out of its own way.  Is this what most consumers find comforting or normal?   

There are a few interesting perks in this car though.  It's kind of fun switching the shock absorbers back and forth between Sport and Comfort while driving over a bridge... I doubt it helps the handling much but you can definitely feel a difference in the ride.  The other thing is, I now kind of understand why others drive so badly in this car.  With such sensory deprivation from the realities of the road, how can you avoid it?  It forces me to do the same things they do ... drive slowly (to avoid upcoming hazards, as the time-to-react to everything becomes painfully higher with the weak responsiveness), constantly tap the brakes (because the pedal gives you no resistance or reassurance whatsoever), and I even have to back up and readjust the steering angle when turning into a parking spot (because it has the turning radius of a 747).  I didn't even feel bad when I had to cut off someone to change lanes, the person behind me probably said, whatever, this guy can't help it, he's probably 70 years old and has the mental acuity of a chimpanzee.  I've heard people say, it's not the car, it's the driver.  Well I'm telling you right now, the car makes a helluva difference.

I can't wait to get my IS350 back.

tesla

This electric-powered Tesla Roadster has been showing up in my parking lot at work a few times now... wonder whose it is?  Tesla is getting a lot of attention these days, some of it not so positive as the company struggles to make a profit and alienates some of its prospective buyers with contract-breaking pricing increases.  Enjoy this funny video someone made as social commentary about the situation:  Hitler vs Tesla

homemade

Mmmmm ... tonight V. made my favorite noodle soup, and the namesake for this blog, cha siu tong mein. Sure, eating out is nice, but sometimes you just wanna sit at home and attack a sumptuous meal with no regard for manners or decency, knowing no one will see you...

aromatic

My coworker just came back from China and brought me this. Mmmm this might be the only non-vegetarian potato chip I've ever seen.

rotation

We recently finished paying off V's Scion ... so the natural inclination of an automobile junkie is to start thinking about buying a new car. But with the economy taking a huge nosedive and so much uncertainty I think the wise choice is to stick with what we have, especially if there's no real need to go out and buy a new car. Our cars are running just fine and a new ride would just be, well, extravagant in these times. Unless we went out and bought a hybrid or some kind of small commute car. But the Scion and Spyder are perfectly suitable cars when we feel like going into fuel economy mode.

To stave off the burning desire to blow off a large chunk of my dough on some very tempting glistening example of modern automotive design and engineering, I've decided to uh, blow a smaller chunk of my dough on some very tempting glistening example of modern automotive design and engineering. So I've been shopping around for a new set of wheels for my IS350. I still haven't really rewarded myself for working so hard last year and I have a pretty nice tax refund coming to me soon, AND I will need a new set of tires soon anyways. So the timing seems right, and giving a new look to the Lexus will hopefully tide me over until we see better economic times.

I started out by looking at the mesh-style wheels, like the Volk SF-Winning and MRR GT-1. German wheel maker BBS is pretty well known for making wheels in this style. I think these have a nice classy look to them and look good with the style of the IS, but mesh-style wheels have lots of spokes and are kind of hard to keep clean. Cost is also a huge factor. Forged wheels like the Volks cost a pretty penny but are stronger and light weight; the more common mass-produced cast wheels like the MRRs are cheaper but more prone to bending or damage if you hit a hard bump or pothole, or require more material (and thus more weight) to get the same strength.

Five spoke wheels are the classic style for a sports car, but for a sedan like the IS I am not sure the standard 5-spoke looks right. For a coupe or sports car they look great. However a split-5 spoke design works pretty well, and that's what the standard 18" wheels on the IS are. I decided that I want a set of wheels that don't stray too far from that aesthetic, yet are bigger and lighter. And of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but I wanted them to look better than the stock ones which look a little too curvy and flowery to me. They are still very good looking wheels though, which makes choosing a better wheel very difficult.

I've finally decided on a wheel that I really like, the AME Tracer FS-01 made by Enkei in Japan. Enkei is like the Toyota of wheels, they are the giant wheel maker in Japan and they have a high tech manufacturing method called M.A.T. that supposedly bridges the gap between cast and forged wheels, giving wheels almost as much strength as forged wheels but at lower manufacturing cost similar to cast. A high-tech wheel for a high-tech car. Because they are a full-face rim (the spokes extend all the way to the outside rim of the wheel) there is no fat lip like some of the real ballers like to sport on their cars, but I'm going for a classy, sort of understated look. I've liked this wheel ever since I first saw it and after looking at all the other options I keep coming back to this one. So I've pulled the trigger and ordered a set -- they're individually imported as a special order from Japan so I will have to wait about 4-6 weeks for it.

Here are a few other photos of IS's with the same wheels and I think they look pretty nice. They are also about 6 pounds lighter for each wheel than my stock wheels so I am going to get some mild improvement in acceleration, cornering and braking. I'll also go for slightly wider tires than stock and that will help as well.


Thanks to fellow ClubLexus member eddiec for the pic of his dark gray IS350 with the FS-01s.

Stay tuned for more pics when the wheels come in and I get them mounted on my car.