Whirlwind of Activity

This past weekend was extremely busy. I saw the first showing of Star Wars on Saturday morning. The showing appeared to be sold out. O.o I didn't realize so many people would wake up early on a Saturday to see this movie. *wow* Luckily, bf and I were able to get some decent seats even though we arrived 10 minutes prior to showtime.

Spent Saturday afternoon shopping for food for the house warming for my family. I never realized how tiring and how much work is involved for preparing for a house warming when you only have 2 people doing the prep work. The house warming on Sunday went smoothly and was ended with some yummy home-made almond jello, by bf, and double strawberry ice cream. ^_^

Monday was spent trying to relax and regroup after a weekend of running around. Went to the gym for an hour since I've been putting on some weight, and it shows too! O.o Attempted to do some of the work that I needed to do but I failed miserably. On the plus side bf and I bought a microwave. The one he has doesn't work and needs to be replaced so we made lots of phone calls to all the nearby retailers to check if they had the model we'd settled on. Found out his parents are going to be in town in a couple of weeks and I'm sure they'd be happier if they had a working microwave.

Jade Empire

The long weekend is finally here. *hooray* My boss gave me strict orders to play Jade Empire, the XBox RPG, this weekend and to give him a full report of it on Tuesday. I've got a good boss. ^_^

So Sexy

Ming just got this dvd recorder and it's one sexy machine. Looks quite sleek, don't you think. Hm... I wonder if this is considered sexier than me j/k >_<

Hotels in Cape Cod

Why is it so difficult to find a hotel in Cape Cod? There are sooo many cities in the area that it's hard to nail down exactly which city to stay in. Upon doing oodles and oodles of research I also found out that nearly all fo the hotels in Cape Cod don't let you cancel your reservation without a penalty fee, or a "processing fee" as they like to put it. Grr... I swear Cape Cod is just too touristy. Just because a hotel is on Cape Cod they feel they can charge you $200/night for a hotel that, in any other place, would only charge $120/night. *sigh*

XBox 360

Microsoft unveiled the new XBox. The person in the above photo is actually an MS employee. (!) She's actually pretty cute.

Article can be found here linky

Microsoft fired the opening salvo in the war of the next-generation videogames Thursday night by unveiling the successor to the Xbox on an MTV special.

Sleek and off-white, the new Xbox 360 system looks like an iPod on steroids. Scheduled to arrive before the holiday season (no price set), the Xbox 360 will usher players into what Microsoft calls the "third stage" in the evolution of games - one of high-definition images and larger environments to be explored through greatly expanded multiplayer and online games.

"Remember going from 2-D games to 3-D? We're going from today's 3-D worlds to high-definition worlds that really will look like a movie or television show," chief Xbox officer Robbie Bach says. All games will be in HD, but only HDTVs will show them at highest quality. Microsoft estimates that 100 million homes worldwide will have advanced TV sets by 2008. "That is going to lead to fundamental changes in expectations, and Xbox 360 is going to deliver."

By releasing Xbox 360 this year, Microsoft hopes to leapfrog Sony, which is expected to announce plans for next year's successor to the PS2 next week at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in L.A. "Sony was dominant in terms of market share this round. It's going to be hard for them to match that (again)," says David Cole of DFC Intelligence. "With Microsoft getting out first, it's going to be more of a level playing field."

Nintendo also will reveal plans for its new system, Revolution, due in 2006. The system will support wireless Internet and play DVD movies plus current GameCube games.

No word yet on whether the Xbox 360 will play current Xbox games. If not, that would disappoint many of the devoted 20 million Xbox owners who will want to play their old games on the new system. And retailers may not be thrilled about devoting space to a fourth console game system (including the current Xbox, PS2 and GameCube), along with the growing lineup of portables (Nintendo's DS and Game Boy SP, plus Sony's PSP), says Richard Doherty of The Envisioneering Group.

Beyond that, the added detail needed for HD games may tax developers and divert resources from making games for other systems this Christmas. "Artists do want to see this higher quality, but it is adding to the cost and time of developing a game," Doherty says.

And Sony's next system is expected to have twice the power of the Xbox 360, so Microsoft may not be able to siphon off many Sony fans. "It may not be the full giant step the PS2 was from the PlayStation," Doherty says, "but it certainly marks the beginning of a new era of games designed to be richer ... and to depend on multiplayer gaming as their main mode: not you vs. the machine, but you vs. a friend."

One Xbox 360 game in development from Rare, Perfect Dark Zero, supports up to 64 players at a time. Most current games top out at 16.

"In every transition, processing power and memory take a certain level of jump," says Glenn Entis, chief visual officer of Electronic Arts, which is examining the possibilities of the new technology. Environments will be more lifelike - you'll see leaves on trees moving in golf games, and the ball will behave differently when hit out of varying degrees of rough. Athletes' faces may be so well defined that "you will start to read the eyes of NBA players, so that head fakes and no-look elements become a part of the game," he says.

Microsoft appears to be on the right track, says John Davison, editorial director of Ziff Davis' videogame magazines. "It's debatable about whether we really need another Xbox right now, but there's no denying the excitement about 360."

SF Opera

The SF Opera is offering discount tickets, 50% off retail prices, to selected shows to celebrate Asian Pacific Heritage Month. If you are interested, here's the link with more details (you go through the BART website first):

SF Opera discount tickets

I've never been to the opera before but I've been wanting to go. Got tickets for the Queen of Spades showing. I'll keep you posted on how the show turns out

Attempt to Stop the Aging Process

In a futile attempt to deny my age ...

I'll be turning 24 again at the end of the month .. and that will continue to reoccur every month ^_^

15 lb Burger

This is a huge burger! I was thinking of eating Brix burgers in the near future and then came across this article:


NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Starting last weekend, a Pennsylvania restaurant put a 15-pound burger on its menu, claiming the largest burger available anywhere.

Dennis Liegey, the owner of Denny's Beer Barrel Pub in Clearfield, 120 northeast of Pittsburgh, said the "Beer Barrel Belly Buster" weighs in with 10 pounds of meat molded into a 20-inch patty on a specially baked, 17-inch bun.

The balance of the weight comes from 25 slices of cheese, a head of lettuce, three tomatoes, two onions, plus copious quantities of mayo, ketchup, relish, mustard, and peppers.

Any two people who can eat it within a three-hour sitting get it for free. For everyone else, it costs $30.
Long-running challenge

"We've been running a burger challenge since 1991," said Liegey. "It started out with two- and three-pound patties, and went to a six-pounder in 1998 with five pounds of toppings."

Over the years Liegey said he has sold more than 10,500 of the two- and three-pounders, and 853 of the six-pounders.

He has kept careful count of how many diners have finished each offering: 256 ate the whole two-pounder and 39 finished three-pounders. And last February, one person, a 100-pound female college student, Kate Stelnick, from Princeton, New Jersey, ate the entire six-pounder. (The burger with toppings represented 11 percent of her body weight.)

The 15-pound burger can feed a family of 10, according to Liegey. He has sold two so far to teams of two people, and neither team did much more than put a dent in it.
link to article

Ideal City

Took a test recently and the results for my ideal city are as follows:

American Cities That Best Fit You:

70% Honolulu

65% Austin

65% Denver

60% Atlanta

55% San Diego

Which American Cities Best Fit You?