Merry Christmas to all. Also, a special thanks to all those who came to my birthday meals. I ate at Elephant Bar, Benihana, and Maggiano's in two days and I'm still standing. I think I need a drink.

Happy Thanksgiving folks. Hope everyone enjoyed the holiday, the food, and the football. I got back from Hawaii last weekend and it was just great. Perfect weather. Great food. What more could you ask for?

This trip has been in the making for months. The kids bought the parents tickets to Hawaii about six months ago. Since then, they made a trip to Seattle all by themselves and while they enjoyed themselves, they expressed their dismay about how they would have been happier if we joined them. So the decision was made to surprise them in Hawaii. So everybody except Chris went and we surprised them outside their hotel. The look was priceless but the camera angles were bad so we never got a good picture.

The first day was the traditional luau. I got pulled onstage to dance with hula girls. Sure, it was a surprise but was I complaining? Nope. In subsequent days, there was Pearl Harbor, North Shore, shave ice at Matsumoto's, shrimp at Giovanni's, and tons of shopping for Nancy. She couldn't decide between a Dior necklace or Dior wallet, so what does she do? Get them both, obviously.

In fact, the only unpleasantness was the trip home where the flight back was delayed for almost 4 hours, which meant we couldn't get to Oakland until 2:15 am. And if you know my parents, you know their opinion of Oakland even if it is just at the airport.

All in all, these few days away from work were welcome. As some of you know, I'm in month 2 of my 4-month hellish period at work where two veterans are on medical leave and replaced by two newbies while at the same time I'm trying to take over a new, more complicated contract. Luckily, I'm thankful the newbies are performing extremely well (obviously because of my great teaching skills :) The roadblocks seem to be IT in its fumbling of the reports we use to do our jobs and a reorganization at work that has given us mixed messages to start out the new year but seems to be getting better.

Don't worry...I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. It's just been busy. Really busy. Really really busy.

There have been some nice weekend trips. One to Lake Tahoe, one to Reno, and one this past weekend to Vegas. Tahoe was an end-of-summer trip before school started again. This was with Hai, Claire, Alex, Ngan, and Paul. Kayaking was involved and of course, when we're faced with a large body of water, somebody's bound to fall in and that was Alex and Paul this time around. In Reno, it was my third time getting to the rib cookoff and this year was probably the best one of the three. Nice and cool and we saw Superbad. It was a good comedy but I think they could've gone over the top and it would've been so much better.

The last trip was to Vegas where we were celebrating my sister's 21st birthday. And she made the most of it, hitting 3 clubs in 2 nights: Tao, Pure and Jet. I of course go for the gambling and food. Food was good, the gambling was not. I've never won in Vegas. The last trip I took in July was the only time that I did. All the winnings I got from the previous Tahoe and Reno trips? All wiped away on this Vegas trip. At one point, the dealer didn't pay me after he busted and when I called him out on it, he said, "well, I was getting used to not giving you any money." As for the buffets, $15 for the brunch buffet at Paris is a pretty good value, but while the Wynn has an excellent buffet, is it worth the $38? Nope.

We stayed at the Planet Hollywood hotel, still pretty much a construction zone with the Miracle Mile shops still being upgraded and condos going up next door. But if you remember a couple of years ago when I was there last, you'll recall that a gorilla mask from Congo was the centerpiece of the hotel room. This time? A spider from Arachnophobia. Oh, and it was cold there, first time I've complained about that. 68 degrees to be exact.


In the middle of all this? Work. I've been reassigned to do actual work as I'm in charge of a $35 million project. If only I could swing a small percentage of that towards me. The problem about this reassignment? I still have my old job to do, I'm gonna take over for my co-worker who's going on maternity leave and I've gotta spend time training my replacements. Yes, replacements. Apparently, it takes two people to do my job. Hard to believe.

Reorganization is taking place in my department and it looks like I'm getting the short end of the stick. One of the divisions in our company wanted to have its own business analyst all for themselves, which is great until we found out our current boss was taking the job.

At our company, business analysts come in two flavors: products and projects. A product business analyst handles financials for jobs that are selling pre-made units (that's me!). A project business analyst handles financials for development jobs. Products used to be the backbone of the company in the '90s but nowadays, it is development that is making the money. As a result, we've gotten to the point where all the business analysts are going to be under one manager, which is a nice idea except that there are now 11 of us with 3 more about to be hired spread across 3 different sites throughout the country. Not an easy job.

My new manager is nice enough, but when I saw her in the hallway, her first question to me was "You're not going to quit, are you?"

Who knows? All I know is with the products BA manager gone and my fellow co-worker going on maternity leave, I'm left holding the ball for everything. Everything. Who's my backup? A part-time business analyst going back to full-time and a temp that my new manager, former manager and I get to hire. No worries, I'll put him, her, or it through the ringer. (We joked it could be one of those Japanese robots that gets hired...after all, I've told you what I do everyday, right?)

I'm back from DC! Ok, that was a week and a half ago. I'm still recovering from the heat. 100 degree humid weather just sucks, especially when you're roaming through the city by foot. In two and a half days in DC and 1 in Baltimore, we managed to visit Union Station, the National Zoo, the National Cathedral, Georgetown, the Washington Monument, the Natural History Museum, the National Air & Space Museum, the Capitol, Arlington National Cemetery, Chinatown, the Lincoln Memorial, the World War II Memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the White House, Camden Yards, and Lexington Market.

We stayed at the Hyatt Regency near the Capitol which on the inside looks pretty nice but when you walk outside, it's like a whole different world out there. A homeless shelter is nearby. The fire station is across the street. Not the first place I had in mind to stay at but when it's at a 75% discount from regular prices, you made do with what you have. Of course, this wasn't as bad as the streets of Baltimore, which looked a lot less inviting unless you are near the ballpark.

The tour of the Capitol was much better than the White House. It's guided first of all plus if you go through your representative in Congress, you get a little bit of a local tour as well. Much more history and you get to see where things get done. The White House is just a walking tour filled with a lot of pictures and, in our case, rooms closed due to renovation.

Sure the budget was limited, but we still made it to some great restaurants. It was Restaurant Week in DC, but we were only here on the first day of it, so we didn't take full advantage of the prix fixe menus. Straight from the airport and hotel, we headed to the Cap City Brewing Co, which had some pretty good beer. The next day featured Clyde's of Georgetown, visited by Rachael Ray in a $40 a day episode, and Old Ebbitt Grill, apparently a Washington institution. Then there was Fogo de Chao, the Brazilian steakhouse where they bring around 10-15 different meats continuously until you say stop. Even for lunch, this was really good. Chicken, lamb, beef, pork, and it really didn't stop until you turned your card over. Finally, there was Chinatown, which was smaller than I thought it would be. In Baltimore, I had a crabcake at Faidley's, which was much better than anything I've had on the West Coast.

All in all, a very nice trip with first class air travel to and from.

I'm writing to you live from Washington D.C. as I'm on vacation for the next few days. After flying to Chicago in coach a month ago and flying to D.C. in first class, I don't have to tell you which was the better flying experience.

This weekend, The Bourne Ultimatum and Hot Rod were released and the two have decidedly different critical opinions. Bourne is a great, great film. If you hadn't seen the last two films in the series for a while, like me, you might get a little lost when catching up with the story. But when you see Jason beat up 6 guys buy himself, you'll get right back into the game as we figure out his origins.

Andy Samberg and his writing crew just might be the greatest 5-minute writing team there is today. But that doesn't mean Hot Rod, at a lengthy 80 minutes, is a great film. It's not. Not by a longshot. It reminds me a lot of Napoleon Dynamite, a pointless exercise that has nevertheless received a cult following. I mean, come on, who does Andy think he is in this film after going through all those stunts unscathed? Homer Simpson?

The Smashing Pumpkins were great for 2 hours with half of the original band and three newbies rockin' the Fillmore with songs old and new. Billy took time out to sing a song he wrote that day. And the crowd generally had a good time. That was until the show stretched to 2.5 hours. With a half hour jam session that dragged on and on and one song in the encore, it wasn't the ending I would've envisioned, but going up to see them was still well worth it.

Also worth it was the Simpsons movie. My only quibble with it was that most, if not all, of the funny jokes were already seen in the trailers and the promo clips, defusing the buzz that surrounded the movie. Great seeing them on the big screen though.

According to simpsonizeme.com, this is what I'd look like as a Simpsons character. Not Asian at all, but the program's still pretty cool and I am Simpsons yellow.

Two music notes:

I've listened to the Smashing Pumpkins' Zeitgeist CD all week in the car. I really like the first half...pure Pumpkins, songs you can listen to over and over again. Tarantula's great, 7 Shades of Black and That's the Way My Love Is are awesome. The last half is kinda iffy. Not a big fan of United States or Pomp and Circumstances but Neverlost has its moments. Maybe seeing them live will make me a fan of these songs. That's next Tuesday, the 24th.

Garbage is out with a best-of CD along with a new single. That comes out tomorrow.

Without spoiling too much, lemme say that "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" is a bit underwhelming. The storyline revolving around Dolores Umbridge goes on far too long to keep me interested while the ending, the only worthwhile part to watch, feels rushed. I've liked the series' turn to darkness, especially in "The Prisoner of Azkaban" but there is too much of it here in the literal and figurative sense that you're being pounded with the same message over and over again...Lord Voldemort is coming. Yes, we heard you the first time. All in all, it's worth watching to see the further development of Harry Potter, but don't expect to be entertained with fancy spells and fast Quidditch matches.

The rest of the few pics I have are on Flickr.

After Transformers let out at 10:30 pm Monday, I had 6 hours before I had to leave for my flight to Chicago. Unless you try to stay awake the whole time, one should not try this. I was dead tired walking onto the plane. I don't know how I made it, but I'm glad I did.

Airport security was tight but caused me no problems, with the exception of my checked bag being "randomly chosen" for inspections for all 3 legs of my trip. The plain black bag must have scared the shit out of them. O'Hare was actually the best airport with no lines to speak of. Walked in and wondered what to do with all the time I set aside.

In a preview of things to come at Jon's wedding, the San Jose-Chicago leg of the trip was spent with about 60 Christians headed to Illinois for vacation. Once that seatbelt light turned off, the whole plane seemed to rise in unison to socialize. It got so bad, the pilots needed to turn the light back on. However, 4 short hours later, I'm there. Well, gotta wait another 3 hours on a bus to Madison to see Jeanette, so 7 short hours later, I'm there. Boy, it was muggy. Highs in the 80s and pretty humid. I'd rather have Vegas' 118 degrees than this.

As you might expect, people move to a different beat up in the Midwest. Madison's big tourist spots are the capitol and the nearby lake. And that's about it. The wind at that lake was crazy. As the capital of the state and a college town, things were rather empty for the summer recess since everybody was on vacation. The few people left were drinking beer. Whether it is quality brews or Pabst Blue Ribbon, beer was being consumed in large quantities. The beer did make "Black Snake Moan" a little bit more bearable, but still it's just an okay movie. Every scene with Justin Timberlake is a laugh riot since he has to cry in every scene he's in.

After a few minutes of depression in the morning (the light in Jeanette's bathroom was so bright, you could see where my future bald spot will be), it was off to Chicago with Jeanette, Hai and Andrew. The day was modeled after Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Okay, there wasn't a Ferrari but a Chevy Cavalier. No French food but there were French Fries at McDonalds. The game was with the White Sox instead of the Cubbies. No Art Institute or parade but we did listen to "Twist and Shout" in the car. Sears Tower was good. It's amazing what you can see 103 stories up. Wrigley Field had that classic look I remember watching on TV. And the Orioles beat the White Sox, which only happened because I was there, right?

The 4th of July in Chicago probably showcases the best of the city because after the fireworks display at the baseball game, you walk out with a great view of the entire city skyline ablaze in more fireworks. It was a great sight. What wasn't a great sight? Two drunk guys coming up to me to compliment my Office shirt, the third such encounter that day. But this particular one concluded with a pat on the back and a slap on the ass, so I'll file that one under weird.

Thursday meant a flight to Vegas to meet up with my brother among other people. We stayed at the Westin Casaurina, a nice, out-there hotel that never got too crowded, especially in the casino, making for a pleasant experience. Since I'm still writing this, I was not involved in the shooting at the New York New York casino. I stayed up until 4 gambling on slots and blackjack. Blackjack I was in for $120 and was down to $10 before a rally got me back up to $250 before retreating to $170, making for a $50 win.

I'd never played blackjack with my brother but this is his strategy, which I had never seen used before. If the dealer is showing a 6 or less, more often than not, he's going to bust. So if my brother also had 11 or less, he would double his bet every time, essentially betting on the dealer to bust. It sounds crazy but it worked for him all night.

I got back late Friday night just to wake up on 7/7/7 for Jon's wedding. The ceremony was at 10 so I needed to leave by 7 to get to Placerville and to pick up Hai and Claire along the way. I had my GPS with me, but if you know those things, they'll steer you toward the shortest route, not necessarily the best route. So the GPS had us going up steep inclines and declines and on dirt and rocky roads. Not the best of drives especially when 10 miles down, it's all pavement to the bride's parents' house where the ceremony was taking place.

It was a nice and simple wedding that ended with Jon and Rosemary walking down the aisle to the theme from "Star Wars". And that was pretty much my weekend. It was the drive back from Sacramento where fatigue really hit me. Apparently, I dozed off on 101 around Tully since a car swerved behind me when I slowed to 40. At least I was driving straight. In any case, that woke me up enough to get me home, so that on Sunday, I rested.

First off, the Smashing Pumpkins' new CD is being streamed on AOL.

"Transformers" first and foremost aspires to satisfy people who thought highly of it years ago. The screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are becoming veterans at it with Mission: Impossible under their belt and Star Trek in the near future. And for the fans, they should be satisfied by the rock'em, sock'em nature of machines that are more than meets the eye doing battle. But the movie as a whole is a disappointment and it's mostly because of the "primitive" humans as Megatron describes them. After a thrilling opening scene to demonstrate the power of the Decepticons, the film degenerates into a bunch of eBay jokes and awkward one-liners by Shia LeBeouf to gain the affection of the admittedly attractive Megan Fox. Soon, the aliens are fully introduced and finally the movie has some cohesiveness, highlighted by Optimus Prime rallying the troops. But treating humans as though they could be equals in the fight between Autobots and Decepticons is absurd. It contributes heavily toward the muddled final 30 minutes until the situation is resolved and we're left wondering what just happened.

Wild fact of the night: Darius McCrary, Eddie Winslow himself from "Family Matters", voices Jazz.

A little sleep and I'll be on a flight from SJC starting at 6:30 am. I'll update by Wednesday night at the latest...I think.

There's a lot to like about "Live Free or Die Hard". After all, before there was Jack Bauer, there was John McClane doing anything and everything to stop the bad guys using only his fists and guns from the people he killed. In this movie, it's no different. The movie starts out as a version of one of his earlier films "16 Blocks". He's gotta escort a hacker to Washington D.C. for interrogation after there's a breach in the FBI computer system. But when the country around them turns into chaos and hired henchmen target this hacker, John McClane goes into, well, John McClane mode. What results is a 130 minute action adventure that doesn't seem boring at all. Some of the stuff that occurs in the film is a bit far-fetched, okay, very far-fetched, but if you don't let that bother you, you're in for a great ride.

This is probably the last post until my vacation starts next week, depending if I'm able to watch Transformers on Monday. I'm gonna try to blog my trip as best as I can with stops in Chicago, Las Vegas and Sacramento.

A pair of electronics purchases highlights this weekend. I'm writing this blog on my new hp dv6000t notebook which came in this week and it's a vast improvement over the old Toshiba. This one features Windows Vista which isn't as bad as people say it is. I do find it weird that there is a difference between being logged in as an administrator and being logged in with administrator privileges. Also, the glossy finish produces plenty of fingerprint smudges but I don't mind that.

My parents went ahead to buy a new TV that's long overdue. Where it'll fit in the house still eludes me but I'm sure they'll find room for the Panasonic 58" plasma somewhere in the family room. The only thing that sucks is the wait from Comcast to get HD hooked up on the TV. The guy said the first available day they can come out is July 3, when I'll be on a plane to Chicago, which also means my first chance to catch it will be July 8, the day after the day of perfection apparently.

Downside to the TV? My parents insist on watching all of their thuy nga dvd's all over again, now with an upconvert DVD player.

Watched The Police last night and it was pretty awesome. They played all the great hits and came out for 3 encores. I stood 6 rows from the stage but while I had a clear view of them, I still watched them from the giant screen right in front of me. Sting was showing his age but still came off as cool. Stewart came with a ball of energy and was probably the best one of the three. He always had that look where he's staring down at death and he'd come get him if he didn't hit the drums right. On the other end, Andy had that look where he was trying to remember the words and chords to each of the songs. But he had a great solo in the first encore.

Two movies you should definitely see are Pan's Labyrinth and Ocean's Thirteen. I wrote off Pan's during Oscar season thinking it was just another visual movie with not that much plot to go along with it but I was pleasantly surprised. Ocean isn't as good as the first but much better than the messy second one. The problem with this one is that Eleven pulled you into lots of different directions before finally explaining how they did it. Thirteen is more straight-forward but I liked the whole concept of the film plus having Al Pacino doesn't hurt.

One of my high school teachers always sought to set students' expectations low so that when we did well, we'd feel so much better about ourselves. Maybe that's what the producers of Pirates of the Caribbean were thinking when they made the last two films of the series. Part 2 was just so bad and boring, I fell asleep. And I snore too so the sold-out crowd was probably none too happy. Fast forward to Part III, At World's End, and you know what, it ain't that bad. Maybe it's because the second one was dismal, they had nowhere to go but up. Or it could be it was genuinely good. Nah, that's not it.

The movie was still pulled in too many directions by characters who each had their own agenda to follow. At least putting everyone in the same general area for the last half of the film helped everything gel together for one final action-filled battle.

It was a few months overdue, but I finally bought my new laptop over the weekend. Kinda. I settled on a hp dv6000t from Costco online. It has the Core 2 Duo chip, which supposedly has some kind of high-pitched noise if the power settings are turned on in a certain way so hopefully my new system will have that problem fixed. It should be here in a week.

The Sharks lost again. Better luck next year. But the small factoid I discovered years ago lives on. No team that has beaten the Sharks in the playoffs has won the Stanley Cup. The Red Wings were eliminated by what looks like the final champion Anaheim.

Excuse me while I try to knock out this insomnia I have at 3 am in the morning.

TPTB at work just gave me a raise so large, the CFO had to approve it. Even so, I figure July alone will wipe out that money so every little bit helps. At my review last year, my boss pretty much called me a dweeb (his initial thought about me upon our first meeting). This year's was equally puzzling. He said he was glad my old boss chose me since if it were up to him, he was torn between me and another guy, but ultimately he would have chosen the other guy. Man, I'm just feeling the love.

Also at work, they are really, really picky about their parking spaces. I had just dropped off a co-worker at the auto mechanic and was heading back. It was almost closing time on Friday so I figure I'd park, run in, grab my stuff, and head out. The parking lot was pretty much deserted so I parked in the space closest to the sidewalk, a visitors parking spot. As I'm walking back from my office, a facilities guy was looking at me funny while I get in and drive away. Imagine my surprise when I show up Monday morning. A company-wide memo was issued informing us that the visitors parking spots were for visitors only. Seriously?

If you've never had to deal with AT&T/SBC outsourced tech support, consider yourself lucky. The Internet was down at the house and after checking out the router and modem settings, I figure it was their problem. So I call and check to see if there's a network status or something. The outsourced Indian guy I got to talk to had a cold so I could tell it was tough for him to keep his faux American accent going throughout the conversation. But listening to him, I don't think he knew what he was talking about. All I wanted to know was whether or not there's an outage in my area. So he asked me what state I lived in.

--California.
--Where?
--California, C-A...
--Thank you, sir.

So he goes straight to troubleshooting. Whoa there, I know everything's fine on my end.

--Do you have a router?...What kind of modem do you have?...What are the colors of the cords in the back?

The colors of the cords? What difference does that make? When I told him they were all beige, he was just utterly confused, either because he didn't expect that they were all one color or that he didn't know what beige was. I played dumb like this for a good 15 minutes before he finally gave up.

--What state do you live in, sir?

Didn't I just answer that? I thought I said California.

--Ok, California, what time is it over there?

What, no clocks? He proceeds to ask me this 4 times before he finally tells me there's an outage and to try again in an hour before pretty much hanging up on me.

Finally, to wrap up, we have the movies. Awfully slow out there in the movie world. Talked about Spider-Man 3 already, but I must say I had a much better time at Blades of Glory a few weeks earlier. Funny man that Will Ferrell is. On the Netflix front, Volver was mixed but it's always nice to see Penelope Cruz, Notes on a Scandal was interesting (I'm hoping that a certain someone at work doesn't turn into Judi Dench's character), The Pursuit of Happyness was good but the real guy looks nothing like Will Smith, Rocky Balboa was whiny in the first half and didn't pick up until the training began, Man of the Year wasn't as bad as people made it out to be, Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj was as bad as people made it out to be, Kate Winslet made The Holiday passable even with the presence of Cameron Diaz, and while Cars is still quality stuff, Pixar has made better movies.

Smashing Pumpkins! Playing at the Fillmore from July 22 - August 1 if anybody's interested. Man, July is going to be one busy month.

If anyone wants to get me this XBox 360, it'd be very appreciated. Quick, there are only 100 of them out there.

While billed as an action movie, director Sam Raimi and the screenwriters were obsessed with teasing the love story between MJ and Peter. Yes, it is necessary to tell, but it soon came to the point where I was indifferent to what happened to them. Yet, one look at Spider-Man shooting webs at buildings and flying right past them will have you hooked.

That's what I wrote here 3 years ago following the release of Spider-Man 2. The third installment suffers from the same problem of trying to balance a love story with the action elements. However, this time around, the audience loses. The indifference lingers as Peter and MJ's relationship is complicated by an amnesiac Harry and a new girl in Bryce Dallas Howard (who looks stunning by the way...in all her other movies, she's been really plain). With two villains to focus on (Venom and the Sandman), their on-screen presence is fairly limited as we follow Peter Parker and his road into darkness, portraying some sort of Jared Leto/Chris Gaines hybrid. What remains is an up-and-down picture trying to tell multiple stories of multiple characters and not doing a very good job of it. As a result, its usual pillars are weakened; the action scenes and fights are more cartoonish and not particularly convincing and the humor at times seems forced. At 140 minutes, your time may be better spent waiting for this DVD to come out.

Best attempt at a dunk, ever. With a trampoline no less.

Sounds like I'll have to plan another L.A. trip next year...

NBC Universal's theme park division is looking to make some serious "d'oh," pacting with News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox TV to launch a major ride tied to "The Simpsons."

As-yet-untitled attraction will be built at both Universal Studios Hollywood and the Universal Orlando Resort; online reports had said the ride would be limited to Orlando. Both parks are set to open the ride -- which will utilize motion simulator technology -- in spring 2008.

Deal also includes provisions that will allow characters from "The Simpsons" to be integrated into the larger Universal theme park brand. Actors dressed like "Simpsons" characters will start roaming the grounds of both parks, while stores devoted to selling "Simpsons"-themed souvenirs will pop up.

Ride deal marks the second time in as many months that NBC U and News Corp. have teamed up; companies are preparing to launch a viral video portal this summer.

"Simpsons" creator Matt Groening and exec producer James L. Brooks collaborated with U's ride design team on the concept, which will let parkgoers travel through a "Simpsons"-ized version of a theme park, as envisioned by Krusty the Clown.

"The ride is designed to duplicate the Simpsons home-viewing experience, only at high speed and with lots of screaming," Groening said.

"The Simpsons" ride is replacing another Hollywood-themed attraction, the long-running "Back to the Future: The Ride." Universal Hollywood will shutter the latter ride after Labor Day; Orlando's version closed at the end of March.

U isn't providing much info about the specifics of the ride, saying only that "guests will be rocketed along with the Simpson family on a hysterical, almost unimaginable adventure. They'll experience a side of Springfield previously unexplored as they enjoy the new ride's interpretation of the thrill rides, dark rides and 'live' shows that make up a new fantasy amusement park dreamed up by" Krusty.

U said the ride will feature a number of Simpsons characters, with voices supplied by the thesps heard on the series.

Universal Parks & Resorts chairman-CEO Tom Williams said "The Simpsons" ride is a good "complement to our brand of entertainment."

Florida Today, which first reported news of the "Simpsons" ride on April 5, said the attraction is part of $120 million in upgrades U plans to its Orlando resort in the coming year.

Universal isn't saying how much it paid 20th for the right to use "The Simpsons" brand, but a recent SEC filing obtained by Florida Today hints that a big chunk of the company's capital expenditures in 2007 and 2008 would be reserved for "intellectual property rights" related to new attractions.

In addition to the "Simpsons" ride, insiders said U is expected to announce at least one or two other film/TV-themed attractions this year.

From Variety

Ok, so remind me next time to pay extra attention to all those Asian English majors out there. Apparently, they're either your best friend or they need major help before you turn into target practice.

Observations from this weekend:

--I was in SoCal this week to visit friends as Hai needed to attend a panel in the IE. Coming along for the ride were Claire, Jenny, Alex, Steve for a couple of days and Akshay on the last day. For a change, it was actually cloudy most of the weekend, so it wasn't really beach weather.

--Some of these pictures above are from me and others are from Alex and Claire. You could probably find more at their sites.

--American Eagle must be very efficient. They were always on-time for the round-trip but they charged for pretty much everything. The cashews are $2! To add injury to insult, they're always found at the end of the terminal so they're a good 15 minutes away from the security checkpoints. In Orange County, they're actually based out of a portable outside. Outside! You gotta go up and down 4 flights of stairs between the terminal and the plane.

--I sat in Hai's little panel discussion on the poems of Emily Dickinson. The other people on the panel didn't really contribute too much. One freely admitted she poorly analyzed her thesis while another was a little more concerned about the animations on her power-point presentation. Even the panel leader made up the word scannation.

--Steve's bachelor pad is pretty sweet. The star of the show has to be the voice-activated dimmer switch. Yell out computer: low and you get a dimly lit room to set the mood. Apparently, it's only $20 if you want one. We also visited his workplace which was the set of Saul of the Mole Men, finishing up its run on Adult Swim. Okay, so the set is one room with a green-screen, but still.

--Hollywood and Highland is actually a much smaller place than you see on TV. This intersection is home to Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the Kodak Theatre (where the Oscars call home), and the El Capitan Theatre (where Jimmy Kimmel does his show). Once there, we found one of those R2-D2 mailboxes people were talking about. Pretty cool.

--Any weekend with me is usually about the food and there was no shortage of that. There was the steak at Gaucho Grill, a good Argentinean steak house, the seafood at the chain Joe's Crab Shack, a bowl of bun bo hue, and of course, the Angus Third Pounder at McDonalds. I didn't take any food pictures...Claire took care of that. The yogurt shop Pinkberry is good, but I don't think it's worth it to stand in some of the lines this place is notorious for.

--Yes, when you're driving with me, I'm gonna drive like an old man. I'm sorry but that's how I'm going to get you from point A to point B.

--Our time with Steves ended with a nice stroll on the beach. With our cell phone lights. In the midst of jumping around, Steves lost his keys, so here it was at 8:00 in the pitch black that we were combing the beach. Lucky for us, Jenny found them or else we would have been there forever.

--Our ulterior motive for being down there was to tour the colleges. Hai and Jenny are choosing from a few and so we visited Riverside, Irvine, and UCSD. Riverside is just how I remembered it. Way back when my brother went there, I never wanted to stay. So cross this one off the list. Irvine is big and quiet with plenty of Asians walking around, if you find people walking around. Even with the scholarships these two schools offered me in 2000, I still chose Berkeley. That's why of the three, UCSD seemed to be the best. Nice campus, plenty of people and parking. During our short time with Akshay, he gave us the grand tour from his Civic. And he knows a lot about the campus...one class left til graduation and his 7 year journey to a degree will be over. I think he's been waiting for me to hit it big.

--So today, here I am at work. Coming back, I got a few messages from IT stating that they should be able to fix the problem I was having with some software yesterday. Funny, I wasn't at work yesterday. Yep, these are my co-workers.

--The rest of my pictures can be found at Flickr.

Before we get to today's post, let's look at this fine apartment in New York City. As written in New York Magazine, this is fairly new at 5 years old without any renovations and located right next to Central Park. Asking price? Just a cool $989,000. That's with a discount since its location at Manhattan Avenue hasn't been embraced by home buyers as of yet. So get it while it's...cool.

My co-worker just can't catch a break. Before I took my present job, she had just returned from a stint on the DL, dealing with a bulging disc in her back. She returned when I started but left a month later after being diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome. During this time, her daughter was charged with DUI and hit-and-run as she hit a motorcyclist, killing him. To deal with that, she needed to sell her home to pay for legal fees and move to the Central Valley while still commuting to Sunnyvale. On a happier note, she got married for a third time but her sibling was dealing with a divorce, so she took care of two more children. Just last month, her daughter was found guilty of two misdemeanors, which sounds bad but it could've been much, much worse. However, just a week later, her car was broken into.

Which brings us to today. She was the victim of a hit-and-run when a Ford Expedition ran into her car from behind. What the driver of the Ford didn't know was that his front license plate was part of the wreckage left behind, allowing police to find his house and charge him. She and her kids in the car are fine, but still, my co-worker's car is totaled in yet another odd chapter in her life.

Yes, I work in Silicon Valley for a high-tech defense communications firm but that doesn't mean management caught up with that trend. They are decidedly old-school. Case in point: my boss doesn't use a computer. Everything's printed for him by his secretary including all the reports and emails sent to him. He's in Hawaii this week for the 20-year bash. (Cool perk: those who have been with the company for 20 years get an all-expenses paid trip to Hawaii. 15 gets you to Vegas.) The big monthly division meeting is also this week so we all assumed he would skip that along with a few other top managers. Imagine my surprise when my immediate boss requested that I get my reports done a few hours earlier today. Why? I need to FedEx overnight my reports to Hawaii so that he could have them before the meeting. It's only 8 reports totaling 150 pages, but still. It's also just my luck that I jammed all 3 copiers in the high-speed copy center. So much for technology.

Catching up with the movies I've seen since the last time I talked about this: 300 is a pretty good war movie but with some pretty big flaws. Moving the story between the battlefield and Sparta was a good idea but the story at home paled in comparison to the glory being won by the Spartan men. Did everything need to be in slow motion? Good thing they didn't have the actors speak in slow-motion. Can you really kill that many people with no armor, barely any injury to themselves, and no blood splattered from their victims? If you're gonna focus on the number 300, maybe they should've had a counter in the corner of the screen to keep track of the number of soldiers left. I could go on and on, but if you take it for what it is, it's darn entertaining.

On the DVD front, Running with Scissors was booorrring. Trust the Man was just boring. The Prestige was good but not as good as The Illusionist which was excellent. Edward Norton will always elevate a film. Ok, maybe not Death to Smoochy. This Film is Not Yet Rated is an eye-opening film about how the MPAA works in rating films. Definitely an educational experience.

Finally, Zach Galifianakis' new DVD is out, so check it out.

This is an oldie, but a goodie. Man, look at this horse...oh wait, I'm being told this is a butterfly.

Just wanted to remind everybody that the Mega Millions jackpot is up to $370 million. Interesting fact though on today's Mercury News. The odds of winning Mega Millions is about 175,000,000 to 1. The odds of becoming a billionaire is 7.5 million to 1.

Who woulda thought that?

Happy Birthday wishes go out to Hai and Steves. Steves' is actually tomorrow but hey, I'm consolidating posts.

The count for correct Oscar predictions this year was 14, which is a personal worst, but from what I hear, was actually pretty good this year.

700 posts later and now there's a new layout. I didn't want to change but this upgrade Blogger had forced my hand (it didn't have the old layout among the options).

It's Oscar weekend and now it's time for the final predictions. (The rest of them are on the sidebar. Based on the past, I'm usually good for 15.) I wholeheartedly believe The Departed should win for best picture and best director. With Dreamgirls out of the way by virtue of not being nominated, the frontrunners seem to be Babel and The Departed with Little Miss Sunshine being the leading darkhorse. Letters from Iwo Jima and The Queen (3.5 stars) were certainly good, but reached out to niche audiences. Little Miss Sunshine is hurt by the fact that it's mainly a comedy, and when was the last time a comedy won for best picture? I'd be happy if it won, but it doesn't look to be in the cards. I wouldn't be happy if Babel won. Babel (3 stars) to me seems like a poor man's Crash from last year. The Japanese storyline was a stretch and did not fit in, leaving Babel to be three-fourths of a movie. That leaves The Departed, best picture of the year. Will the Academy voters listen? We'll see Sunday.

On a side note, I did see The Last King of Scotland (3 stars) last night. That's one powerful feature and Forest Whitaker deserves that best actor award.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/16770525.htm

A federal jury has acquitted a man of charges stemming from a bizarre murder plot involving a booby-trapped toy dog, which exploded and killed a college student in South San Jose six years ago.

After three days of deliberations, the jury in U.S. District Court concluded that David Lin, 39, was not guilty of conspiring to mail an explosive device with intent to injure or kill. His defense attorney argued that he mailed a package as a favor for a friend but did not know it contained a bomb.

He still faces prosecution in two unrelated cases involving alleged credit card fraud. Lin, who has been in jail for more than five years in the bombing case, is scheduled to be released tonight on a $5,000 bond.

Patrick Hsu, an 18-year-old college student, was killed by the explosion at his parents' home in early 2001. Authorities say Lin had mailed the toy on behalf of another man, Anthony Chang, who was briefly married to Hsu's sister.

Chang is also charged in the case but he is a fugitive, currently believed to be living in Venezuela. Testimony showed that Chang assembled the bomb in Nevada and then asked Lin to mail it to the Hsu home from a post office in Milpitas. Authorities say Chang was angry at his former wife and wanted revenge against her family.

Earlier this week, defense attorney Daniel Blank argued in court that Lin had mailed the toy for Chang as a favor, without knowing that it was booby-trapped.

But prosecutor Jane Shoemaker told jurors that Lin had to know what Chang had planned. A prosecution witness testified that Chang had recounted conversations in which Chang told Lin the package contained a bomb.

When the package arrived at the victim's home, Hsu's father opened it and then put it aside. A few weeks later, Patrick Hsu, a freshman at the University of California, Santa Barbara, was home for the weekend when he picked up the toy and inserted batteries -- triggering an explosion that shattered windows and killed him instantly.

Sorry for the silence. Lots of stuff going on. New boss to deal with (doing this work isn't what I signed up for...). Illness in the family (strokes are a messy business). So lemme just say happy new year to all and the Oscars are this Sunday so I'll finish with my movie stuff later.

Super Bowl sucked, didn't it? Game, commercials, etc. There's just not much to say. It wasn't memorable.

Completely unrelated to the case at hand, the judge in Patrick's case described below was hit by a light-rail car! Somebody has it out for him.

Oscar nominations are out, so pretty soon, I'll come out with some predictions for them as the big day nears. I've given up hope on watching Blood Diamond...that'll have to wait until it comes out on DVD in March, so the last Oscar-related movie I'll see will probably be The Last King of Scotland, hopefully this weekend.

The Police reunite on The Grammys this Sunday and Billy Corgan announced a new Smashing Pumpkins album will be coming out in July. Can't wait, especially since anything is better than that Zwan crap.

Finally, my favorite show for the past couple of years has been The Office, so if you're not watching, you're missing out. Here's a long clip of some of its best scenes.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/16570774.htm

It has been nearly six years since a bizarre murder plot tore apart the Hsu family of San Jose. On a February weekend visit home from college in 2001, 18-year-old Patrick Hsu noticed an odd toy robot dog that had been mailed in a box weeks earlier. His father had opened the box, then set the contraption aside when he noticed it needed batteries to function. Later, Patrick Hsu placed batteries in the robot -- triggering a hidden bombing device that killed him. This week, one of the alleged participants in a scheme targeting Hsu's family goes on trial in federal court in San Jose after years of legal sparring. David Lin, a Milpitas engineer accused of shipping the robot dog in the mail, faces life in prison if convicted of killing Hsu. But the central figure in a case that has spawned an episode on ``America's Most Wanted'' will be nowhere near the courtroom. Anthony Chang, a Las Vegas man charged with masterminding the plot as an act of vengeance against his estranged wife, remains a fugitive who is thought to be living in Venezuela and outside the reach of U.S. authorities, court records show. Chang's role will still be front and center in the trial, however. Lin's lawyers make it clear that they will argue Lin had no idea what was in the fatal package and was an unwitting dupe in Chang's plan to harm someone in the family of Wendy Hsu, his estranged wife and Patrick Hsu's sister. Lawyers picked a jury last week and will make their opening statements to the panel today.

``The only issue is, did David Lin know what was in the package or not,'' said Daniel Blank, Lin's lawyer. ``He didn't. They are going to say he did.''

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jane Shoemaker, the lead prosecutor in the case, declined to comment. In court papers, the government says there is ample evidence that Chang told Lin what was in the package and that he followed instructions to mail the robot dog to the Hsu's San Jose home. In one recent document, prosecutors outlined an exchange between Chang and a former girlfriend who is on the government's witness list.

``Chang told his then-girlfriend that the defendant knew there was a bomb in the package and that he had instructed the defendant how to handle the package to avoid leaving fingerprints on it,'' prosecutors wrote.

Patrick Hsu, a freshman at the University of California-Santa Barbara, was away at college when the package was mailed to his home. Prosecutors say that Chang hatched the plot over his rocky relationship with Wendy Hsu, and made threats against her and her family before the fatal incident. Police first linked Lin to the robot bomb when the package was traced to a Milpitas post office. Court papers show they also questioned Chang at various times, and he claimed he didn't send the package but ``may have provided information to others that caused the bombing to occur.'' As the investigation was unfolding, Chang quit his job at the Primadonna Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and skipped the country, days before he was formally charged. Lin's lawyers say the government botched the case, ignoring evidence that Chang was preparing to leave while they focused on Lin's role in the crime.

``He filed a change of address form, and they still didn't arrest him,'' said Blank, an assistant federal public defender.

Chang apparently has not been hard to find -- defense investigators found him in Venezuela. But Venezuela does not have an extradition treaty with the United States, and government officials declined to comment on the effort to return Chang for prosecution. Chang is a Venezuelan citizen, making it even more difficult to secure his extradition, according to lawyers familiar with the case. Meanwhile, Lin is on the hook for the killing. Until last year, federal prosecutors were pursuing the death penalty against him, but Lin's lawyers persuaded the Bush administration to drop that part of the case. Chen Hsu, Patrick's father, did not respond to an interview request. But he has told the Mercury News in past interviews that his son was popular, an Oak Grove High School graduate whose death rocked the family.

``How could this happen?'' Hsu said days after the incident. ``No one can handle this.''

The trial is expected to take four to six weeks in U.S. District Judge Ronald Whyte's courtroom.

It was quite a weekend. My mom's Lexus was hit in the parking lot on Friday. I was getting conflicting reports on the severity of the damage. My sister claimed it was just a small bump. My mom said it was more like a foot wide. The picture's up so see for yourself. Looking at it, I'm just not sure how it happened because the eyewitness said the car in question, a large SUV, was parked in the stall next to the Lexus and did the damage as she was leaving. I would understand if the car backed into the bumper but not if the car was next to my mom's. I'd know, I've done it.

Just to balance out the bad news, I've posted Kelli from Christmas with her new dog from babystyle. Poor Hello Kitty in the background. I didn't get to see her this weekend since I was with friends on Saturday. With Datman and Paul, we were to meet Hai and Claire in Alameda for sushi. Things didn't go exactly as planned. We made it but they didn't. Westbound 80 was closed due to a multicar accident. A car eastbound went out of control and jumped the center divider. This had to be tough because the westbound lanes are elevated above the westbound lanes. In any case, the endgame was a trip to Cache Creek where I managed to get a free drink. I paid for my $6.25 drink with a $10 bill. The waitress gave me back $13. Realizing her mistake, she puts down the original $10 bill, took back the two fives she gave me and left, leaving me with my $10 bill.

Those who went can answer me this: there were 2 trays of ribs left, right? When I opened my trunk, all that was left was the potato salad.

More random questions: Why is UPS using a song by the Postal Service. And where did McDonald's dig up Ben Seaver to do a commercial?

Since last I wrote, I've seen 3 great films that are worthy of Oscar nominations (announced tomorrow at 5:30 am). Children of Men imagines the world where no one is under the age of 18 and women can't give birth. When a pregnant woman suddenly appears, it's up to Clive Owen to transport her safely to an independent group that will (hopefully) raise the child and give civilization another chance. Otherwise, she'll fall in the hands of the government (too busy with controlling society) or to activists who will use the baby to lead a rebellion. It's a simple movie filled with thought-provoking questions and reflections on where our own society may one day lead. The handheld scenes following the two out of the internment camp is just edge-of-your seat stuff.

Little Children is a character film that works on so many levels. Admittedly, some of the material may shock and awe, but the multitude of stories are very interesting and engrossing from an unhappy Kate Winslet having an affair with a fellow unhappy father (seriously, who cheats on Jennifer Connelly?), to Jackie Earle Haley's creepy sex offender role and the actual little children themselves. Then there was Letters from Iwo Jima, a technically well-done piece of filmmaking from Clint Eastwood. He supremely portrays the honor of the Japanese as they fought a losing battle to hold the island of Iwo Jima based on a few letters found in the caves where they held out for 5 days under American fire. Through a proud General who had lived among Americans to a simple baker who wanted to be home, these stories, along with Flags of Our Fathers, show us the humanizing qualities of both sides, a departure from American war films of the same period.

There's still plenty of movies to watch before 2006 is wrapped up but here is the annual summary for the movies I've seen so far. The count is currently 35. Movies I hope to see follow.

4 stars
The Departed
Children of Men

3.5 stars
V for Vendetta
Stranger than Fiction
Little Miss Sunshine
Little Children
United 93
Letters from Iwo Jima

3 stars
Casino Royale
The Devil Wears Prada
The Da Vinci Code
Jet Li's Fearless
Lucky Number Slevin
Snakes on a Plane
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

2.5 stars
The Break-Up
Fast Food Nation
Friends with Money
The Guardian
Inside Man
School for Scoundrels
Scoop
The Sentinel

2 stars
Clerks 2
Deja Vu
The Last Kiss
My Super Ex-Girlfriend
Superman Returns

1.5 stars
The Good Shepherd
Miami Vice
Mission Impossible III
X-Men 3

1 star
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Poseidon
Scary Movie 4

0.5 star
Firewall

0 stars
Date Movie

A partial list of what's left to see from 2006:

The Queen
Letters from Iwo Jima
Babel
Little Children
Volver
Blood Diamond
Curse of the Golden Flower
Rocky Balboa

The Illusionist
This Film is Not Yet Rated
World Trade Center
The Black Dahlia
Thank You For Smoking
Sketches of Frank Gehry
Sherrybaby
Trust the Man