blog.mchiu.com

The Pee Tree

You don't see too much innovation in design for toilets these days, but Joa Herrenknecht has designed the Peetree urinal that seems to give men a natural feeling of peeing on a tree. You can pee on the tree itself, and the urine will just flow than the base into the basin at the bottom, or you can piss directly into the basin, and the pee gets flushed automatically the way it normally is done. I wonder if these pee trees will be put into pubic bathrooms, or will you find them scattered throughout the city where drunk guys can just take a quick piss while walking home? Interesting...

Effectively folding T-shirts

A while back, Gary was telling me about method to quickly fold T-shirts, and I think that this Google video is basically what he was talking about.

I've found this to be a fairly effective way to fold my T-shirts, but now, this video from France shows an interesting way to fold T-shirts with a "machine"... well... a machine that you make with carboard and tape...

Google's censorship of the word Tiananmen

Interesting... if you do a search on the term "tiananmen" on the normal Google page, you'll have a page full of tanks.

If you do the same search on the Chinese Google page, you'll notice that it's a bunch of touristy pics in front of the square...

Random song stuck in my head

I have no idea why this happened, but the other day, out of nowhere, the Beastie Boys' song, "Slow and Low" got stuck in my head. More specifically, only two lines were just repeatedly going over and over in my head like a broken record:

When I'm recorded you'll be rewarded

I know my song is Def 'cause you all applauded

Kinda weird, but now I have to pull out that song and listen to it again, and hopefully that will get it out of my head....

Hamburger stories

A while back, Jerry had mentioned something about a 15 lb. burger in Philly where 5 lbs. of the burger was just the bread and condiments, and the rest of it was all ground beef. I guess the challenge was something like a 3 hour time limit to eat this montrosity, within 3 hours, and you'll get a T-shirt, a certificate, and the tab being picked up by the house.

In another burger story about Jerry, he once fit an entire Big Mac into his mouth when we were in high school.

In yet another story about hamburgers that is related to Jerry, he once told me about a hamburger joint in Downtown Sausalito where there was a huge line of people outside waiting for their burgers. I can't remember if Jerry said he went in or not, but it sounded like that it should have been pretty good. I asked him what the name of the place was, and he said that he thinks the name of the place is "Hamburgers". A few months later, I happened to be out there, and sure enough, there was a hamburger joint with tons of people lining up outside, and there was just a white sign with black lettering that said "HAMBURGERS". Unfortunately, I didn't have much time to spare over there, so I didn't get a chance to try the hamburgers.

In n' Out burgers are still one of the best fast food burgers I have ever had, and they always have stuff off the menu that you can order. For example, you can order "protein style" and instead of using a bun, they wrap everything up in lettuce. On the menu, there is the double-double, which is basically two hamburger patties and two slices of cheese, however, you can also order something like the "3-by" or "3-by-3" which would be 3 hamburger patties, or 3 hamburger patties and 3 cheese, respectively. I think the record now for this madness is the 100x100. And for those who are wondering... I have had the 3x3 before.

The In n' Out 100x100 Burger	The 15 lb. burger in Philly

After looking at these two pics, I somehow have this desire to want to eat a hamburger! Jerry, you interested? :D

Peanut Butter Jelly Time!

On a recent episode of Family Guy, there was this one scene where Brian was trying to cheer Peter up, and got into a banana suit and started singing "Peanut Butter Jelly Time!" I thought it was a bit odd, and had no idea what it was in reference to. Now I have finally figured it out. Apparently, this is from a flash animation video circa 2002 featuring an animated banana singing "Peanut Butter Jelly Time!" Pretty interesting...

Family Guy version	Original version

My co-worker is actually Tom Cruise in disguise!

So when Peter was out here, he had these stupid jokes about how he thought he looked like Tom Cruise. Well, curiousity got the better of me I guess. I decided to test out that theory, and here is what I came up with. Do you think that they are possibly brothers at least? Or maybe Peter is really Tom Cruise? If that is the case, Tom Cruise is a very good actor.

Chinese News

Looks like the big news out of China today is about Google's caving into the Chinese government making it look a bit more evil in helping trounce on the human rights of the people. Oh well... not my problem, but the more interesting news out of China for me is about sales of adult diapers.

On second thought, maybe it is a good thing that Google is helping out on censorship in China. That might be some news that the Chinese might not want getting out in the open in the rest of the world. Man... what's wrong with these people???!!! Are you kidding me??? There seriously are people willing to take a dump in their pants and wallow in their own fesces and urine, in order to keep their place in a crowded train? Something tells me that it would be better to maybe not take a trip during the Chinese New Year's time. Oh well... guess the Chinese people have more tolerance for shit than me...

Garret and Casey's housewarming party

So this past Saturday, Garret and Casey hosted a housewarming party, and I just needed to get in there to take pictures of their Snoopified house. Although I don't ever recall visiting Garret before at any of the places he has lived in the past, I have heard that he and Casey both have this thing for Snoopy, and the housewarming party seemed to have confirmed those rumors. Here are a few interesting pictures that were taken:

Here we can see a small chest with Snoopy and friends hanging out on top of it. Interesting that there is only one Snoopy over here.

Here is a picture of the couch with the Snoopy pillows. Interesting that they were able to find pillows that matched the color of the couch. Or maybe it was custom-made? Hmm....

Here, on top of the mantle, we find more Snoopy goods. Interesting way of decorating with pillows and a clock.

Not really Snoopy related, but this was next to all the Snoopy stuff. A wedding picture that was taken in Taiwan. According to Garret, Casey had to do all the translation, and he just had to keep turning his head. It reminded me of "Lost in Tranlsation" when Bill Murray was taking his pictures for an advertisement, and the photographer kept going off on him in Japanese, and when he asked his translator for a translation, she would always say, "Turn your head to the right and smile." In any case, Jerry pointed out that if you looked closely at Garret in the picture...

... it looks like he has a ponytail! Pretty cool, huh? Later, when I asked Garret and Casey about other Snoopy stuff, they said that it was all in boxes now, but had we been there a few weeks earlier, we would have seen a ton of Snoopy Xmas ornaments all over the place... Oh well, guess I'll have to blog the Gee Xmas Party later this year. Finally, it was good to see all the friends and their families, but I guess instead of my parents putting the pressure on me to move out of my house, all of my friends had to take their shot at me by giving me shit for not moving into a house that I bought nearly two years ago, while Garret and Casey had already purchased a house, remodeled it, moved in, and had their housewarming party... Oh well... maybe I'll get off my lazy butt one of these days and actually make an attempt to move in.

Battlefield-Double-Dash

It's pretty interesting how there are a lot of these video game inspired videos out there these days. This time, this video is a mashup of Mario Kart and Battlefield. Watch tanks race against each other with the sound effects of Mario Kart... Hilliarity ensues...

Knuckles in China Land

This is a standard RPG, but when you go into battle mode, instead of going into an actual battle, you're presented with foreign language flashcards. Interesting idea I guess... The default language is set for Japanese, but it comes with an editor so you can use it for just about any language. But since the default language is set for Japanese, I have no idea why the game is called Knuckles in China Land.

The game features the Sega character "Knuckles" from Sonic the Hedgehog, but I highly doubt that it is licensed by Sega.

Yet another video game based video

This one has been around for a while, but still pretty fun to watch. It's mainly a tribute to Atari 2600 games featuring an afro'd Pitfall Harry. Apparently, the music is from a Brazillian group called "Golden Shower", and this was awarded with MTV-Brazil's "Best Electronic Music Video" award. Interesting, and not a whole lot of video game characters beating up on each other. Enjoy!

Ultimate Showdown

Another interesting flash animation that features a lot of characters that have been in video games all beating up on each other. The surprise winner at the end, however, has never been featured in a video game, so maybe that's how to win? Hmm...

Anyway... check it out! Pretty interesting...

Interesting FedEx-Kinko Game

Guess this FedEx-Kinko's game is not put out by the company. Pretty funny in that the object of the "game" is to provide bad customer service, where you play a Fedex-Kinko employee trying to get customers their orders. I guess this is a new genre of gaming that in a way is similar to a political cartoon where it places satire on something that people are just generally upset about. The employees get pissed off at each other, and the customers yell out the employees. Actually, I think this more like a real life... :D

Michael Jackson Moonwalker, Mario, and other Games flash video

I guess this flash animation video is interesting to say the least. Not exactly sure what is going on, but it features Michael Jackson from the video game Moonwalker, as well as a host of other video game characters including Guile and Zangief from Street Fighter. I guess towards the end, you start to see a bit of a story line where an Ultraman sized Zangief is trying to stomp the Earth into smithereens from outerspace, and it takes the co-operation of all the other video games characters, under the direction of Michael to help stop him.... Interesting.... not really sure what else I can say about it...

Sushi video on Google is gone! :O

The sushi video that I had mentioned earlier here has been removed from Google Video. Doing some research on it, I can see why Google had to remove it. I think it was gaining in popularity, and more importantly, I think it is probably copyrighted material as the comedy duo in the video is a group calling themselves the "Ramens".

For those that can understand Japanese, here is another one of their videos, though I don't think it is as funny as the sushi one.

Yikes! On this page, it looks like this comedy duo appeared in several shorts, and some of them were shown last year at the SF Asian-American Film Festival! :O Guess I'll have to be more serious about going up to check it out this year....

Taiwan Beer and it's fruity after-taste...

A while back, I remember when Jerry was saying that he thought that Taiwan Beer had a fruity aftertaste. Now it all makes sense. This article highlights the case of a councilor calling for the brewery to re-evaluate their quality control.

Over the past few years, a "condom-like" object, live insects, dead cockroaches, cigarette butts, bottle caps and betel nut shreds have all been discovered in bottles of the nation's favorite brew, Li said.

Condom-like objects???? Yikes!!! Guess the employees over there might be taking more than fair share of free beer!

Freeloaders at the Orchard Valley Coffee shop

Recently, I have been spending a lot of time using my remote offices in different coffee shops, bars, etc. One place that I frequent quite often is the Orchard Valley Coffee store in Campbell. For each place I go to, they all have their different personalities and charm, and OVC seems to have a good mix of people and their WiFi connection seems to be very stable compared to other places I have been to. The Coffee Society in Cupertino seems to be the place with the weird drama type people from De Anza College across the street, and their WiFi connection seems to continuously go out.

Anyway... I am at the OVC right now, and it looks like there is a group of 7 or 8 people in front of me that are kind of interesting. At first, I thought that maybe they are a bunch of MLM people, then I thought they were Christian Scientists, but now, I see that they have all their Kiyosaki books out, so I guess it's some sort of MLM group or a Rich Dad, Poor Dad study group or something. Talk about cheap people though... There's 7 or 8 of them, and most of them have brought their own stuff from outside, and I think only one person actually bought anything from the store. I'm just pissed off because they are takin up about 4 tables, and it took me forever to get a table to sit on, and one that is close to the power outlets...

One woman is especially annoying. She looks pretty cute, but I think her Bluetooth headset is permanently attached to her ear, and I am never sure if she's talking to her group or if she's on the phone, but nonetheless, is constantly yakking away. The rest of the people look very stereotypical of the types of people I have seen at MLM group meetings in the past...

Oh well, I'm settled in now, so I guess I shouldn't be complaining... he he he

Tom Arnold looking at the TI DLP display at CES

As we first entered one of the halls at CES, Terry pointed out to me that Tom Arnold was right there in front of the TI booth looking at the big DLP displays. Much like myself, I guess he's in the market to look for a new TV. I think I must have been pretty oblivious to things being that there were only a crowd of people arond Tom taking pictures, but he must have been pretty oblivious to things too because he didn't seem to notice them all taking pictures of him either.

Tom Cruise, Katie Holmes, Howie Mandel at Yahoo Tent

So Terry wanted to meet up with some of his old friends at MusicMatch (now Yahoo!) so we went over to the Yahoo! tent that was set up outside the convention hall. Just before we went over there, at the Las Vegas Hilton, we had run into one of my friends, David Weng, who had just come out of the Yahoo! keynote, and was telling us about seeing Tom Cruise at the event.

So Terry and I get up to the Yahoo! tent, but they weren't letting us in just at that moment and told us that they would be opening up in 30 minutes. We decided to wait it out because it would take us more than 30 minutes to go into the main exhibition halls, look around, and come back. As we were waiting, they ask us to clear some room in front of the tent, and two feet away from us, an entourage of people, including Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, come walking through, but we were caught off-guard and didn't get our cameras out in time.

After waiting for about a half hour, a bald guy and his camera crew come waltzing through, and it was the Tonight Show crew. The security guard lets them right through, and about 5 minutes, later, they come back out laughing their asses off, and when we asked th

Cheeseburger In Paradise

Just arrived into Vegas, and staying at the luxurious Imperial Palace which is right next to Jimmy Buffet's Margarittaville. Being that it's my first time to the place, I had to order the Cheeseburger in Paradise. As you can see from the picture, everything is there...

I like mine with lettuce and tomata, Heinz 57 and french fried potata, big kosher pickle and cold draft beer, well good God Almighty, which way do I steer?

The pickle was huge, the cheeseburger was delicious, and I probably should have gotten a Corona or something other than a Bud Light to wash that all down.

Overall, the atmosphere at Margarittaville was pretty good, and it's the first place in Vegas that I have been to that didn't have slot machines in it. It actually looked like a restaurant in there. Amazing!

Funny IM comment

So one of my co-workers from Taiwan was IMing me from Las Vegas, and although I know what he meant, what he wrote was too funny not to share:

[12:08] Cloudy Broom......: see you at porker table tonight.

Hmm... or maybe he meant that we'll meet up at the buffet? He he he...

Roppongi Rooftop Rollercoaster Madness

It looks like that the Japanese discount store, Don Quixote, in Roppongi, has decided to follow the way of the Stratosphere, and put a rollercoaster on the top of its store. By the looks of this picture, it looks like it will be causing a lot of disturbances to its neighbors, compared to the Stratosphere Tower which is all alone on its end of the Las Vegas Strip, not to mention the fact that it is way above everything else near it.

Being that it is in Roppongi, and being that Don Quixote is a 24-hour store, I can already imagine all the drunks getting on the ride after a night of drinking, throwing up on the ride, and hitting the cars and pedestrians underneath.... he he he...

An interesting sign

This picture depicts a sign pasted over the recent DVD release of the "Train Man" show in Japan. I think my Japanese is getting worse and worse, but here is my interpretation (or guess) what is written:

A real otaku would not look away from his PSP in order to save a beautiful woman. In the first place, a real otaku does not have desires in 3D (???). Falling for a beautiful woman and selling out to her is only on TV. No one believes this!

Ok... so friends in Japan, get ready to humiliate me and tell me how far off I am! :D

Ramen Review in SF J-Town

This blogger recently reviewed the ramen at the "Sapporo-ya" ramen house in the San Francisco Japantown. It's good to see that there are people out here locally that are also into ramen, but I think the reviewer could have fared better. Having been to Sapporo-ya on numerous occasions in the past, I can say that although it's pretty good, compared to the rest of the Japanese ramen places (as opposed to the Chinese places claiming to have Japanese ramen), it isn't very high up on my personal list... Mostly because it doesn't serve "tonkotsu" style ramen, but then again, the name of the place already implies that it wouldn't be serving that style of ramen anyway...

As far as SF Bay Area ramen joints are concerned, my ranking would be:

1. Santa Ramen -- in downtown San Mateo... I don't really go to San Mateo other than to go to this place, but this place is hands-down, the best ramen joint in the area. They have all the different varities of ramen, including tonkotsu ramen, but my only complaint about the place is the huge lines outside, their limited hours, and the fact that they can only make a limited number of bowls of ramen per day. Kevin and I went there once, unexpectedly ran into our friend Kaori, who happened to be ahead of us in line, and her and her friends were served the last bowls of tonkotsu ramen of the day. I think I ended up with a shoyu based ramen which wasn't bad at all, but I really had my heart set on the tonkotsu ramen.

2. Maruichi Ramen -- This ramen joint has two locations: one in downtown Mountain View, and another in the Milpitas Square (which I like to call Milpitas Chinatown). I've tried just about every variety of ramen they serve, and their signature noodles aren't bad, but the best is still the tonkotsu ramen.

3. Ramen Halu -- Located in San Jose, this ramen joint is a true hole-in-the-wall, and who knows how many times I had zipped passed it on Saratoga Ave. before a friend told me about the new place a few years ago. Hmm... now that I think about it, I had the same problem with the Zautica strip joint that had appeared out of nowhere that's just a few doors down from it. Anyway... for this place, their signature ramen is a combo of shoyu and tonkotsu base, but what I really liked at this place was the Hiyashi Chuka cold noodles, which they only serve in the summertime.

4. Dohenkotsu Ramen -- Next to the Mitsuwa (look!!! I didn't call it Yaohan for once!) supermarket on Saratoga Ave., this Tokushima style ramen joint has some pretty good stuff. I'm not sure what kind of broth it uses, but it sure is damn tasty. Even better is the ramen with spare ribs.

5. Himawari Ramen -- Another downtown San Mateo joint. I have not actually been inside the store before, but they were one of 3 ramen joints featured in the "Ramen Life" ramen festival in downtown San Jose last year (the other two were Maruichi Ramen and Ramen Halu). To tell you the truth, I can't really remember what I ate, but I do remember that I kept saying how good it was... I guess I'll have to actually make the trek up to San Mateo again one of these days...

There are other ramen joints in the area that I am either/or with, that I could mention:

1. Ryowa Ramen -- Another downtown Mountain View joint that is Kobe-style ramen... I didn't know what Kobe-style ramen was, so gave it a try. It's either shoyu or miso based ramen, and they always have a big jar of kimchee on the tables. It's just typical Japanese ramen to me...

2. Gen Ramen -- I have only been to this Fremont ramen joint once, but I wasn't very hungry at the time, so can't really comment on it. I had the tonkotsu ramen, but ended up eating only half of it since I wasn't hungry. Next time I have to go Fremont's Warm Springs Blvd, I'll have to make sure to give it a try... Now that Jerry's moved to Chicago, guess I really don't have any reason to be out that way though...

Places that I avoid:

1. Ramen Rama -- the cheezy name in itself should have kept me away, but went in and tried it anyway. I ordered the Hiyashi Chuka that was advertised on the front door, but the waitress had no idea what I was talking about until I asked for the cold noodles. It definitely wasn't memorable, and the only thing I remembered about it was that it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. My friends complained that the ramen they ordered was luke-warm, and going another time later, I remembered it being luke-warm as well.

2. Tokyo Ramen -- never been there, but have passed by it many times, but being that it's pretty much Chinese people working in there, is in a Chinese shopping plaza, etc., I can kinda guess what to expect. Maybe I'll give it a try one of these days... probably not though...

You're my boy, Blue! You're my boy...

Patrick Crenshaw, the man known as "Blue" in the movie, "Old School", has passed away of natural causes, at the age of 86. I don't know too much about this guy, but his character in Old School has definitely been a source of entertainment for myself and my friends... So long, Blue... You will always be our boy.