My First Five Point Four

About 60 miles away from the epicenter close to noon, I experienced a good long earthquake, finally. It was big enough to feel like I was sitting in a slow moving train, but hopefully small enough to not have caused any severe damage to anyone anywhere. I was at my desk at work at the time and asked my co-worker if we should go underneath our desks. It didn't feel extremely big and dangerous, so we kept talking, while trying to see how long it would be. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea because you just never know when an earthquake will get bigger. I found out later that half of the company, who were closer to the back door, were actually all outside as soon as they knew that it was an earthquake.

One co-worker said that he was in Peru last year during the 3 minutes earthquake, while another experienced the big one in Guatemala back in the '70s.

For more info on this earthquake, visit USGS

Glow + The Dark Knight + Korean BBQ =

To sum up yesterday into a equation would be something like this:
The Dark Knight + Korean BBQ + Glow = Long Saturday

The Dark Knight was awesome especially in imax and that is all I'm going to say about it.

I don't know how I came across the Glow web page last week, but some how thought that it was just going to be like any other small, free and fabulous event in LA. The idea of hanging out at the beach from Dawn-to-Dust was hard to miss. It turned out to be the event of LA last night as probably thousands of young and old, families and friends, were there. Plus, parking was free, but I'm not sure if we would have been so lucky if we were to leave before 2 AM.


Usman Haque's Primal Source
more picture at frogafish: see

Lotus Festival in Echo Park

Lok and I went to the Lotus Festival last night in Echo Park. It was very well organized with many arts & crafts, food, live music and other entertainments. We ate my favorite, Isan sausages with Som Thum (papaya salad). The night ended with fireworks that scared all the ducks in the lake to all hide in this one corner of the lake. Poor duckies.


Echo Park at Night


The Last Show

Care Package + Crazians!

My sister sent me a care package to my work today. It was a great surprise. I just love how she managed to reuse everything that she has from the little containers that she used to put my gifts in, the colorful tissue paper, hand cut little note paper that she wrote on to the box that she put everything into. Thank you, Pebo!

Stopped by Crazians (a group art show) @ World of Wonder on Hollywood Blvd. Thanks to Scratch who told me about it. Here's a couple of images for you to see for those who are not around here. I should have taken more pictures. Damn!


Mari Inuaki


Taiyo La Paix

Wild Parrots at the Window

The last time I visited my sister and her husband in San Francisco, I was woken up by a few parrots outside the windows. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I've been to their apartment many times where I've spotted many type of other birds, but never thought one would be a parrot. The view from their apartment is quite amazing actually. If you're up early enough, you could see different type of birds occupying the top of certain buildings. Then when it gets around maybe close to 8:30 - 9:00 AM when the city begins to get louder, they would all fly away. I tried to take picture of the parrots, but I wasn't fast enough. To learn more about them, you can watch The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill.


View from the apartment

New Street, New Beginning

Getting to work today was interrupted by over sleeping. It was really hot this morning, so I moved to the living room where I could sleep on the couch in front of the Vornado fan. The couch + fan combo is an instant sleeping pill for me. It didn't help that by the time I got to work, the city was repaving the street so I had to park on a different street. It wasn't like I couldn't use the walk or anything.

Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease

About a week and a half ago, Lok and I went to a free screening of WALL-E at the Walt Disney Studios in Burbank. At first the gate security guard said that our names weren't on the list and told us to come back later in case something opens up. She also said that they were over booked and even though we had the invitations with us, she said that it didn't matter. How lame right? What's the point of telling us to come back later then tell us that they're already over booked? A few minutes later, we found out that the same thing happened to one of Lok's co-worker, but they just kept arguing with the guard, who eventually let them go through. After we found that out, we went back to do them same and Voilà!, we got in.

One interesting thing about the theater were the black leather sofas right behind the sound controls. No one dared to sit there of course during the screening.

We thought that maybe after the film, we could wander around the studios, but no luck there. As soon as it ended, there were a few security guards blocking nearby paths other than the one that leads you back to the parking lot. I wasn't even sure if I would be allowed to take a picture, but it would have been really silly if they stopped me. I mean, I could have just taken this picture from the street if I wanted to.


Walt Disney Studios in Burbank, CA

La Brea Tar Pits & LACMA

Today was a good sunny day to be outside. Lok and I ended up heading to the La Brea Tar Pits and LACMA, which is basically right next to one another. It's a deal to go on a Friday night after 5 PM when admission is FREE plus there's also Friday Night Jazz at 6PM.


Lake Pit


Rickey Woodard Sextet
The saxophonist Rickey Woodard have played for many famous musicians such as Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Ernestine Anderson, Benny Carter, and Horace Silver.


Chris Burden's "Urban Light" sculpture


Outside of BCAM (here's a map)

Yummy Innards

Chicken special heart, liver, gizzard, skin, tail, and small intestines might be things that make you turn your face when they're offered as food, but you don't know what you're missing until you try them Yakitori style. Eating liver, skin and heart has always been in my mom's side of the family whether they'll be in our soup or some stir-fried dishes. Growing up, I didn't like the taste of liver and heart as much as my sister and my mom, so my choice was always the skin. Chicken tail was actually one of my favorite for a very long time until I was around 6 years old when my grandmother told me what it was. I haven't eaten anymore of that since then and I can't imagine how I could have liked the taste of that lump of fat all by itself back then.


Yakitori Chicken Meatballs @ Kokekokko