Happy Halloween!

Hi! Hopefully y'all have been able to read entries below about the Las Vegas trip. If not, then here's a quick synopsis:

Jerry forgets PSP at home, Nick and Jerry land in Vegas and take a long taxi trip to hotel, visit Hoover dam and walk to Arizona for 2 minutes, leave to go eat dinner and stand up a reservation for a $165/person restaurant, see Cirque du Soleil, wake up the next morning and go to strip again, purchase jeans for Nick, purchase chocolate for Jerry, walk around a long time, and then leave for LA.

Ok, now that you're caught up, we can talk about Halloween. I carved a pumpkin last weekend, but it didn't survive until today. Over the weekend, it got moldy and squishy, so I threw it away. Anyway, the picture below is of the pumpkin:



I thought it was cute, but only Nick and I are the only ones who got to see it in person. I was going to put it out on the balcony, but Nick didn't like that idea for some reason, so left it inside for a week. Next time, it's going on the balcony so that I can feel that my efforts aren't for naught.

Today was the Google Halloween party, and people dressed up 'cuz there was a costume contest. I wanted to be original, so I asked Merak what I should dress as, and she said that it would be cool if I went as a fridge. I mulled it over for a few days, and on Sunday, I decided to go for it. So Nick and I went to the arts and crafts store to buy white wrapping paper, a pair of really big scissors, and some sharpies. It took a while, but we taped and wrapped up a a cardboard box with the wrapping paper. Then I had to go to my many Martha Stewart magazines and clip out pictures of anything that could be put in a fridge. Unfortunately, this meant a lot of vegetables and salad dressing for the fridge section, and ice cream for the freezer, but whatever. We glued it onto the "fridge" and taped on some doors...Nick screwed in some handles that were leftover from when we were remodeling our kitchen, and then I added some take out menus, a shopping and a to-do list, and Nick wrote up a fake programming assignment.

First, is the picture of me from the back and side:

This is the front of the fridge, with the doors closed:

And finally, here's the picture of the front of the fridge with the doors open:

If you look at the top left hand portion of the fridge, you will notice a cat...yes, it is a cat...I had a bunch of white space and needed to fill it up with something, so I thought a cat would suffice.

Anyway, we had a parade of costumes at work. There were a lot of people dressed up, so it took a while to get through all of us. Now, walking with this fridge was difficult because it goes past my knees. While getting ready for the parade, I needed to walk upstairs to the front office, and then present myself as I walk back down the stairs with some grace.

After the votes were cast, the results were announced and well...I didn't win, or even win runner-up for any category. It was disappointing, but I guess it doesn't help when only like 8 people in the office know my name, and it also doesn't help that the others had great costumes. There was "girl in a shower," "chaotic Christmas tree (complete with lights)," "rubik's cube," "iPod commercial silhouette," and "plastic foosball man." It was very entertaining, and I guess there was a bigger turnout this year than last, so everyone was happy. A lot of photos were taken of the event, but I don't know if they'll be posted. If they are, I'll let you all know.

And that's all for us. To all those who are working on your screening papers...Nick and I wish you the best!

Jerry Liu

Las Vegas (Part 2)

If you haven't read the first part of our trip below, please do so before reading this entry...unless you don't mind reading in non-chronological order.

So after our trip to Hoover Dam, we still had a few hours before we needed to head to the strip to see Ka, one of the newer Cirque du Soleil shows. We decided that we wanted to dinner on the strip, and because Las Vegas has tons of restaurants to satisfy any appetite. So we looked around and after some debating, we settled upon a nice sounding French restaurant located in the MGM Grand, which, coincidentally, is where our show was. So we drive there...Nick thought he knew what he knew what the directions were to get to the strip, and I believed him. Turned out that he actually got on the wrong freeway, but we managed to get back on track and reach the MGM Grand with plenty of time.

It was about 7:40 when we arrived into the main casino area of the hotel, and since our reservation wasn't until 8:00, we decided to find someplace to purchase some advil for Nick's mild headache. It took a while, but we were able to find a store that didn't sell high end clothing or frozen margaritas from a chic-looking slurpee machine. We then decided to go back to the restaurant, and on the way, I somehow found myself in front of a slot machine (really, it wasn't on purpose at all...I just needed to rest my legs...in front of a slot machine :)). So I did some light gambling (aka: money squandering) and gave up and proceeded to the restaurant. Before we went in, I decided that I wanted to take a look at the menu to see how much things cost. The website we looked at only had the pre-set menu, but no price. Anyway, it was a good thing that we didn't go straight into the restaurant and get seated 'cuz the price of the meal (excluding tax, tip, and alcohol) was $165 per person!!! Nick and I sooooooooooo weren't paying that much for dinner, so we basically stood up the restaurant and went somewhere else for dinner. We remembered that we had passed by a nice looking Chinese restaurant during our search for Advil, so we went there instead. The food was excellent, if not excessive...we were very, very full afterwards. It took a while for our food to arrive, which worried me because we did have a show to get to. But it all worked out in the end, and the cost of our bill was lower than the price of one person at that French restaurant.

We then proceed hastily to the Ka auditorium where we experience the joy of finding our seats. Actually, it wasn't that difficult...the ushers told us the general direction that we needed to go in and we were able to figure it out from there. What was really funny was that the two women who sat next to us were the same two women who sat next to us at the restaurant. I don't know what the probability is of being seated next to the same two people in a restaurant and then in a show is, but I can't imagine it being very high.

(If any of you are planning on seeing Ka, or would rather not read about the show, please skip the next few paragraphs. I'll let you know when you can resume your regular reading with a line of asterisks)

The auditorium was decorated in this sort of grim futuristic mechanical mining world (I have absolutely no idea how to describe it). But one thing that Nick and I were a bit confused about was that there was no stage. Instead, there was a big pit that shot out random blasts of fire. So we were wondering how there was going to be a show if there's nothing to stand on. Was it going to be an all-wire act with people suspended above the audience?

Shortly after this pondering, the show began, and our question was answered. We see the actors being raised up from below on top of this incredibly complex stage. Nick, being a nerd, was admiring the mechanical engineering of the stage since it was being lifted by two hydraulic lifts. Not only does it go up and down, the stage can actually go from being the floor of the stage to becoming perpendicular to the ground where it acts as a wall. The creators of the show used this stage magnificently throughout the show by incorporating it into every scene and projecting various images to make it look like a boat to an icy cliff.

The performers were amazing and the music was dramatic. All in all, it was a great show and was worth the cost of the ticket price. After seeing this show, we are eager to see the other Cirque du Soleil shows.

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(If you skipped the Ka part of this blog, you can come back now...please? :))

So the show ended and it was after midnight, so we headed back to the parking lot to go home. Little did we know that midnight is the time when everyone leaves. The lot is crowded with cars trying to find the exit, and we were on the floor above the majority of the chaos, so we knew that we would be at the back of the line to get out. We got in our car and joined the long line of cars. At some point during the crawl, I see this woman screaming at this white truck and wondered what was happening. We both figured that the truck cut the corner a little too closely and hit the back corner of the screaming woman's car...and we were right. What was really surprising was that the woman driving the white truck wasn't stopping, which pissed of the other woman even more...so much so that she actually walked in front of the white truck and was forcefully pointing at hood while screaming at the driver. And then I notice another woman next to the hit car screaming as well. The driver finally gets out with a frustrated look (I have no idea why she had that look since it was her fault that she hit the car...did she think that it was OK?), and there was more yelling and screaming. By this point in time, we drove past them so I have no idea what happened in the end, but it was an interesting way to end our night.

The next morning, we wake up and have a really nice breakfast at the hotel. I had french toast with walnuts and banana, and Nick had an omelette with salmon in it...all for prices waaaaaaaay more than anyone should have to pay for such a breakfast, but whatever. Since our flight to LA wasn't until 9:00pm, we had many, many hours to kill, so we head back to the strip so that I can satisfy my gambling addiction. But, my first destination was the Vosges-haut Chocolate shop in Caesar's Palace.

Actually, our first destination was the Lucky Brand jean store in the Aladdin. You see, the night before, Nick realized that his jeans had a hole near the crotch area and that he's been walking around with this holey pair of jeans, so we needed to get him a new pair before the hole started to get too big. Anyway, Lucky Brand is the only store that we know of where Nick can find jeans his size, so that's why we went there as opposed to any jeans store.

And then after we got his jeans, we went to Caesar's Palace. Some more slot machine playing happened along the way, and my wallet seemed lighter and lighter as a result, so Nick and I hurried along to the chocolate store before I lost too much money at the slots. The grandiose curved escalator going down to the floor level was broken, so we had to walk down the escalator instead. I don't know...there's something less extravagant about having to walk down this escalator as opposed to simply riding on it. I don't know why it is, but that's what it felt like to me.

We make it to the store where I purchase a few boxes of chocolate to take home with me. The salesperson knew that my flight wasn't for a while, so she bagged the chocolate with two ice packs to keep the chocolate cool. I guess this is something that is a concern for them...it would suck to go home to find that all your chocolate melted. And ice packs are cheap, so it's a great investment for them. Before we left, I asked the salesperson if anyone has ever purchased their cakes for a wedding, and in fact, someone had a wedding the day before and served their cakes for their occassion, so it wasn't an odd thing after all. They also had the mini-cakes on display, so Nick and I got to see them up close, and we liked them. We haven't tasted them yet, but so far, we are enthusiastic about having our wedding cake consist of many of these mini-cakes. So don't be surprised if on your wedding invitation, you see a choice of two cakes: white or chocolate :).

After my chocolate trip, we make our way to the Wynn--the newest hotel on the strip. The price of the smallest room at this hotel for the weekend that we went: $500+/night. Seriously, we were not going to shell out that kind of money for a dinky room...so we walked there to see what the fuss was all about. It was a long walk, but we made it. There's a mini-waterfall near the entrance to the hotel, and inside, the decor is very elegant. Nick says that it is the next generation of the Bellagio. The floor was covered in ornately designed carpet, while on the ceiling, swaths of fabric drooped outward from the center. There was some garden type walkway with hanging balls of flowers in the center of the casino. That inspired me to have hanging balls of flowers at the wedding, but I don't think Nick is too keen on that idea. We walk around even more and take in the over-the-top feel of the hotel, and then leave 'cuz I lost some more money at the slots.

We head to Treasure Island for some reason; I can't remember why we went there, but we did. Actually, they no longer want to be called "Treasure Island." Their new name is "TI." I guess they're trying to create a new image. I decide that I want to play blackjack, and I find an empty table, so I sit down and entertain the dealer. I start off doing poorly, but then I have a string of wins which brings me back to even. The dealer talks to Nick and me and we discuss life in California...and then it's time to rotate dealers. I lose the first three hands with the new dealer and joked that the old one should come back 'cuz I was doing well with him. But then my luck changes again, and I pull back to even with my money. This new dealer, her name is Sandy, told us that at the table behind her, the player kept calling her Sally and didn't know that that wasn't the dealer's name at all. Then we get into the discussion about Sally and how many Sally's we know and whether or not is an antiquated name...and all this time, I'm playing blackjack and winning and losing. In the end (about 30 minutes later), I leave with the same amount of money that I started out with. It was worth it since it kept the two of us entertained and we didn't lose any money during the process. Then we decide to play Casino war where the two of us lost to the dealer. What was really funny was that I ran out of money first, and Nick only had one chip. So if he won, I took that chip that he won and played a hand. And then I lost and Nick won, so I would play the next hand with that chip. This cycle repeated about 4 times before I got a 2, Nick got a 3, and the dealer got a 6.

We were starting to get hungry, so we headed back to Caesar's Palace to eat at the Mesa Grill only to find that they were booked until 8:00, which would be too late for us considering our flight would depart an hour after then. We manage to eat dinner at the Monte Carlo, but found ourselves in a long line for the taxi. For some reason, there were no taxis arriving at this casino, and people were getting really frustrated. But shortly afterwards, a line of taxis arrived, so everything was all right.

We got to the airport and I realize that my earphones were broken. I don't know what I did to them, but one of the ears keeps falling out, so I wanted new ones to replace them. We head to the Bose kiosk where I buy their newest model of Noise-cancelling headphones. They really do block out a lot of sound, and they were really effective on the airplane. It's a good thing too, 'cuz then I don't have to pump up the volume on my iPod...the higher the volume, the shorter the battery life...at least, that's what I've been experiencing.

The flight back home was very, very bumpy. I don't know what it was, but the turbulence was horrible. The descent was incredibly shaky, and at times, the turbulence actually dropped us down a bit...I was incredibly uneasy during this entire landing. We touched down rather aggressively. Nick felt that the plane was coming in a bit faster than normal, which would explain the odd feel of the landing. It takes a while to get to the gate, but we arrive, get off, and then head back home where we immediately fall asleep in order to be ready for work the next day.

And that was our Vegas trip. It probably doesn't sound as exciting as it really was. Now we need to plan our next trip.

Oh, and I guess Planet Hollywood bought the Aladdin hotel, so sometime in the future, it will be called the Planet Hollywood Hotel (or something like that). This means that the current owners will be charging less than normal for their hotel rates since they no longer have an investment in it. So check the Aladdin prices in case any of you are planning on visiting Vegas sometime in the near future.

And now I need to go to sleep. Have a great week everyone!

Jerry Liu

Las Vegas (part 1)

Ok, so I meant to write about our recent Vegas trip earlier this week, but kept forgetting...until now. So here we go:

So we wake up early and get to the airport with time to spare, and this calls for the good ol' Starbuck's breakfast of coffee drink and a pastry. As we sit down, I am thinking about taking out my PSP, but then recall my frantic morning packing, and remember bringing my games, and bringing the power cord, but I can't remember packing the actual PSP. I start hoping that my memory is flawed, but when I look in my backpack, the reality sinks in...my PSP is still at home...and I'm sad.

And then we get on the plane, PSP-less. Nick is all like "it's a one hour flight!" And that made me miss my PSP even more.

And then we touch down in the Las Vegas airport and start walking out. The first thing I see are the slot machines in the middle of the terminal and all the bells and whistles that go with it. Nick quickly forces me away from the machines and guides me to the exit where we find a huge, huge line for the taxis. But we quickly realize that the line is constantly moving, and that we'll be at the front of the line in a short time. We get in and start our trip to Ritz-Calrton, which is located on Lake Las Vegas about 30 minutes away. The taxi driver, who's lived in the area for a while, gave us a brief history of the development of the city. It's amazing how much sprawl there is in the suburbs, and I guess that the property has tripled in value during the past year. Houses which were sold for $100,000 last year are going for $300,000+ now.

After we arrive at the hotel, we check in and are told that the car that we were renting for the day is being cleaned, so we have a couple of hours to kill. First, we head to our room, but get lost trying to find the elevators. We were joking that we were going to spend all that time waiting for the car just trying to find our room. After 15 minutes of wandering, we figure out where the elevator is and proceed to our room...and of course, the first thing we do is investigate the room. First we walk into the main area and look out the window to see what our view is, and we were amazed. The room is located in the wing of the hotel which was created to be placed upon the lake, so our view is of the middle of Lake Las Vegas with the strip in the far distance. The bed is a king, which is good 'cuz Nick'll fit in it. The bathroom is spacious with a separate bathtub and shower. And I just realized that we don't have any pictures of anything.

After more exploration of the hotel and it's surroundings, our car is finally ready, so we head to the front desk and sign the papers for the car and drive to our first location: Hoover Dam. It's only a 20 minute drive full of views of Lake Mead and the twisting road to the historic landmark...Nick actually drove on it on his trip to LA, so he's seen it all before, but I don't think he's actually taken the tour. So we park and pay for the tour. First, there's a powerpoint presentation describing the construction of the dam. The narrator is a local government worker...and his monotony rivals that of my most boring professors. Next, we take a 500+ foot ride down to the generator room and see how Hoover Dam generates power from the waterflow. Continuing on our trip, we go all the way up to the observation deck where we get to see the entire dam and the Colorado River. I think I have some pictures of that, but it's from my cell phone, so the resolution is pretty bad. I'll post them later when I have the time. The rest of the tour was rather boring, so I won't go into that. Before we leave, Nick asks if I want to go to Arizona, so we walk across the dam, reach the Arizona side, stop and look down the dam, and then walk back to Nevada. Now I can cross off Arizona as one of the states that I haven't been in.

And I'll stop there for now...I'll try to continue this weekend when I have some time.

Hope you all are doing well.

Jerry Liu

no more leilani

This morning, I read on the Seattle Times website that Leilani Lanes has been sold to a developer who plans on building an apartment complex on that site. Although I bowled there a couple of times, I am going to miss the place once it closes its doors sometime next March. I guess Nick and I and the rest of the gang should bowl there while we're in Seattle for the holidays.

The only problem now is that the Leilani bowlers are going to move to Sunset, making it even more crowded than it already is. I suppose that we could go to Kenmore, but that feels....well...ghetto. I mean, it is Kenmore after all. What else is there besides Kenmore lanes?

Nick says that he likes work...he must like work 'cuz he didn't get home until 7:30 (he arrived at 9:00). We're trying to see if we can transfer to the New York office during the week of Thanksgiving. We're probably going to celebrate Thanksgiving with Nick's brother and his wife, and he thought it would be better if we could fly in the weekend before and then work the next three days, eat a lot for the holidays, and then leave the following weekend. This is a much better alternative than having to fly cross-country within a span of four days. The only problem is that I might not be able to work there because I'm not a full-time employee, and according to Nick's boss, no contractor has ever asked to be temporarily transferred to another office. Anyway, we'll see what my boss has to say about this proposal.

And that's all I can think of saying right now. BYE!!!

Jerry Liu

Eggs are special

Yesterday morning, Nick and I made some hash browns and eggs for breakfast. We had some leftover potatoes which was what prompted the breakfast menu. I was frying the eggs for Nick, and I broke the first egg on the side of the skillet and dropped it on the hot surface. I broke the second one and dropped it as well and noticed that the egg had two yolks! I had heard of such eggs before, but had never seen one in person before...anyway, we took it as a sign of good luck.

And then I went to make myself some eggs, and after I opened that egg, I noticed that it also had two yolks inside. I'm not sure what the chances of getting one egg with two yolks is, but the probability of getting two such eggs must be very low. And then Nick made eggs this morning and noticed that his egg had two yolks. So of the 6 eggs that came in our carton of eggs, half of them were double-yolked. We hope that means that a lot of good fortune will come our way.

Nick is pissy because we went and bought a new wireless router to replace the one we have now. We went to Best Buy and looked at the numerous routers for sale. Nick decided to buy the cheapest one following the belief of my mom, "if it's cheap and it breaks, throw it away and buy a new one." I now wish that my mom had never said that to Nick because now he is adopting this philosophy...and it backfired. Nick installed the new router after we got home, and both of us are having problems getting any type of wireless connection on our laptops. In fact, our wireless connection is flakier than the router that we replaced. I think we're going to return the router in the upcoming days and then purchase a new one.

I've been feeling a bit sick lately, and I'm not sure what I have. For the past couple of days, I've had some lightheadedness which made it hard to concentrate on much, I haven't had much of an appetite lately, and when I do eat, I become nauseated soon afterwards, and I have mild coughing fits. Nick thinks that it might be a mild cold. Whatever it is, it's incredibly annoying and I wish it would go away. The good news is that I'm feeling better now, so hopefully that means that I'll be at full health when I go to work tomorrow.

...and the Seahawks beat the Rams...YAY!

(the next comment is for the Seattle-ites). Is Gaard Swanson on any of the seattle news stations? Nick and I were watching "designer renovation" and I noticed that Gaard Swanson was hosting the show. I guess this is a step up because now he is part of a national audience, albeit a small national audience, but it's got to be bigger than the number of people watching him doing sports in Seattle.

And now my coughs are back...so, so annoying.

Hi everybody, it's Nick.

Jerry insists that I write more in the blog. I'm not much with the words and stuff. Work is fun. I played foosball twice this week. Both times I teamed with Chandler, aka "twitchy". You might be wondering why he is called that. Just imagine someone with way too much caffeine in his system playing foosball. It's so random. Anyway, first we played Rob and Marija. They're generally pretty good, but for some reason Chandler and I totally kicked ass. It was like 5-0, 5-1, 5-2, and then Rob just walked out without giving us the honor of a fourth game. I felt bad. The next day we ended up playing Steve and Kenny. They totally whooped us. I mean, it hurt. Though we didn't walk out early or anything. :-)

Oh, I saw Affleck outside our building, talking on the phone, pacing back and forth, and smoking a cigarette. I wonder if wifie knows he smokes, especially since she's pregnant and all.

Anyway, it's my bedtime (yes, it's sad, but we wake up early here), so I'll just shut up.

Have fun, y'all.

The death of our e-mail accounts

Hi! I'm not sure about Nick, but I know that my USC e-mail account has been disabled. Fortunately, I have my e-mails forwarded to our home account. I don't think Nick has done any e-mail forwarding, so I'm not sure how any of you are going to contact him via e-mail.

Nick and I just beat the new X-men game for the PS2 (it's available on the other platforms as well). Nick played with Rogue because he likes to "smash things," while I played with Storm and electrocuted and blew away my opponents. It was fun beating up various enemies and abusing the powers in our game. It was a bit short though...I think we finished it in about 15 hours. But it was a very amusing 15 hours. Next up: We love Katamari. If you don't know about this game, you should. It's the sequel to one of the most innovative games released in the past two years. Basically, the King of all Cosmos did something so that the sky now has no stars or planets. So he enlists the help of the "prince" and asks him to recreate the various stars and planets by rolling things up on earth. The more things you roll up, the bigger the star/better the planet/bigger the constellation/etc. (basically, the bigger the better...). The developers of the game had to put in a lot of time with the mundane aspects of the game. Every item that can be picked up is named, and there are something like 10,000 items (I'm making this number up, but it seriously is a huge number of different items). The music is cute and whimsical, much like the game. Our favorite lyric: "I want to wad you up into my life." At least, we think that's what the singer is saying, we could be wrong.

And Nick would like to add that traffic was incredibly good for him going to and from work. My experience...well...it took me almost an hour to get to work, but getting home was really quick.

Nick needs to open his new pack of socks that he bought...they're just sitting on the living room floor. If I see him wearing any more holey socks, I am throwing this pack of socks at him.

And that concludes this blog entry.

Jerry Liu