San Diego Comic Con: Preview Night

Thought this year would be another year I’d miss the Comic Con show as it rolled into town. Not so! A last minute hook up (literally at 4:50pm) with a co-worker had me strolling in SD’s convention center and taking in the sights…and boy, it was sensory overload. I guess preview night is shorter than the other days but everything was going full throttle!

There was so much going on. On one hand it’s a lot bigger than i could have imagined but on the other hand, it was a lot smaller than I thought. I always assumed the panels were conducted in separate conference rooms. Maybe they are but it didn’t look like it. Looked like everything happened on the floor. Crazy costumes already on preview night, so I can’t imagine what people will come up with in the next few days.

unfortunately because i found out so last minute I didn’t get a chance to check out my favorite web comic writer’s booths! the program was pretty difficult to navigate and I wasn’t too sure what companies the web comics were a part of so oh wells. In case you were wondering, favorite web comics include: control alt del, least i could do, questionable content, girls with slingshots, phD, doghouse diaries, saturday morning breakfast cereal comics…at least for my regular rotation.

Before I knew it, it was over…but whew what an experience and what a spontaneous change of events!

**edit: they DO use conference halls for specific panels. i was wondering where they’d shove the hoards of teens lining up for the twilight panel!

Lazy Sunday

Giants at Padres: 11 Innings, final score 4-3!

What a game! Witnessed a pickle, a force out, squeeze, suicide squeeze, double play, stolen bases, errors and learned what a walk off home run means. Speaking of a walk off home run, 24 hours after learning what one is, would hit one in a ILMN friendly softball game the next day. Not a bad way to spend Sunday afternoon.

Summer Days: Del Mar Fair & Diversion Sound Recording

Del Mar Fair:

There was a guy (Ron) selling hair products with an old school barber booth at the vendor store. Had a sign that listed the prices for haircuts followed by “cost of looking awesome…priceless”. Curiosity got the best of me. Best $10 haircut I’ve ever had.

Diversion Sound Live Sessions Recording:

check out Andrew and Derek’s kick starter project here! these guys have some serious ambition and talent to back it up. Wish these guys the best and look forward to working with them in the future. Continue reading →

Chiyori.A: Screen Shots

T.Hong & C.Wong Engagement Video: Screen Shot Teasers

to debut at CEC on Sunday, June 19th. stay tuned!

LA Eats 2011: Father’s Office

1:00 PM
Gluttons? yes. Round 2 Lunch. Eat!

There’s something about this place that makes people salivate as soon as you bring up Father’s Office. Don’t know when it started and up until today, didn’t know why.

Not far from Langers but in an entirely different neighborhood altogether, Father’s Office is in quite a nice area called Culver City. I thought it was downtown. nope.

A bouncer checks ID’s at the door (you have to be 21+ to enter) and all waiters have the restaurant’s initials on their shirts with a big bold…F.O. I can’t help but think the bartender’s telling me F*** Off. I order at the bar and take a seat wherever there’s a spot. At 1 pm it isn’t too crowded, parking and seating isn’t an issue.

The menu is as limited as their beer selection is expansive. Every where I turn I see people eating the same thing. The Office Burger. This place doesn’t seem to customize the burger toppings for anyone. It comes prepared one way, and apparently it’s a way everyone here loves. We get ours medium rare.

There’s a caveat with this post. My friends have made some bomb burgers over the years. I’ve yet to eat a restaurant burger that comes remotely close to a home made bacon infused beef patty burger fresh off the grill. So that being said I went in with an open mind but skeptical that it’d live up to its hype. Keep in mind we just had a pastrami sandwich less than 90 minutes ago and that was fresh on our minds and palates.

It was…pretty good. Caramelized onion with bacon on a patty, various types of cheese, and leafy greens on a mini baguette. The bread comes a bit greaser than I’d expect (the bun glistens in the photo below). It’s better than any burger in recent memory than I’ve had in any other restaurant. I can see why people rave about it. The patty is really soft and juicy. my vocabulary is short and limited.

Is it better than a home made bacon burger? A.Wong, M.Chung and I came to consensus that it came pretty close…but not quite. If we had came with empty stomachs and had to wait 30 min, this burger would have tasted like a mound of heaven. But then, I think that’d be true for most burgers, so that doesn’t count. Maybe it’s unfair to pit a restaurant burger against a home made recipe…but on the other hand maybe that speaks to how good this place is, if it can cause me to debate that. At $12 a burger and ~$7 for fries it gets in to the hefty $20/person range for a meal.

Still. If I were in the area and had time to drop by for a burger, I probably would again.

First dropper-byer of LA Eats weekend! Big Jon took a break from tracking at Paramount Studio’s nearby to say hi and order some burgers. 8…to be exact. Some hungry mouths to feed back in the studio. One of his clients came out too, challenged Big J at HORSE. funny girl. she’s gonna get creamed.

the office burger & sweet potato fries

LA Eats 2011: Walt Disney Concert Hall

photo by Simplytwo.com

photo by Simplytwo.com

11:45 AM

A while back I was browsing through S2’s blog and was curious about the building seen above (entry here). I’d heard of the Walt Disney Concert Hall when I read the Soloist and wanted to see it in person. Thought we’d swing by and have our tourist moment. Plus we needed to walk off the pastrami calories from Langers before round 2 of lunch.

Unfortunately the concert hall was closed today and no tours were scheduled, would have been interesting to take a look inside. Outside was really interesting. Little nooks and crannies led to pathways and viewpoints around the concert hall. If we only we could play fugitive: los angeles edition…oh the fun to be had.

M. Chung rocked a vintage 35mm film Nikon with 50mm 1.8 lens and I with my t2i 35mm. The highlight of our shooting exercise came when Mike pulled out his iPhone and began taking panoramic shots with his Photosynth app. It stitches your panoramic shots together instantly! Way cooler than anything we were shooting…

“Hey, meet us at…uh…mmm. You know what, forget about it”

Mother’s Day Weekend: the Cottage

the cottage

A beautiful recommendation from my sister, we decided Mother’s day would start off with a bang. Tucked away in a corner of La Jolla downtown is a nice little restaurant that sells great breakfast. My sister had previously been here with some friends and gave it raving reviews.

They do not take reservations so we made sure to arrive a bit early in anticipation of the mother’s day line. Surprisingly, there really was not too many people waiting and we were seated after ~20 minutes. On a side note, we noticed quite a few mothers being celebrated…brought a smile to my face.

The menu is pretty simple, there aren’t too many dishes to chose from. We settled on a Tuscan omelette and a Baja Chicken Hash. The portions were large enough for two dishes to be split and the Cottage staff was pretty nice about splitting up the plates for us. If the portions seem smaller in the following pics, they’re half sized.

All in all a very nice, quiet, professional place. We never felt rushed or super cramped. There’s good ambient noise but never felt like I had to raise my voice or anything to speak. Coffee was organic and had a more muted taste (said mom and sis) and we really appreciated not feeling like we just ate a tub of lard. Felt healthy.

Baja Chicken Hash

Tuscan Omelette

Mother’s Day Weekend: Point Loma Seafood and NTC Promenade

With a relaxing weekend ahead, my sister thought, “let’s do a picnic”! Seafood + serene surroundings of a relatively little known area should make for a peaceful afternoon.

Point Loma is a beautiful part of San Diego that is home to a lighthouse with a stunning view, a Nazarene University, tide pools, Rock Church, 5 guys, a naval training center and so much more. It really is a gem of SD. At the NTC park there are such wide expansive fields with such few people on saturdays, future events here for sure. Continue reading →

Mother’s Day Weekend: Home-made breakfast

This year my sister and I decided to switch it up from previous years. due to scheduling conflicts, we decided to fly mom down and make it a mother’s day weekend mini-cation in San Diego. A special weekend for a special mum!

It was going to be good…we’d get to spend some quality time with mom in sunny San Diego. too bad the sun decided not to poke it’s head out this weekend. no matter. here’s a recap of the weekend.

many thanks to J.Chen for lending the waffle maker. J.Lee and J.Wu for helping out and making it awesome!

breakfast menu:

eggs

waffles

fresh strawberries

bacon

strawberry jam

banana/strawberry/orange/mango smoothie

Mother's Day Weekend: Home-made breakfast

J.Wu made the strawberry jam on the far left. hit of the morning!

image courtesy of L.Hui

mom brought oranges picked from our tree back home

Five Guys

Bacon Cheeseburger and Five Guys Fries: 2 patties, tomatoes, lettuce, grilled onions and mushrooms

Word got around that new burger joints were springing up around the west coast. There was one right outside the Rock so we figured we’d give it a shot.

These guys really seem like they want to make a strong impression. Adorned on the walls are mini-banners and news/magazine articles all screaming high praise from various publications across the nation. At a certain point it felt like they wanted to convince me by showing their credentials instead convincing with their food. But I’ve yet to try something, let alone order. Oooh, free peanuts…a nice touch.

The menu is relatively basic but with much more options than In-n-Out. They even have a “little” version of their burgers which are a little cheaper. Toppings galore! Wow. lettuce, pickles, grilled onions, mushrooms, jalapeno and green peppers, various sauces. You can have it all too, though I’d doubt anyone would want all those sauces on the same burger.

Fries come in 2 types: five guys, which is a slightly salted version, and cajun fries. a little more on that later.

As I walked up to get my food i noticed the guy behind the counter putting my cup of fries in the bag (all food is served in brown paper bags). I remember thinking, “Man, I should have ordered the large fries” but just as I was thinking that the guy takes another big scoop of fries from the trough and fills the bag. oh dang…that’s a lot of fries!

old school fries. love them. never been much a fan of in-n-out fries. J.Chen got the cajun fries. SPICY. okay not really, but for a spice neophyte it is a bit over powering.

there’s a lot to like about this place, but most of us from Cali are pretty spoiled by the in-n-out culture. freshness isn’t a new option to us, it’s a necessity. This place is a nice break if you’ve been running up the times you’ve had In-n-Out lately. the choice of options will appeal to many and it does taste like a freshly home made burger. Which some will really like, and some will find it hard to stomach paying this much for.

check it out if you’re in the La Jolla UTC or Point Loma NTC area!

KREPTONIC

telling stories the best way I know how

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