Giant Robot Store and GR2 News
It's rare to have an event for Japanese Americans like this. Usually it's a function that's pseudo religious, funeral, or memorial. This is just a straight up networking event
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On Sunday, my birthday came and went. At a certain point, they don't mean that much anymore, except on paper. Here's an example. Of all possible gifts, my driver's license expired which means, enjoying a long line at the DMV at some point soon. I've been clean behind the wheel for the last decade and now they want me to go in and replace my photo and take a vision test. A few asked what I did. In a nutshell I usually answer with, “it's was ok”. Lunch with parents, the tennis courts, and then dinner. Most replied with, “that's a great day” and it was. The true kick ass moment is seriously Facebook, Twitter, and even text messages. I'll guess I had about 300 best wishes come through the various social networking platforms. It started Asia time, Euro time, and then the East Coast, followed by the West Coast. My birthday, more powerful in cyberspace than in real life was lasted more like 36 hours, but then even today, it continued and the belateds came through. I'm not sure what's better: The perceived raging birthday via the internet vs the real thing which was relatively benign and much less congratulations. At this point, we're going to be living with both. I wish I knew how to bridge the gap.
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At 2AM the idea of seeing the Perseid meteor shower came into mind. 40 minutes later, the Brothers Rios came over, picked me up, and were on our way. Los Angeles, at least the westside of it was covered in marine layer. It was grey, so the answer was to leave LA and get elevated. It's hard to see what I really got from these photos, but I brought a tripod and a cable release. I learned a few things about exposing photos of stars in the sky, and you can see the differences between some of the photos. But first, being out in the dark sky was amazing. The black sky, the stars, and when they shoot across the sky, it's amazing. About one every 30 minutes or more will light up the sky, but there's actually more than one a minute, sometimes, a few in a few seconds. You can see these photos larger on flickr. I figured a frame of reference makes for a better photo than just stars in the sky. Afterall, you can get that anywhere. The bright lights in the background was a street light, and you can see trucks going over the 5 freeway.
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No photos. No frills. Not many blogs. But here it goes again. Tonight, a great night to be, was supposed to be a softball game and it turned out to be a horrific wipeout. 0-15. The game lasted about 30 minutes perhaps, and more time was spend warming up than actually holding the bats. The team we played was the greatest we've faced. They've been playing for a while at a high level and got hits at will. In just a bit of time, our season was over. The team we played tonight might not be all that smarter, but they just hit well. Age can actually beat talent, but tonite, a cumulative talent of basehitting firepower beat us.
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A bit of preparation! The show went up in a hurry and these look great. From the streets to a spot on our walls. The bears are back. This is just one wall. There's plenty of other pieces as well on the other wall. 35 in all! Don't forget, it's Phil's birthday tomorrow. A whopping 24 years of age. We'll see you here tomorrow.
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