Interesting Places Near Market Street in San Francisco

Monday, March 5, 2012 Posted by Digital Katsu 0 comments
Westfield Shopping Center
A very upscale mall located near Market & 5th. It reminds me of the nice shopping centers in Nagoya. It had very elegant architecture that future generations would probably infer the place to be of some importance rather than just a mall. 
We also saw a pigeon that lived inside the mall. If I was a pigeon I would prefer the mall as well.

http://www.westfield.com/sanfrancisco
Metreon
The Metreon was not the place I remembered. Most of the building seemed to be under construction. Though, there was a nice IMAX theater located there. Outside of the Metreon was a nice park as well.
 
http://www.westfield.com/metreon
Homeless guy with Ipad
There was a homeless guy outside of forever 21. I assumed he was homeless because he had shoes and a bag of clothes near his stuff. He might just be a street performer that enjoys entertaining for a living. The man had an amp hooked up to a car battery and seemed to be using an app that played a background beat and allowed you to play a bass guitar.
Game Developers Conference
They were setting up for the GDC 2012 when we checked out the Moscone Center. Seems interesting, but the passes on the website are pretty expensive even for student admission.

http://www.gdconf.com/
Parking
We parked in the Tenderloin. There were a lot of homeless and less than reputable looking people, but besides the urine smell we weren't bothered too much. There was someone who wanted to take a picture of us for a couple bucks, but I think he just wanted to run off with my camera. And there was an incident with a beggar asking Lily for money. Lily said to the beggar, "Sorry", but I think he thought she said, "Sorry, I don't speak English". He responded with "Oh, but when it comes to money you understand English". I tried comprehend the meaning of his response, but I concluded that he meant to say "Oh, when it comes to money you don't understand English".
When we were leaving we noticed the birds left Low a present on his car that kind of looked like a cyclops.



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Typical American Weekend... Mall + All You Can Eat Buffet

Saturday, February 25, 2012 Posted by Digital Katsu 0 comments
Ah, our glorious capital, Sacramento. I ventured to this place during my time in Davis, but I haven't traveled back since. It was the only outlet to the vast farm lands of Davis that resembled a metropolitan city.

Anyway, Low decided to take Lily there to check it out because she had never been to Sacramento. I wouldn't call visiting the Arden Mall the quintessential Sacramento experience, but it definitely is an American one. 


After wandering the mall we also visited Old Town Sacramento for about half an hour before going off to the hometown buffet to gorge ourselves.

We had a discount which made our all you can eat experience about 9 bucks with drinks. A pretty good deal considering the regular price is around 10 something without drinks. The food was typical. Decent and filling. I managed to eat about four plates before giving up. I did try to fill up on the more expensive things such as meat, but I love my carbs too much. Take a look at the gallery to see what I ate and enjoy.
Oh yeah, speaking of American experiences I forgot about how the mall is a place that people use to hit on girls. I was sitting with low waiting for lily outside a store when I noticed a group of ghetto guys walking by us. I noticed because it was the second time I saw them. They just kept walking in circles around the mall. I finally found out what they were doing their third pass. They were hitting on girls. They were about 25ish and they hit on a 16 year old girl and her mom (not realizing that she was the girl's mom and they were shopping together). I felt kind of bad because they were pretty aggressive about it. Strange how the world works.
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Wax that Hair

Sunday, February 19, 2012 Posted by Digital Katsu 0 comments
No, not that hair on your lips, bikini line, or your uni-brow, but the hair on your head. Who would have thought that picking the right wax was so complicated. I decided to go for the grunge wax because I don't really like the shine and I want a natural bed head look. Actually achieving the desired results by styling well is another story.

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Feel More Music with Karaoke

Saturday, February 18, 2012 Posted by Digital Katsu 1 comments
Even with a limited selection of songs and sometimes out of sync lyrics, you can't beat karaoke on the cheap at the Fillmore. Happy Hour starts from 3pm and ends at 9pm; during which rooms are half off. $9 an hour for a small room which can fit around 5 people. 


Japanese box room style karaoke sessions are good venues for stress relief, with only a mild chance for humiliation. You are after all surrounded by friends. At least until someone films the occasional disastrous song of you singing your heart out to the backstreet boys and posts it up on the internet. 
(Click any picture and view the Gallery for Videos)

Finished this karaoke excursion with Pho.


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Banderas Still Attracts Puss

Wednesday, February 15, 2012 Posted by Digital Katsu 0 comments
Antonio Banderas plays a suave, Zorro-like feline in Puss in Boots; who also has an attraction to a kitty version of Salma Hayek.


Ms. Meow has a taken a liking to Banderas and Salma on the big screen. She doesn't really care much for Zach Galifianakis playing Humpty Dumpty.
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Kung Hei Fat Choi

Sunday, February 12, 2012 Posted by Digital Katsu 0 comments
"Over 100 units will participate in the Southwest Airlines Chinese New Year Parade. A San Francisco tradition since just after the Gold Rush, the parade continues to delight and entertain the many hundreds of thousands of people that come to watch it on the street..." (http://www.chineseparade.com/)

Take to heart the last part where it states that many hundreds of thousands of people come to watch the Chinese New Year parade because the event was packed more than a store offering 10 TVs for a slightly discounted price on Black Friday. It was crowded going there, crowded there, and crowded going back. It reminded me of the packed train stations of Japan, but not as crowded because here in America we need our personal space.


Interestingly enough people were enjoying the event without too much chaos. Occasionally the pushers and obnoxious people were seen, but they disseminated easily into the vast crowds of people. Getting a good view of the parade when you come during the middle of the event was a challenge in itself. People were climbing trees and trying to get the best possible angle to take pictures and view the parade. I, myself, had to climb a lamp post to get a better angle. A person can always risk pushing oneself into the crowd, but there's always a person shifting their stance so when you take a picture they stick their fat heads in the picture.
Note the quality of the pictures aren't great. In a couple of the shots it looks like there's still light outside, but it was clearly night time. The high ISO settings might create grainy pictures and the movement at night is clearly seen with all the blurriness. It does have an artistic quality to it. Please click on any picture to see the gallery or click here.
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Bigger is Better

Sunday, February 5, 2012 Posted by Digital Katsu 0 comments
New Apex 46" LCD TV and my old Westinghouse 32" TV comparison. The 46 inch Apex makes the 32 inch Westinghouse look like a computer monitor. The Apex has a 106% larger area in comparison with the Westinghouse.

http://www.displaywars.com/32-inch-16x9-vs-46-inch-16x9

I purchased the Apex for $379 + tax with free shipping if desired from Target.com
I purchased the Westinghouse from Walmart for $500in store + tax maybe 4 or 5 years ago.

For my room the 46 inch is about the maximum size that a person would want for the distance away from the TV. The quality is decent on the Apex, but features are a little low (like no picture in picture etc).
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