Happy Birthday Mom and Dad!

My mom and dad have birthdays five days apart. This makes it fun and easy to take them out to dinner to celebrate. They felt like having seafood so we went to The Fish Market downtown. Problem is, when we got there, they informed us that the wait would be at least an hour! Keep in mind that we had called earlier and tried to make reservations, however, they "only make reservations for parties of eight or more". Not wanting to support that kind of (lack of) customer service, we decided to dine elsewhere...

To make a long story short, we ended up at the Harbor House restaurant in Seaport Village. My seared ahi was good, but Jenn's seafood alfredo not so much. Anything fried seems to be your best bet. Check out KC's fish and chips, they were actually as good as they look :)



My dad is so perpetually grumpy that it's a pleasant surprise to see him smiling and laughing. Too bad his birthday happens only once a year :(

Friday Night at the Park

If you ever want to have a cheap date you should consider going to Balboa Park on a Friday night. IMAX films at the science center are discounted to seven bucks on Friday nights, so Denise, Alf, Jenn, KC and I watched "Hurricane on the Bayou", a documentary explaining how the loss of marshes and wetlands along the Mississippi delta contributed to the catastrophic power of Hurricane Katrina.

As we were waiting for the show to begin, we hung out outside of the science museum and were surprised by the biker gang circling the fountain outside. I overheard them saying that they were warming up for their weekly "rally". You can only really make out a couple of them in this picture, but believe me, there were dozens of people on bikes -- BMX, rugged mountain, italian racing, beach cruiser, you name it. I didn't know whether to be intimidated or amused. The idea of a biker gang made up of bicycles rather than motorcycles is sooo.... whimsically retro.



I love the exhibits in the science museum. Wouldn't something like this be a fun thing to have in your house?



After the show, we walked over to the Prado for their happy hour. Appetizers and drinks were about four bucks and the decor in there is so unique it's almost worth it just for that. So, all in all, we spent approx twenty bucks a person for dinner and a show with drinks included. ATTN GUYS: Twenty bucks can barely pay for cover in some places downtown, so this is definitely a steal. Top that!

Karaoke Thursday

Ok, so being Filipino, you know I love me some karaoke. Jon helped me find the perfect place to go when I feel like having a drink and belting out a song or two.

Champ's is the type of local neighborhood dive bar that has regulars who've come in everyday since the day it opened. I love the karaoke here for three crucial reasons:

• Cheap drinks. Downtown karaoke can get expensive; Champs has drinks for half the price of those swankier places.
• Good karaoke equipment and DJ. I love how the DJ here knows to turn down the mic volume for the less, um... talented. Plus his mic is really good quality so it makes most people sound at least halfway decent.
• Not too crowded. There's enough people that you're not just singing to the bartender, but not so many that you won't be able to sing all your favorite songs. The DJ at the Lamplighter won't even play your song unless you slip him a fiver!

This is what the place looks like as you walk in. Yeah, it sorta has a depressing vibe like all other dives, but the karaoke brightens things up.



All those years of high school choir finally paid off!



Jenn and Dee getting down to business. That guy with the crazy 'stache is the karaoke DJ. I should really slip him a five next time, that tip bucket is looking pretty empty.



Jon wouldn't get up and sing unless I asked for the Backstreet Boys (since he memorized the dance moves from the music video). I happily obliged.



Why am I the only one singing?



Good thing Jenn distracted Dee so Jon could pick up on this guy outside.

Butter Cream Yellow...

...Was one of the official colors of the wedding. After the ceremony, DJ A-Rob was on the ones and twos over at the reception area.

After eating, A-Rob got us off our feet and dancing with some banging booty bass (well, more like the electric slide, but whatever).





The wedding party seated at the head table.



Jimmy had one of the funniest and most heartfelt toasts I've ever heard. Omg, look at me laughing like a hyena in the foreground.



Boy, I wish I had some shots from the after-after party in the adjoining rooms that Jimmy and I got for the night. Some of the highlights for those who, understandably, may have a hazy recollection of that evening:

• Toe falling asleep with his hand in the air full of pretzels. Cha, do you have this picture?
• Dee passing out in the car and Jon going apeshit.
• Brent getting wedding fever and telling us how he wanted to get married too. And, yes, Brent, I will be happy to be your best man.
• Drinking Dom out of a red dixie cup.
• Colleen (?) jumping from bed to bed and almost breaking the sliding glass doors. She came back later, did a front flip on the foot of the bed, missed the bed completely, landed on her head/back, and broke her toe. Thanks for keeping an eye on her afterwards, Tate!
  

I'm sure I missed some, so help me out by adding them in on the comments.


Hear, hear! To the bride and groom!

The Best Man

Yes, I was Alf's Best Man. No, I'm not yet a man, but am simply a boy. Yes, I (with Jenn's help) wrote the toast the day of the wedding.

Overall, one of my finest hours. The punch line, for everyone who was there that cares to be reminded: "Years ago, Alf and I had made a friendly wager. In the ambition of our youth, we decided to bet on who would make a million dollars first before we were 30. Neither of us has won the bet yet, but it already looks like Alf is coming out ahead." Yeah the moment was magic.





I felt like we were little kids playing dress-up.







Yeah, we had some fun during the money dance. See the previous post for a picture of the pile of money all this fun resulted in.



One of the drawbacks to being the Best Man.



Enthusiasm is a quality you want your Best Man to have.

Mr. and Mrs. Manglicmot

It's already been six months and I just now got around to posting the pictures from Alf's wedding.

Yeah yeah, I know, wth took me so long? Well, for one, this is how these pictures looked at first:



You see, once Alf got me the link for the photographer's website, I tried the "right click, save image" trick to try and swipe them, but that option had been disabled and I got some pop-up saying the images were copyrighted or whatever.

But you know they can't keep a good brotha down, so I did a screen capture and cropped it down to just the image. Which is what you see here:



Yeah I know. Clever, isn't it? Clever like a fox!

Anywho... One of the things I'm always thinking about when I take photos of people is whether I want them to pose for me, or if I want to try to catch them in a candid moment. Personally, I think I prefer capturing a candid moment when a person can be themselves without being self-conscious of the presence of the camera.

But sometimes, you just gotta get everyone together for some group shots...





This one makes me laugh. What are we all looking at?



No, really, what ARE we looking at? And dammit, who's got the Shocker showing?!



This should be a movie poster or something.



Here are some of the candids. I enjoy how these images look more natural and less forced, so I guess I do prefer candids over posed shots. It's just so dam hard to capture the perfect candid moment though...

This was taken as we were waiting for our turn to walk down the aisle to start the ceremony.



Kicking it with the officiant after the vows were exchanged.



The groomsmen celebrate a job well done.





The Best Man and the Matron of Honor take a breather after the ceremony.



I like the "make people pose and take a picture of them with a different camera" trick. This is a good technique to use when you want a posed shot but wanna make it look semi-candid.



I think this is the above picture taken by the camera we were all looking at.

A Knight to Remember

Michelle invited us to Medieval Times for Brent's birthday and since neither of us had been before and because hanging out with Brent is always a blast, we went up to Buena Park to see what it was all about. Toe had some of his presents from last week's party in our car, so me, Jenn, Jon and Dee decided to pay him a visit too.

***Sidebar: The guys were shooting the bull in Toe's balcony when we came up with a brilliant idea to help us turn the tide in the War on Terror. We resolved to seek diplomatic relations with the Animal Kingdom and enlist the help of an elite cadre of special unit forces known as... wait for it... THE BEARaTROOPERS.

More on this in a future post...***

Anyway, back to Medieval Times...
So, if you've never been, it's like a Renaissance Fair, only with more booze. Well, I take that back. I've never been to a Renaissance Fair, so I'm just guessing, but let's just say the staff encourages refills.

Jon and Dee as we wait to enter the kingdom.



Greg! They don't have cell phones in the middle ages!



Comely wenches greet you as you enter the king's domain.



“The Bears are who we thought they were, the Bears are who we thought they were… Now if you want to crown em, then crown their asses."--Coach Dennis Green, formerly of the AZ Cardinals.
Was he foretelling the coronation (seen here) of Bearatrooper Domil?



King Alphonso II elevates a lowly minion to the rank of knight of the order of San Dumas. (For a $21 fee.)



After the dinner show, they throw on some dance music and start spinning the disco ball in the other room. Here we are trying to figure out what we're gonna do next.



Why is Brent's face like that? You're gonna have to ask him. Happy Birthday Brent!



Overall, truly a Knight to Remember.

Steak Sauce

I shot my first two rolls of film using the Canon A-1. Manufactured in 1984, the A-1 is/was ichiban, or the best, for a 35 mm SLR of its time. Like a fine bottle of steak sauce, the A-1 has aged well with the passage of time. As you can see, the images it produces are still top-quality. I believe what Ben said when he mentioned that this camera was used to take some of the best photos appearing in Time, National Geographic and other magazines of its time.

Not surprisingly, I first chose to point the A-1 at the puppies. These were taken in the afternoon with indirect light through my bedroom window.







To test its durability and ruggedness, I took the camera with me on a hike up Black Mountain with Alf, Denise, Jimmy and Jon. This was also one of the first times Rocky and Baby were let off the leash and allowed to follow me freely as we walked.





Ok, dam, so I just noticed that I'm experiencing some degradation in image quality as I scale the images down so they can fit on the blog. I apologize for this, but in the meanwhile, you may see some inconsistency in the size of the images posted until I settle down on a format that gives the right blend of download speed and image quality. Any suggestions on addressing this issue are welcome.

Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled programming...

A few of the pictures that came out really well at Toe's B-Day bash. If you compare these shots from the ones I took with the pocket digital, you can see that the control of aperture allowed me to mitigate the white wash effect from the flash.

I love this shot of Jenn. Isn't she beautiful? Too bad the focus was a little fuzzy. This could be a wine ad in some magazine.



Another wine ad shot. I'll let Toe explain the tiara...



I set up this shot thinking it would be on the artsy side and I'm slightly pleased with the resulting chiaroscuro effect.



My second roll of film was devoted entirely to Rocky and Baby at OB Pier. I had an errand to run downtown, so I figured I'd take the dogs along for a photo shoot while I was out. It was a little early in the afternoon for the best light to be out, but we did the best with what we could.