andyrak

Read a news article about a well-known enka singer (小林幸子) employed a 3-tons setup this year's Kohaku. Did a little research and found this video. Quite an eye-opener XDD



The 3-tons setup she used this year in Kohaku



Amazing stuffs XDD

(Image source: http://karigurashi.jp/)

Another movie from Studio Ghibli. One more thing to look forward to next year :)

Official Website: http://karigurashi.jp/

**Not directed by Miyazaki

The name of this restaurant described the quality of Chinese food in Hong Kong. XD

(double posting from my public blog)

Eat, Eat, Eat, Eat...

That are tons of great food in Hong Kong. You can buy materials from local markets and cook it yourself or you can go to pretty much any restaurant and enjoy really high quality cooking. Once you have you first meal in Hong Kong you'll LOVE the city (and no don't go to McDonald's) XD


Shanghai cuisine is very popular in Hong Kong. You can find them anywhere (there are at least 3 restaurants serving Shanghai cuisine near my house)

There are a couple main differences between Chinese food in Asia and Chinese food in the United States. Firstly, fresh meats (aka. live animals) are available in local markets. Chicken and fish (and most seafood) are still alive in the market. Butchers kill them for you once you purchase the item. Secondly, there are many chefs from main land China and Taiwan who have been cooking Chinese food for generations and have all these secret recipes. This magically make the food taste good :D


Not sure what's the name of this type of fish.. Fresh from the market

Thirdly, most restaurants use a lot more oil in cooking than in the US. A single serving of beef-fry-noodle might contains 10+ tbsp of oil. And that, although make the foods taste better, might mess up your stomach if you are not used to it.


Herbs and Chinese medicines are added to many type of soups (to aid digestion, help your skin, etc etc...)

My stomach started complaining on the 3nd day of my trip thanks to the "beef-fry-noodle" and my sudden 4-meals-a-day diet. I guess it's never good to over-do things haha. The doctor told me to not eat "greasy, cold, raw and/or too much" food and I lol'd cause I did them all during the first 3 days of my trip! Fortunately it only took me two days to recover and it didn't affect my trip much.


Dried sea horses and sea dragons... probably soup material?

That's it for now about food in Hong Kong. Definitely worth a try if you are a fan of Chinese food!

My 1 year old nephew Joshua from the Bay Area who keep calling me grandpa...

(double posting from my public blog)

After 2 weeks of telecommuting from the Bay Area tomorrow is finally the first day of my Hong Kong trip. I haven't been back home for 3 years and I'm sure a lot have changed since my last visit. The temperature is still very warm (around 83 degree) over there so I guess it'll be like summer again.

Aside from shopping and visiting friends and family, I'll probably check out a local cosplay event called HKU cosplay party during my short stay in Hong Kong. Can't wait for some cosplay-culture-shock XD


The amount of HK money I'll bring with me to the airport (~ $87.73 USD)

Last weekend my friend Tyson and I did a causal photo shoot. We decided to showcase Tyson and his handsome dating partner Lexus IS 300

( Dating 101 (large images) )

FYI, the "mystery date" in the last shot is REALLY gorgeous XDD

Special thanks to Leilany and Tyson for being our awesome models and Billy for assisting with our lighting!! For more information of this shoot please check out my public blog.

RIP Yoshito Usui

... another random update, with a transformable Optimus Prime cosplay from Asia :)

It reads "Optimus Prime" on his costume (image source: komica)

So sadly our coworker Kevin didn't win Big Brother this season. Although he didn't win the half-million dollar price he still got $10K to take home with so I guess it's still good ^___^) He is currently  in Vegas partying like crazy!! I can hardly wait to seeing him in the office next week ^^

Our next TV-star coworker is Cheyne Whitney! This awesome friend of us is gonna be in Amazing Race this season!! To be honest I have never watched Amazing Race and I don't even know how much you can win but Goooooo Cheyne!!!! @D@)/~



Seriously, do they have a cosplay-reality show that we can all join in??? XDDDD

Run into this cosplay picture of Charie the Unicorn this morning XD

(image source: komica)

I am sure most of you already seen Charie before but if you haven't you gotta check it out!! I LOL'd everytime I see it XDD


On a side note, our coworker Kevin is in the FINAL THREE of Big Brother this season! We'll know whether he wins the half-million dollar price by tonite!

GOOOOOO Kevin!!!! \(@D@)/~~

Since I BSed typed too much on my public blog I'm gonna keep it short here ^^;;;

With helps from my Bay Area buddies I was able to execute 2 photoshoots during my short stay in NorCal. One of them was with Nadia (pho3nix )in her Perona costume from One Piece. This character is a gothic-lolita ghost princess with the special ability to split up into many ghosts in combat. The only weakness of this ghost princess is the fact that her true body remains unconscious and vulnerable during her summon of ghosts. For more information of this character please check out the One Piece Wiki.

The shoot is about the Perona and her "Wonders Garden". On the technical side, Multiple exposure was used on all of these shots to help portray the character. (instead of yoga XD)

We did a total of 7 setups, excluding omake. 1 was dropped since it wasn't helping the theme. m(_ _)m

( Moonless Garden )

Thanks a lot Nadia for being the model and my friend Raymond for helping us out on the shoot!! ^___^)
For more info on our Perona Cosplay shoot please check out my public blog entry.

Wow WTH our coworker Kevin is actually doing pretty good in Big Brother. He is currently one of the final 5 contestants and is the current HoH (Head-of-Household)

Dude KC, what you gonna do if you win that $500K (@D@)/~

You can find episode of Big Brother on the offical website

Pretty random post...

1. Baby kitten found in backyard this morning ^__^)


2. Missing SDCC but finally catching up on work. Glad to know that everybody had fun!! Can't wait to see pictures ^___^)

3. Gonna be telecommuting from the bay area till the 19th August to take care of some passport renewal + work.

4. Finally finished re-watching Neon Genesis Evangelion. Definitely a classic!! Personal favorite are "Death and Rebirth" and "the End of Evangelion". Can't wait to do some Eva shooting ^__^)

5. Gankutsuou was very goooood! A very creative way to bring a classic to the world of anime. ^^

LOL I've been soooo behind on Project Runway and American Next Top Model but I'm checking out a reality show I've never even heard of until recently... Big Brother. It's because one of my awesome coworker is on it this season XDDDD:



Goooo KC!~~ What a nice way to spend your vacation man XDDDD

It was so much fun shooting with Mel and Jazzy on Sat in Anime Expo! ^___^

They were cosplaying Dio and Lucciola from Last Exile and they did such a wonderful job portraying the two characters. The creators of Last Exile loves to name characters in Italian so Dio translates to "God" while Lucciola translates to "Firefly" (or "bitch", according to one of my Italian friends XD)

The two boys were two very very close friends (supposedly a master-and-servant relationship) and they were ALWAYS being seen together in the series. The characters development of the show was pretty good at first but unfortunately they rushed thing out towards the end and didn't focus enough on each of the characters (including Dio and Lucciola)... sigh >.<)

The photo shoot was relatively short. We did a total of 6 setups (dropped 1).



( God and his firefly (+5) )

Special thanks to Kevin and SuperNo1 for helping me out with strobes and Tony for letting me borrow his flashes!

And thanks Mel and Jazzy! It was soooo much fun shooting with you girls^^ Can't wait to see you girls in the next gathering/shoot/convention ^___^)!!!

Tony and I got together to prepare for an upcoming project. We pulled out all our strobes and play around with different lighting setups.



1. Gold reflector (Westcott)
2. 42" half a shoot-through umbrella w. Nikon SB 800 (the other half covered by the black cover)
3. shoot-through umbrella w Canon 580EX
4. 42" shoot-through umbrella w. Nikon SB 800
5. Honeycomb grid Toilet paper
6. Charles Francis Xavier Professor X

Picture unrelated, but man I really starting to like the effect of bounce-umbrella! Can't wait to put them in action ^^

... OK back to work XDD

Our company is hosting a photoshoot for a national LGBT print campaign set to run in New Mexico, Maine, California & Nevada. The model casting started last week so I set up a simple audition room for the casting. Very simple, really XD

1. attaching my paycheck to the strobe to block off light leak



( The Simple Studio )

It was quite a fun experience XD! If anyone of you guys are interested in modeling for the campaign please drop me an email. We'll be doing open audition tomorrow and Wednesday. The actual shoot will be on Thursday (2009/6/4) carried out by the amazing American Next Top Model photographer Trevor o’shana and myself. It's gonna be fun I promise XDD

Here is the official Ads:
http://rescuescg.com/vergephotoshoot/

The first photoshoot I did in Fanime 09 was with Mel and Nadia in their Reyson and Leanne costumes. The two beautiful herons are from the game Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. Their outfits were extremely stunning kudos to them!

It was a lot of fun to carry out this shoot with Quito. I was able to execute 2 setups for Leanne, 2 for Reyson and 1 group shot.



( Pictures under the cut )

Lots of thanks to Jazzy and Philip for helping with the lighting!! They were the one who created the sunset beam in shot #2-6 and to say the least the sun was quite heavy to hand-held XDD

Quito's shots can be found from his flickr. Hope you like our images! Can't wait to see you guys in AX ^^