Lyno's Journal

Digiorno Pizza - Microwave Rising Crust Supreme

The Digiorno Pizza - Microwave Rising Crust Supreme was fantastic! The crust was soft and flaky and and the sauce and toppings were delicious! It took about 4 mins to cook and it looked, smelled and tasted great!

Total score: 4 stars - best microwave pizza ever!

Ghostrider
Ghostrider stars Nicholas Cage in the movie version of the Marvel comic book. The special effects are great! The rest of the movie is not-so-good. Eva Mendes is the love interest but not once do we see her famous posterior. The action sequences were boring as Ghostrider is never really challenged by the bad guys. Nicholas Cage doesn't really act, he kinda points and makes funny faces.

Final score: 1 star - only see if you're a big fan of the comic book.

Camera is alive!
My camera works again! For awhile there I couldn't take any indoors picture due to the flash only doing the red-eye reduction flash without the second fill-in flash. I haven't used the camera for 3 months and whatever wacky setting got set finally reset and everything is hunky dory again. Yay!

Fry's has a sale on a 5 megapixel Panasonic camera with 10x optical zoom and image stabilization for only $227 this week. I would have snapped this deal up if my camera hadn't started working again. I am still very tempted to get it anyways. Decisions, decisions...

Lying Weight Watcher's scale
According to my brand new (2 weeks old) Weight Watcher's scale from Macy's, I weigh 147.9 lbs at the moment. I think it's lying because I weighed 151 lbs just 4 days ago. I need a scale I can trust, maybe it's time to splurge and get a doctor's medical beam scale from Health-o-matic.

New cell phone - Palm Treo 700p
Ordered a new cell phone from Amazon.com, a Palm Treo 700p with a 1-year subscription to Verizon. I've been using it since yesterday after porting my Cingular number over.

Only gripe so far is the inability to sort contacts by first name. I re-entereds my contacts first name in the last name slot and vice versa.

Will provide a more detailed review after I've had the phone longer.

PS: This entry was made from my new phone.

Montana's on a Saturday night
Went to Montana's in San Dimas this Saturday night. It's a 45 min drive from Long Beach, which is the main reason I don't go there. Aside from the drive, the place is really nice. It's on the 2nd floor of a small shopping center and fills the entire floor. The ceiling's are really high, the dance floor is huge and extremely smooth - I kept over sliding during spins and pivots!

I've been there on a Thursday and a Friday night before, but the Saturday night crowd packed the place. There was standing room only outside the dance floor, but the dance floor itself is big enough that you don't get the elbow-to-elbow problem of smaller places like In Cahoots, Brandin' Iron or Cowboy Country.

The biggest drawback to Montana's (aside from being too far away) is the lack of easily accessible water. There's only one bar along the back wall and the crowd is 2-3 deep waiting for one of the bartenders to take their order. The cocktail waitresses are also pretty busy and take about a half hour before they show up with your drink order.

Overall, the place is great and I will go more often whenever I live closer.

Final score: 4 stars - The best dance floor ever!

Sore chest muscles
Did 50 pushups yesterday and now my pectorals and triceps are sore. No particular reason why I did 50 pushups other than some vague notion I should do upper body exercise to match my lower body getting such a workout from dancing so much.

Moral: Work up to 50 pushups slowly, especially when you haven't done 50 pushups in years.

Snowboarding in Mammoth in May
Went snowboarding in Mammoth this weekend. They still have lots of snow and plan to be open until July 4th. The snow was good for the most part, a few places were rough, but no icy patches anywhere. They closed down the Canyon Lodge side of the mountain as well as the terrain park near Rollercoaster, but the rest of the mountain was open.

We got on the slopes around 9:30am and went on every open run 2-3 times. There were few to no lines on any of the lifts and we boarded so much that all of us were beat after 4 hours of almost non-stop boarding. Went back to our cabin, ordered pizza and watched Eurotrip, a funny teen sex comedy.

I had a severe headache from dehydration and too much blinding reflected sunlight and called it an early night, going to sleep at 9:30pm (inconceivably early if you know me at all). Woke up at 4:30am to take a really long pee, woke up again at 6:30am because I was freezing, put on a shirt and found another blanket, then finally woke up at 8:30am to pack up by the 10am checkout. Traffic back was light and we got home in 5 and a half hours.

All-in-all, it was a good weekend.

PS: I now kick all sorts of ass at Metroid Pinball for the Nintendo DS.

Oil filler cap
My missing engine cap is called an oil filler cap. Now I know not to forget to screw that damn thing back in after adding oil to my car.

Went to the Nissan dealer this morning, they did not have my oil filler cap in stock and would have to special order it, it'll get here Wednesday. I called Kragen, they have 2 in stock, $8.99 each.

Moral: Check your local auto parts for replacement car parts first before going to the dealer.

Car problems
When your engine has an oil leak, DO NOT forget to replace the engine cap after adding more oil. I hope the dealer keeps engine caps in stock.

Hitmen update - Winter 2005 and Spring 2006
The Hitmen are the Winter 2005 Long Beach Men's League Champions, go Hitmen! The first playoff game was won with a gritty come-from behind victory after being down 1-9 to eventually beat Jemstar. The Hitmen went on to crush the Swingers in the Championship game.

The Spring 2006 season started last Friday. It was freezing cold and we only had 8 players. Despite being down 2 players, we were still up by 3 runs the top of the last inning when our defense broke down and we allowed 11 runs. This wouldn't have been so bad, but then the next 2 batters pop out and the last batter strikes out looking. Not an auspicious start for the defending league champions.

Final score: Hitmen 17 - Bombers 25

Happy Birthday to me
Happy Birthday to me, yay!

Today I worked, and now I have class from 7-9, afterwards I will have fast food dinner. I know you're jealous.

This Friday is our softball playoffs and various people (women) have given their committment to be there. Everyone's invited! Come cheer us on to our first Championship as the Hitmen! Go Hitmen!

Afterwards, we will grab dinner somewhere in honor of my birthday. Presents not required.

Notes:
The games will be at Pan Am Park (just south of the Lakewood Mall). First game starts at 6:30pm, 2nd game at 7:45pm, Championship game at 9pm. Directions, stats, etc are on the Hitmen website: http://lyno.org/gametime

Hitmen vs Boomba Brohams and Swingers
It's been a little while since the last Hitmen update. We were 7-1, on a 3 game win streak, heading towards the last 2 games of the season. We've pretty much clinched 2nd place, while the Cougars have clinched 1st place.

Game 9 was against the Boomba Brohams, the 4th place team. Things didn't look good when the starting pitcher and shortstop called saying they were going to be late due to traffic. This was confirmed when we gave up 12 runs in the 1st inning. We only gave up 2 runs an inning after that, but the damage was done and we were unable to make up the defict.

Game 9 score: Hitmen 13 - Boomba Brohams 22

Game 10 was last night against the Swingers. They're a good hitting team who is currently in 5th place. They needed to beat us AND have the Boomba Brohams lose in order for them to make the playoffs. The entire team showed up on time, all except defense. We gave up 9 runs in the first inning. We need to stop doing that, especially for the playoffs next week.

Game 10 score: Hitmen 19 - Swingers 22

Underworld: Evolution

Underworld: Evolution is the sequel to Underworld and stars the delectable Kate Beckinsale as a vampire trying to keep her love interest (Jeff Speedman) alive against those that would kill him. The history of the war between her clan (Death Dealers) and the werewolves (Lycans) is also explained a bit, but mostly it's about Kate kicking ass and Jeff getting his ass kicked.

Unlike the original, this movie actually feels like a vampire/werewolf movie. The action is also non-stop with minimal plot to slow things down, making this a pretty good popcorn movie.

Final score: 3 stars - Kate Beckinsale is hot! If only that Jeff Speedman guy wasn't in the way during their love scene...

Snowboarding in Park City, Utah
Going snowboarding in Park City, Utah this weekend. Will be there from Friday to Monday. Just got to our cabin and can't wait to go snowboarding tomorrow morning. The snow looks awesome in the light of the full moon.

Hitmen vs Jemstar
The Hitmen played against Jemstar, the other 4-1 team in the league on Friday. Things started off a little rockily with Jemstar scoring 5 runs in the first inning, but then the defense came alive and only allowed 2 more runs the rest of the game. The offense came in spurts, but was enough given the terrific defense.

I went 3-3, all singles. This is fine with me since our best player bats right after me and will usually drive me home with a homerun or extra base hit.

Final score: Hitmen 13 - Jemstar 7

Note:
Next week will be a big challenge as our star pitcher will not be there, nor will 3 other members of the team (me included). We're all going snowboarding in Park City, Utah. Yay snowboarding :)

Hitmen homepage: http://lyno.org/gametime/

Bloodrayne

Bloodrayne is a movie remake of the video game and stars Kristanna Loken (Terminator 3) as a Damphir (half vampire, half human) out for revenge. It also has Michael Madsen, Ben Kingsley, and Michelle Rodriguez. Too bad the movie sucks. The only redeeming feature of the movie is you get to see Kristanna Loken's boobies, but I missed that part since I was using the restroom at the time.

Total score: 1 star - it would have been 2 stars if I had been there for the boobies, but I missed it.

Memoirs of a Geisha

Memoirs of a Geisha stars Zi Yi Zhang (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) Ken Watanabe (The Last Samurai), and Michelle Yeoh (Super Cop) in this movie version of the book (not that I've read the book). The movie was pretty good, with nice performances from Zi Yi Zhang and Michelle Yeoh. It changed my view of what a Geisha is (high class escort and artist) and isn't (prostitute). Also re-affirmed my belief that people with money need better things to do with that money.

Final score: 3 stars - Zi Yi Zhang can be my Geisha any day.

Happy New Year!
Happy New Year everyone!

New Year's Eve was spent shuttling between my aunt's house and Cowboy Country. Managed to take the dance lesson, eat great home-cooked dinner, and make a new friend. Good times.

King Kong

King Kong stars a 25 foot gorilla named Kong and a bunch of smaller people. Kong kicks ass! The rest of the people... not so much. Okay, the girl kicked a little buttocks, but she's no 25 foot gorilla. The beginning is very slow and should have been cut in half. We don't care about the Depression, we came to see King Kong kick dinosaur butt!

Final score: 3 stars - the island was GREAT, the rest of the movie should have been shorter.

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