August 2005 Archives

I am a huge fan of Ben Folds. However, his tours don't frequent west coasts (the last time, if I remember correctly, was in 2002). So, I was quite excited that his "Odd Man Out" tour included Mountain Winery in Saratoga, CA. The tour also features Rufus Wainwright and Ben Lee.

This was the first time Hyun and I have been to Mountain Winery. It is on the top of the mountain (or high hills) in Saratoga. It had a wonderful view of the South Bay. It seemed the place hosts many concerts during the summer season. It is an outdoor venue, so it got chilly after the sun set. Personally, I didn't like this type of seatings for Ben's music because you were supposed to dance to the music and get close to the stage (like at Warfield). But the place had pretty much fixed seatings throughout.

The show started at 7 p.m. with the Ben Lee's 30-minute set. I guess it was a bit too early for most people because almost half the seats were empty. And people were still coming in as Ben jokingly said "Please enjoy the filing-in music."

Anyway, surprisingly (maybe it should not be) the crowd was much older than the usual Folds/Wainwright/Lee fans. It must be the location. I am sure the previous night's at San Francisco had a completely different make-up of the crowds.

After a break (for the stage set-up), Rufus Wainwright had his one-hour set. I think I've seen/heard him before. I liked some of his numbers (loved his stage personality!), but overall I thought it was okay. His set lasted about an hour. I noticed that some actually came just for Wainwright because they left after the set.

Then the main show (for me). Ben Folds started solo for a couple of songs and then brought a drummer (Lindsay Jamieson) and a bass player (Jared Reynolds) out for the rest of the set. I really liked this trio set-up. I hope he releases another album with this set-up. He played about half of songs from his new album, "Songs for Silverman" and the rest from his enormous collection. He did play "Army" and the usual crowd-participating numbers (well, it is getting old, but some seem to expect this). He also played a new one (at least for me), a ballade on a Dr. Dre's rap. That was hilarious.

I wish Ben's set was longer. It seemed he was rushed to finish the set in time because he did not even do an encore. The whole show ended about 10:30 p.m.

Maybe I should have gone up to San Francisco... It just wasn't as satisfying as before. Oh, well...

[There's more if you click below. :)]

1498 Isabella Street
Santa Clara, CA
408.247.0745
M: Closed
T-F: 11:30 - 14:30 (buffet only) / 17:30 - 22:30
Sa/Su: 12:00 - 14:30 (no buffet) / 17:30 - 22:30

Another lunch place in the area. Since I have a lot of Indian coworkers, I've been enjoying many great Indian restaurants in the area.

This place, although marketed as "Indian and Pakistani", is a Pakistani/Muslim restaurant. That is, they serve halal cuisine. They are located near Scott and El Camino Real in Santa Clara off the main streets where you wouldn't normally expect to find a restaurant. But they seem to be doing quite well.

This affordable lunch buffet ($8 per person including tax) menu is quite simple and vegetarian friendly, I think: pickles and salad, dal, a couple of vegetable curries, lamb curry, tandoori chicken and a dessert. Nans (bread) are brought out by the servers.

For me, the favorite is the nan. Most restaurant nans are quite greasy. Here, they are not. Also, they are always hot.

Other items are less greasy, so they are more like everyday menu. Also, the food goes pretty fast, so every dish is brought out from the kitchen constantly and kept fresh. I usually do not like lamb dishes, but I like it here (although often times you find more bones than meat).

The service is... okay. You need to actively ask for more nans and stuff. And during the peak time, you may need to remind them more than once. :)

But otherwise, this is a great quick lunch place. I've only been here for the lunch buffets, but I've heard that non-buffet items are also not bad.

Of course, if you want an authentic Southern Indian (vegetarian) cuisine, you can go to Saravana Bhavan, but that's another story. :)

1505 Space Park Drive
Santa Clara, CA
408.567.9144
M-F: 10:30 - 21:00
Sa/Su: Closed

This is probably my favorite (and the best) Greek place in the area that I know. The surprising thing (at least to me) is that this place is hidden among the boxy office buildings where you would not normally find good restaurants.

I would not have been able to find this place if not for the catered lunch on Friday at work. Most of us thought the food was great and prepared fresh. I had to find out where this restaurant was, and since then it's been one of the favorite place to go for lunch.

Until recently, they were only open during the lunch hours catering to the office workers. They expanded their hours to dinner, but I have not been there for dinner, so I am not sure how crowded it is. I've been wanting to take Hyun there but they are not open during weekends. Oh, well.

You can see their menu online, but I tend to order from the daily specials written on a long paper on the wall. Also, they have a very good selection of vegetarian dishes and desserts.

The decor is more like a casual sandwich (?) place. You order at the counter and they bring out the food. Lots of pictures and stuff about Greece.

Being somewhat of a tech geek, I seriously thought about getting a Lexus RX400h since I have been looking for a larger car and at the gas prices.

However, I gave up when it actually came out several months ago. It was just too expensive for what I was getting. Even the Toyota Highlander Hybrid was significantly more expensive. Although the published mileage was good (~27 highway, ~30 city), but it was not "amazing", and the "real" mileage is often much lower than the "are you for real?" EPA mileage.

Initially they seemed to be selling well: the preorders seemed to be good (I was one of them, though), and it seemed it was difficult to find one on the lot.

Fast-forwarding to several months later, it seems there are signs now that they are not as popular as Toyota has hoped (and as the media hyped). There are reports that some are being sold below MSRP (a couple of thousand dollars below). Also, it seems that the Toyota management has finally realized that there is something wrong with their current hybrid plan.

Today I've read an article by an Australian paper, "Toyota to rethink on 'big electrical appliance'" (free registration required) via Autoblog. It seems the sales of Harrier and Klugger SUVs (respective Japanese names for RX and Highlander) aren't selling well in Japan either. And Toyota is considering revising their current hybrid strategy of putting hybrid drives into existing models, and instead create hybrid-only models.

This really is not surprising considering the sales trends of hybrid vehicles so far. Although there are many hybrid passenger vehicles out in the market, the only "hot" item has been Toyota Prius (still about a couple of months of waiting). Honda's hybrid-"enhanced" existing models (Civic Hybrid and Accord Hybrid) have not been selling well. And it seems the same fate awaits for RX400h and Highlander Hybrid.

So, why is that? Although it may not apply to everyone who bought Prius, but you cannot deny that Prius, with its distinctive looks, is helping the buyer to proclaim to the others that he/she cares about the environment. Without the clearly visible distinction, he/she is finding it difficult to overcome the "hybrid premium" mentally.

Sure, Prius does have a wow factor in the fuel consumption, but so does Civic Hybrid.

Another reason, according to Mr. Hori of Toyota as mentioned in the Age article, if the hybrid option is available on an existing model, it is unavoidable that the potential buyers would compare with non-hybrid models. And when the hybrid models are 20% more expensive, then it just does not become attractive.

It will be interesting to see what would happened to Lexus GS450h and Toyota Camry Hybrid that Toyota already showed at recent auto shows. Will they scrap the plan? Or if they've invested too much already in them, maybe just do a nominal production run? But it is clear we won't see any more hybrid versions of existing models beyond what's already announced.

After reading the article, another idea occurred to me (I am sure it did to Toyota as well). Toyota already has shown that creating a separate brand for a certain segment works (Scion, for example). I think Prius is already close to a brand of its own. So, why not create a brand especially for hybrid (or non-ICE-only) vehicles? I am sure the extra marketing and engineering costs would be there, but I think it just might make sense.

This is probably the first non-textbook physics book I've read since I read The Dancing Wu Li Masters : An Overview of the New Physics and The Tao of Physics in high school in the 80s. At the time, I was so much amazed and awed by quantum physics as illustrated by Gary Zukav and Fritjof Capra that I was pretty adamant about pursuing physics in college. (But then, I found computers! :p)

Anyway, the previous two books (published in mid- to late-70s) mostly dealt with quantum physics, briefly mentioning string theory. And from reading The Elegant Universe on the development history, I can see that the string theory had a long way to go at the time.

This was a fun read although a lot of the technical details toward the end were just over my head. Even without fully understanding the details, Greene's writing was very enjoyable and informative to me, although not quite inspiring as Capra or Zukav (or the Korean translators).

I was finally able to understand how the extra-dimensional spaces are "curled up" tightly according to the string theory, and what the implications and the challenges are for the modern theoretical physics.

I probably won't get to apply or remember much from the book, but I was excited to follow the historical journey of probably the best candidate for the theory of everything.