Stephen Fung DOT NET

I’m at the 2009 E3 Expo in LA

Stephen — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 22:42:51 +0000

Sorry for the lack of updates. I’ve been pretty busy in the last little while and now I’m at the E3 Expo in LA with the Futurelooks Team. The crew is staying at the Wilshire Plaza Hotel in LA and it was going great till we discovered that another media outlet, Area 5 (The CO-OP Video Game Show Guys on Revision3) decided to setup a Mac Pro in their room to upload their videos, sucking up all the available bandwidth. At one point, I saw about 10 MacBooks on the network, probably uploading and rendering video onto that thing. Luckily the connection is far better at the E3 Media Lounge.

Yesterday, we put together a quick video of the things we really want to see on the floor. Check it out:

As you can see, there’s going to be quite a bit more console coverage at Futurelooks at E3. It’s pretty much a Michael Kwan show at this point, but Jason Landals and Eric Garay are both doing their best to find stuff for PC Gamers. Definitely follow Futurelooks on Twitter to see what we’re up to. We’ll also be doing a daily wrap up video so keep an eye on our Fututurelooks YouTube Channel as well.

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An Evening of Fine Dining at DB Bistro Moderne Vancouver

Stephen — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 09:22:36 +0000

This past Sunday I had the opportunity to check out the new DB Bistro Moderne Restaurant. If the location looks familiar, that’s because this used to be Feenies Restaurant home of the famous Feenie Burger and Iron Chef Slayer, Rob Feenie. Rob had a falling out with his partners a little while ago and as a result, he was out and ended up slinging food at the Cactus Club. Although this may seem like a fall from the culinary heavens, it seems that he’s quite happy at Cactus Club but it’s gotta hurt to lose your signature restaurant, Lumiere.

At any rate, someone had to takeover and so they hired world famous Daniel Boulud to revamp Feenies and Lumiere. Although Lumiere is mostly unchanged, the restaurant formerly known as Feenies has been totally redesigned. There’s a patio for the Summer and they’ve really turned the place upscale to match Lumiere. The concept for food however will still be towards affordable fine dining like Rob originally envisioned for that space.

Here’s a look at one of their new menus that I had a chance to sample with John Chow and members of the SIP Social Club. You may want to bring a bib because this video is savoury…

The funny thing about this menu is that it was supposed to be offered to us upstairs at Lumiere. The club had booked Lumiere, but a last minute change sent us packing back downstairs to DB Bistro Moderne as John mentioned in the video.

The food was OK as some of the dishes were definitely not up to par according to the group and myself. We all felt that the Coq Au Vin was merely mediocre, but the Slow Baked Halibut was pretty awesome. No one had the vegetarian option that I’m aware of. Of course, that didn’t stop me from eating everything, but that’s just the way I am. I even had a chance to sample their version of a a high end “Jumbo Mixed Grill” which they called the Alsatian Choucroute Royale. It was definitely smaller than the Kam Do Mixed Grill, but everything is smaller than the Kam Do Mixed Grill.

When it came time for dessert, everyone had mixed feelings but no one raved about anything. I had the Alsatian Apple Tart, but that really didn’t do it for me. The Citrus Lime Floating Island was totally unfulfilling. I guess we really missed Rob Feenie’s famous Creme Brulee.

Overall though, if I saw this menu at Lumiere, I’d be pretty disappointed because I’d expect way better. But since we had it down at DB, I can’t be as harsh because it fit this restaurant. However, the $55 price tag per person was a little high for the quality of what we had. Keep tweaking Daniel and company.

Kingston Technology Gives Futurelooks a Big Upgrade

Stephen — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 04:59:03 +0000

This is definitely one of those times where the saying “If you ask for it, you just might get it” totally applies and then some. In this case, we asked for a small RAM upgrade to one of Futurelooks’ servers (Futurelooks Apache One to be exact). The server has been acting all shades of weird over the last few weeks as traffic has been climbing steadily. After a while it became apparent that the problems were caused by not having enough RAM.

I gave our friends at Kingston Technology a shout to see if they could help us out. I totally expected to pay for the RAM since I would be getting some anyway. I was just hopping for a deal and a couple more gigabytes to keep the machine from dying. Our man over there, Dave, has always offered to help us out with whatever we needed. We’ve just never needed anything aside from the usual review products that we check out on occasion. Instead of giving us what we needed, he went above and beyond and made sure we’d never need RAM again…

So that means we’re going from a measly 2GB of ECC DDR2 to a whopping 12GB’s of ECC DDR2 RAM! Want to see what 12GB’s of RAM looks like going into our DELL PowerEdge 1850 Server? Check out the video below…

Wayne Au from Auphan Software gave me a hand with the upgrade. Despite the fact that he’s successful and busy as hell, he still took the time to help me out with the servers (at 1AM in the morning no less) so I’m really thankful for his generosity. His company builds some of the best restaurant software in the biz (way better than that expensive Squirrel or shady Profitek stuff). That’s why his company has been doing extremely well, converting some huge chains over to his system including Blenz Coffee.

Wayne’s a real standup guy and he only hires the best so if you’re looking for a kick ass POS system for your restaurant, cafe or major restaurant chain and you want something that saves you time and money and stays running 24/7, make sure you check out his company. Also, if you’re looking for some exceptional quality RAM, you have to give Kingston Technology a ring or just find it at your favourite store because it’s everywhere. It’s definitely good stuff and it wouldn’t be in our mission critical servers if it wasn’t. Big thanks to Dave at Kingston for the hook up once again. You guys rock!

The Kam Do Mixed Grill Feast Fest…Festival?!

Stephen — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 01:32:18 +0000

So right after the LG Texting Championships, it was time to head to Kam Do so that we could welcome a new member into the Kam Do Mixed Grill Hall of Fame. As you all know, I’m the only member of this club and it’s tough finding anyone to keep up with me. This event would be called the “Kam Do Mixed Grill Feast Fest…umm…Festival”. At least that’s what John Chow called it which kind of fits seeing as both that name and the event became one big disaster for one Leo Chiang. Let’s check out the highlights in glorious HD!

After enthusiastically decreeing that he would finish this massive meal for immortal men, Leo went out a little too fast, trying to outpace me, making the going tougher than it should have been. As they say in Fast and Furious: Too soon junior. That’s why I never called this a contest because if this was for speed, we’d both be outside puking it all up before the half way mark.

The Kam Do Mixed Grill Challenge requires patience and strategy in order to get the job done. This has served me well for the three times that I’ve finished it (counting this time). Unfortunately, Leo was 300ml and a mango pudding away from joining this most prestigious club. Again, I standalone as the only one that has completed it not once…but three times. Is there a monster meal that you swear nobody could finish? I’d like to hear about it!

2009 LG Canadian Texting Championships - Vancouver Media Challenge

Stephen — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 01:08:08 +0000

Yesterday, I headed out to Richmond Center Mall with our favourite background extra, Leo Chiang for the Vancouver stop of the LG Canadian Texting Championships. This special event was put on for local media and a prize of $1000 was put up for grabs. The winner would get to donate it to a charity of their choice. Also competing was John Chow, Buzz Bishop from Virgin 953 and April Smith from Aha Media. Check out the video below for a taste of the excitement:

Our friend Buzz Bishop returned to win this year’s event with a time of 13:454. The fastest time in Canada was 5:67 so it’s like being the best of the worst. But then again, a win is a win and LG owes Buzz a 10 second car…or that check for $1000 to his charity which is Team Diabetes. Here are the official results from the Vancouver Stop…

As Leo said, he also came to challenge for a spot in the Kam Do Mixed Grill Challenge Hall of Fame. It is true, I am the only one of the Dot Com Pho Crew that has survived and conquered this meal not only once, but twice. Stay tuned for the video to find out whether or not Leo lives or dies.

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