The 1 Opinion

Pictures of California Fires - Witch Fire, Irvine Fire, San Diego Fire

2007-10-22T10:41:00.000-04:00

It's October fire season in California ! The dry summers and no rain don't help at all. Today there are two big fires, one in Potrero and one in Witch Creek.

Check out the web cam from Lyons Peak. You can make out the fires in the distance.

Check out some more pictures of the fires.

All the best to those being affected.

Stephen Colbert running for president !

2007-10-17T13:53:00.000-04:00

So Stephen Colbert wants to become President of the United States !

The Charleston native announced his candidacy for president last night on his Comedy Central show, "The Colbert Report." Colbert says he will run only in South Carolina, in both the Republican primary January 19th and the Democratic primary, which the party hopes to move to January 26th.

He wrote in the New York Times on Sunday for Maureen Dowd that he thinks voters are desperate for what he called a white, male, middle-aged, Jesus-trumpeting alternative.

Lol !

Yankees Lose to Indians - Joe Torre Out ?

2007-10-09T10:46:00.000-04:00

Ouch, that's gotta hurt ! The Yankees lost 6-4 as Cleveland's next stop is Fenway Park.

There are even rumors that Joe Torre will be fired by George "the boss" Steinbrenner. After 12 years of managing the Yanks, I don't think that will go over too well with some of the current players on the roster.

The Cleveland Indians scored 2 runs each in the first, second and fourth innings. The heroic efforts of 2nd baseman Robinson Cano, 3rd baseman Alex Rodriguez, and rightfielder Bobby Abreu couldn't even help them in the end.

Sputnik Anniversary - Pictures and Video

2007-10-04T09:09:00.000-04:00

Happy 50th Anniversary Sputnik !

What is Sputnik ?

From Wikipedia: The Sputnik program was a series of unmanned space missions launched by the Soviet Union in the late 1950s to demonstrate the viability of artificial satellites for exploring the upper atmosphere as part of the International Geophysical Year. It included Sputnik 1, the first man-made object to orbit earth. The Russian name "Спутник" means literally "co-traveler" or "traveling companion" or "satellite". The R-7 launch vehicle was designed to carry nuclear warheads.

Find out more at NASA.

Winner of Top Chef - with guest appearances by Rocco DiSpirito, Michelle Bernstein, and Todd English

2007-10-04T07:47:00.000-04:00

For all you BravoTV Top Chef fans, congrats to Hung Huynh for winning ! Hung won $100,000 to put toward his culinary-minded dreams, a feature in Food & Wine magazine, an appearance at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen and an epicurean dream tour of the French Alps.

You can watch the episode online.

The finals featured Casey Thompson, Dale Levitski, and Hung Huynh at the world famous Aspen Mountain Club. The chefs cooked their best three course meals and, as an added twist, had to prepare their dishes in the same kitchen.

Michelle Bernstein, Rocco DiSpirito and Todd English made special guest appearances to serve as sous chefs for the contestants. Todd assisted Dale, Michelle assisted Casey, and Rocco assisted Hung. To add some additional pressure, head judge Tom Colicchio told the chefs that they had to prepare an additional fourth course. To help the chefs, former contestants CJ, Howie, and Sara returned. CJ helped Dale, Howie helped Casey, and Sara helped Hung.

The Top Chef finale dinner was served to the judges, the sous chefs, and former Top Chef contestant Brian Malarkey. After the meal, the three finalists received feedback from the judges. The judges agreed that two courses went to Hung and two courses went to Dale.

At the live part of the finale, Casey, Dale, and Hung joined host Padma Lakshmi and the judges in Chicago. Padma Lakshmi announced that the winner of Top Chef 3 was Hung Huynh. Hung said “I’m so excited. I worked so hard to get here and to prove myself and to have so much support from America. I’m speechless.”

Here's some info about Hung:

Hung Huynh lives in Las Vegas but he is originally from Vietnam.

Hung’s favorite recipe is heirloom tomatoes, with dashes of balsamic vinegar, basil, mint and extra virgin olive oil with an emphasis on virgin.

His profession is Sous Chef, and more specifically a Guy Savoy.

Hung describes himself as athletic, Buddhist, a college graduate, and chef.

New Verizon phone (LG Voyager) aka "the iPhone killer"

2007-10-03T14:58:00.000-04:00

It's amusing how every new phone that comes is dubbed the iPhone killer or the BlackBerry killer or the Nokia killer or the Palm killer. In the end, I don't think we will every see a situation where mobile device dominates the market place. Given people varying needs and styles when it comes to their phones, we'll see a market where there is a variety of devices.

Check out this video of the LG Voyager.

Here are some details about the LG Voyager from Verizon:

Exclusive to Verizon Wireless, the Voyager by LG sports a large external touch-screen and opens laterally to reveal a full QWERTY keypad, giving customers a choice on how they access the phone’s features. Sleek, stylish and shiny, the innovative LG Voyager comes packed with the hottest services to satisfy any mobile multimedia addict, including HTML browser, full V CAST-capabilities – including V CAST Mobile TV, V CAST Music, with the ability to play .mp3, .wma and unprotected .aac files, and V CAST Video. These capabilities, coupled with high-speed wireless broadband access, make downloading music on-the-go quick and easy. With all these features, for customers who purchase The Voyager by LG who want to download music, take pictures and do so much more than talk with this stylish device, there is a removable microSD memory slot that holds up to 8 GB of memory.