Yummy Piece of Chocolate Mousse Cake

Here's a couple flicks I took of a "Chocolate Mousse Cake" that I just ate. I'm telling you, it really is a weakness of mine. And as usual, the pictures don't do the cake any justice. After all, how do you take a picture of DELICIOUS?!? You just can't. Trust me...



The chocolate mousse cake is about the size of CD and piped with buttercream frosting around its edges as well as a dab right in the middle. You can also see small chocolate shavings sprinkled around the same edges as the buttercream to give it some contrast.



This cake is made for a one person serving size. But I'll tell you though, it's plenty enough for a few others too. As much as I love sweets, it did kind of tasted a bit too sweet for my taste and made sure to have a bottle of water close by.



I really need to get some help with this, as you can tell. HAHA. Maybe some type of dessert anonymous group I can attend. But then again, do I really want to be around a group of people talking about dessert? It'll just have my mouth salivating at the thought of delicious sweet concoctions and having to leave the group early heading to the nearest store. So yummy!!!

Bottles of alcohol... now who's thirsty?

My sister just came back from her vacation to Mexico on a Cruise Ship and brought back a few bottles of alcohol. A bottle of Sheridan's Coffee Layered Liqueur. And I must say, the bottle design is pretty original and haven't seen anything like it. It keeps both liquids separated until the pour, which is pretty neat. Then you have the Amarula - Marula Fruit Cream, a product of South Africa. I was told that this was a sweet drink. More or less, a great after dinner drink as people tend to do with Bailey's Irish Cream...



And of course you have to get tequila if you're in Mexico. This tequila happens to be made from Hacienda Dona Engracia. It's the Agave Infusion Ketzally in Almond flavor. I'm not a tequila guy myself, but I'm pretty curious and wouldn't mind giving it shot. Now I got to find a reason to taste this stuff. Not that I need one also...

So, I just snapped a couple quick flicks to share with everyone. I haven't had the chance to taste any of these yet. Hopefully sooner than later...

Wing Stop's Lemon Pepper Chicken Wing

Some people love pizza. Some people love burgers and others may love pasta. I on the other hand love chicken wings. Besides my favorite, Royal Mandarin's Salt and Pepper Chicken Wings in National City, San Diego, Wing Stop's Lemon Pepper Chicken Wings with their honey mustard dipping sauce come pretty darn close. So, I bring you 50 pieces of goodness through the lens of my camera. Now only if they can come up with some technology that can some how bring you, the viewer, smell...





As always, so GOOD!!!

Sans Digital TowerRAID TR8M-B for the Acer Easystore Home Server

I've had the Acer Aspire Easystore Home Server since early fall of last year (2009). It has 4 bays with one already installed that happened to be a 1TB hard drive. You'd think that the remaining extra bays for hard drives would be enough, especially 3 more 2TB each worth of space. But after a few months of owning the Acer Easystore Home Server I realize I need to look for a way to expand it...





Here's what I was looking for... I was looking for something that's basically ready out of the box or at least relatively easy to setup for someone like me. And it needed to be able to expand and grow as the time comes. So, I ended up getting the Sans Digital TowerRAID TR8M-B. As you can see in the photo, I also bought a couple Hitachi Deskstar 2TB hard drives to get the tower up and running. All the movies, photos, mp3's and design projects for my clients take up a lot of room... more photos here.



The whole tower unit was packed nicely and securely. Better than most manufactures. Sans Digital did a great job at doing this. Besides the tower itself, it also didn't come with much. Just 2 eSATA cables and the quality looked really good, not those cheap ones. A 2-Port eSATA PCle Adaptor, a pack of screws, power cord, installation guide and CD manual. That's basically it... more photos here.







What I love about the Sans Digital TowerRAID TR8M-B is the removable trays and how easy it is to install the hard drives. Here's a product description of the TowerRAID taken off Amazon...

"The TowerRAID TR8M-B is an 8-bay storage enclosures for high capacity storage needs. With built-in ventilating protective screen front panel, both units utilize cable-less backplane-design to support up to eight hard drives. Hard drives are installed on easy access hard drive trays for simple insertion and removal. Hard drive cooling is provided by a large 4.7-Inch cooling fan located on the back of the units. The TR8M is a compact RAID tower uses only two cables to connected eight SATA drives utilizing the latest SATA II port multiplier technology. Using the bundled two ports eSATA PCIe adapter, the user could easily access eight hard drives via JBOD mode, or two different sets of RAID 0, 1, 1+0 and 5 with spare. Units are available in black (TR8M-B) and silver (TR8M) finish."











On the Acer Aspire Easystore Home Server there's an extra eSATA port. So, I didn't need to install the 2-port eSATA PCle card, but did anyway just because I paid for it and came with it and I might as well. Also, because I was bored and needed something to do. The install was straight forward and went in smoothly... more photos here.









Next was to install the driver on the Windows Home Server. Well, the directions provided weren't clear and it didn't really help. Since the driver was on the provided CD and my Acer Easystore Server doesn't have a CD-Rom to read from it, I hit a small roadblock. What I end up doing was copy the whole CD into one of my shared folders and went from there. After all that, it was cake... more photos here.



Well, cleaned up my mess and reorganized the workspace to make room for the Sans Digital TowerRAID TR8M-B right next to my Acer Aspire Easystore Home Server. I now have about more than 10TB for the home server. I also have less than 3TB of free space at the time of this post and looks like it may last me a while. Maybe a month and a half. But soon, I'll have to buy another hard drive to continue to expand my collection. I'm not worried though, I have 6 additional bays for other hard drives to use up before I have to consider purchasing another TowerRAID enclosure. Remember, I have 2 more eSATA ports and 2 USB ports to grow on the Acer machine...

All in all, I would definitely recommend the Sans Digital TowerRAID to go along the your Home Server setup. Especially with the Acer Aspire Easystore Home Sever. No issues at all with the tower unit...

Check out my other post about the Acer Aspire Easystore Home Server.

If you're interested in any of these products, check out...

Fish Tacos for Lunch for Ash Wednesday

Being Catholic and it being Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent, I wasn't supposed to eat meat today. I'm not too religious or a hardcore follower, but when I do remember I do my best to abide to them. You know, more spiritual than religious. With that said, some yummy Fish Tacos from Taco Fiesta in Paradise Hills, San Diego for lunch...





Ate a few of these. In fact, two and another couple for later. It's a pretty light meal and it got me just full enough to last me for some time. Which was perfect...





The graphic designer or should I say photographer hobbyist in me took a couple flicks to share with the blogging/internet world. And I must say, the fish tacos were mighty tasty. The photos do it no justice... so good and delicious!

BlackBerry Symbol Wallpaper in Color

Here are some other BlackBerry wallpapers that I added some life and color into. This one is called the BlackBerry Symbol Wallpaper that I grabbed somewhere else. I don't want to take the credit for the wallpaper design since all I did was add/change the color. Like the other wallpapers for the BlackBerry Bold 9700 on this blog, I wanted to keep it professional and business like...







The wallpapers come in six different colors to choose from. Red, blue, green, pink, brown and purple. The wallpapers also are 480x360 pixels and should work with other BlackBerry models besides the Bold 9700, like the Tour 9630 and the Curve 8900.







If you're interested in other similar wallpaper designs for your BlackBerry Bold 9700, take a look at these...

- BlackBerry Leather Wallpaper in Color for your Bold 9700
- BlackBerry Storm Wallpaper in Color for your Bold 9700

These images are to used for your own personal use. If you're feeling a bit generous, please go ahead and share this post to other BlackBerry Bold 9700 users alike or a direct link to Communicating Ideas (CommunicatingIdeas.com). Also, please don't hot link these images since the bandwidth is somewhat limited...

BlackBerry Storm Wallpaper in Color

I've been using the "BlackBerry Leather Wallpaper" for some time now. And I sometimes get a bit bored with it. Fortunately the BlackBerry Storm OEM wallpaper is the same size as the Bold 9700. Here's another great part, it still has that professional look and feel that I wanted. But, I wanted to also add a bit of color to it and share them with everyone. So, here it is...







I created these wallpapers in six different colors. Red, blue, green, brown, pink and purple. The wallpapers are 480x360 and should be able to use them in other BlackBerry devices. Such as the BlackBerry Tour 9630 as well as the BlackBerry Curve 8900...







If your interested in the BlackBerry Leather Wallpaper in Color, please follow the link. Feel free to take and use the images for your own personal use. If you're feeling a bit generous, please share this post by linking it or directly to Communicating Ideas (CommunicatingIdeas.com). More importantly, please don't hotlink the images since the bandwidth that these images are placed is somewhat limited.

LaRue Tactical Beverage Tool, aka Dillo

On Superbowl Sunday, we watched the New Orleans win the Big Game. And since my team, San Diego Chargers, didn't do enough to get there. It was more or less about hanging out drinking and eating. But what a great game to say the least...



And with drinking, it finally gave me good enough reason to bust out the LaRue Tactical Beverage Entry Tool, also known as the "Dillo". As in, armadillo. I've had the bottle opener for some time now, in fact a few of them since LaRue Tactical gives them out like candy and never used them until now. This time around, we gave it a good test and it worked flawlessly...



The bottle opener can be used to open your favorite beer by twisting the cap off if your hands are wet as seen in the next photo. Or, by prying the cap off using the business end of the Dillo and lifting. The next set of photos demonstrates it...





The next set of flicks shows the Dillo's side profiles. What's also great about the LaRue Tactical Beverage Entry Tool is the finish. It doesn't matter how wet and slippery your hands are, it still maintains a rough surface to hold on to. Here's a description taken off LaRue Tactical about the product...

"The famous "Dillo" known world-wide. Opening your favorite beverage just isn't the same without one. Our Tactical Beverage Entry Tool, or `Dillo, is a handy bottle opener that can be used to twist or pry open bottle caps or used to open can tabs. Proudly made by LaRue Tactical in Texas, USA!"





After giving the Dillo a good test run by opening Karl Strauss' Amber Lager during the big game, this tool is going to used quite often in the future. It looks like it can take the abuse and then some...



Oh yeah and the beer was pretty good too. I haven't had an Amber Lager beer from Karl Strauss in awhile. I also need to pick up a few more cases of San Diego brewed beer for those special times when I just want to kick down a few. Who am I fooling, I don't need a special time to drink...

Delicious White Chocolate Linzer Torte from Extraordinary Desserts

As I stated on many previous posts, desserts or anything sweet are a weakness of mine. It's like a drug and I'm addicted to them and Extraordinary Desserts is one of my go-to dealers to get my fix. And that's what happened earlier this week for Groundhog's Day. A special day...



Feeling a bit more adventurous, I hinted to get something different than the usual. I don't like being too predictable and wanted to take a chance on something we haven't tasted yet. We ended up getting the White Chocolate Linzer Torte. Since I wasn't there to pick up the cake, I didn't know what it looked like. And to my surprise, a foo-foo looking cake to say the least. You know foo-foo, as in frilly, prissy, made up, and high maintenance...



Here's a description taken off Extraordinary Desserts' for the White Chocolate Linzer Torte...

"Our very first creation! Hazelnut almond cake is layered with white chocolate buttercream, raspberries, and a nut meringue. This delicious torte is finished with a lattice design of roasted nuts and homemade raspberry preserves. Intense in flavor and texture."



Cakes are to be eaten, much more so than seen. At least that's the way I see it when it comes to desserts. With that being said, as a guy, it didn't bother me one bit despite being really girly looking. But the design of this cake from Extraordinary Desserts was a sight to be seen and was blown away and needed to take a couple flicks to show everyone...





Needless to say, we demolished the White Chocolate Linzer Torte cake. Once the photos were taken, we wasted no time to get our slices as our mouths started salivating uncontrollably. I personally loved the jam spread on the cake. YUMMY in my TUMMY!!! So damn GOOD!!! Next time we're going to try another type of cake since we really haven't had any bad ones from them...

For delicious cakes and desserts, visit Extraordinary Desserts in Little Italy in Downtown San Diego.