jumping on the bandwagon

I guess I better say something about Halo 3, as I was assured that it will be the most incrediblest, fantastic, 10 million dollar entertainment launch in the history of humans period. In another two weeks you won't be able to walk anywhere without seeing some Halo 3 related product. Today, they released "LIVE ACTION" trailers for the games that will be played in cinemas across the country. Get it? they made real live action trailers for a video game!!! this is going to be first of several actually.

Halo 3: Museum trailer


actually I thought this trailer was pretty good. It didn't have any flashy graphics or intense action sequences, but rather invoke a feeling of nalstalgia through the old marine's memory. Very nicely done. I can't help but think MS is making another pitch for the live action movie.

Here is more on the web and trailer campaign from the press release

Filming the Experience

As part of the integrated campaign, an innovative web experience has been created that enables consumers to interact with and explore every part of the climactic battle in minute detail. Beyond the TV, cinema and print efforts, the site is also supported by an online advertising campaign that starts the conversation with the consumer and a branded channel on YouTube that helps to position Master Chief as the biggest hero in history. All digital components were created by AKQA San Francisco.

Viewers get a sneak peek at "Diorama" on http://games.yahoo.com Friday Sept. 14 at 9 a.m. PST / 12 p.m. EST, as well as a feature on the making of the diorama, entitled, "Ammo". The "Diorama" work will make its TV debut during NFL Football on CBS Sunday Sept. 16. This, and the full series of web films, which honor the heroism of Master Chief, will also be available on Xbox LIVE Marketplace and http:www.halo3.com/believe starting September 14

cloning kamikaze supersoldiers

M was explaining what she does to me the other day. Most of the times I don't even ask her since I have no idea even when she explains it to me. But this time, it was pretty interesting. M is involved in gene therapy for leukemia/cancer patients. She splices these genes together that targets cancer cells. Then she takes T-cells from the patient, insert those genes that turn these T-Cells into special cancer killing cells and then send them back to the patient to fight the disease.

This is all very good, but, M says, that is only the first generation. The second generation involves making the new soldier cells dependent upon certain enzyme to survive. So the patient must get daily injections of enzyme in addition to the T-Cells. This way, once you are done with the therapy, you stop injecting the enzyme and T-Cells dies off. This kind of reminds me of super soldiers that relies on some drugs to do their work, and when the masters are done with them, they just withhold the drugs and they die off. tsk tsk..

Anyway, so M says, the third generation which they are working on now will splice a "suicide" gene into the T-Cell. So after the therapy is over, they send a chemical signal through the body and boom, the T-Cell self destructs. Simple and painless.

Now I ask you, are we very far from cloning kamikaze supersoldiers that will do our bidding? I think not.....

upgrading

So M has finally decided to upgrade her camera (which is a Nikon Coolpix I bought for her Sophmore year). After looking around, we decided to get a Canon S5IS. It seems to be the best out of the point and shoot categories. Having a 12x optical zoom would definitely help with taking brighter pictures, and it is not too complex that M can't play around with it. So now I have to find a good deal with it. This is the time when I wish Amazon headquarters wasn't here.

Just some photos

I was going through some old photos today and I saw these picture I took of some pretty scenery. The first one is boats going through the Ballard Lock. The second one is sunset at Alki Beach ( is it pathetic that the first thing I thought after I saw it is how the water looks just like CGI !). The third is boats moored at Lake Union. Also I am trying out this Flickr thing that TOchi seems to be using.(Any tips on using this thing?)

new music!

So, I discovered this new band recently and I went to their first public concert. I was fortunate enough to get front row seats so I took some videos. I think this music could really take off!

Awesome Concert

I also managed to capture some backstage footage.

Song 1

song 2 ( A rare duet!)

watch and weep

in keeping with the theme of PC games we can't quite play. Here is a multiplayer trailer for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. It shows "perks" or customizable add-on. I would love to use "Last Stand" though, my last revenge before death. WOuld come in soo handy in BF2 lol.

BioShock PC DEMO

From all the internet chattering, you would think BioShock is the bestest best single player FPS ever made (Most game rating sites gave it like 9.99999/10). I played the Xbox360 demo and thought it was indeed very well made with incredible art and voice acting. The atmosphere is pretty creepy too. So if you wanted to see what all the hype is about. You can download the Bioshock PC demo here (bittorrent link). It is 1.84 gigs and minimum spec req are listed below.

Minimum System Requirements:
CPU: Pentium 4 2.4GHz Single Core processor
System RAM: 1GB
Video Card: Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 128MB RAM (NVIDIA 6600 or better/ATI X1300 or better, excluding ATI X1550).
Sound Card: 100% direct X 9.0c compatible sound card
Hard disc space: 8GB free space


Recommended System Requirements:
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo processor
System RAM: 2GB
Video card:
DX9: Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 512MB RAM (NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT or better)
DX10: NVIDIA GeForce 8600 or better
Sound Card: Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ series (Optimized for use with Creative Labs EAX ADVANCED HD 4.0 or EAX ADVANCED HD 5.0 compatible sound cards)

The actual game gets released tomorrow.

Jazzy

I AM
78%
JAZZTake the Transformers Quiz

High five Kolaap

interesting article on Wikipedia

WEll about Wikipedia. SOme of the edits were really interesting, but the CIA one, you are just like (appropriately) wahhhhh!~!!>?

Wikipedia 'shows CIA page edits'

An online tool that claims to reveal the identity of organisations that edit Wikipedia pages has revealed that the CIA was involved in editing entries.
Wikipedia Scanner allegedly shows that workers on the agency's computers made edits to the page of Iran's president.

It also purportedly shows that the Vatican has edited entries about Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams. ...

Shuggy FTW!!

Our team recently held a Dream Build Play contest, which basically allows you to make a game using the our framework, and the winner gets to have a contract to put their game on XBL Arcade. The results was announced this week at Gamefest. you can check the games out at the website. I played most of these games ( not judging tho) and my favorites were definitely The Dishwasher (totally deserved winning) and SHUGGY!, the best, cutest, most interesting platformer I have seen in a while. The level design is incredibly innovative and fun to play. We played it so much our entire office was so sad when it didn't make it. However, I did meet Shuggy maker at Gamefest and I got a t shirt out of him :)

If you have some time to kill, I highly recommend checking it out, it has about 100 levels. it is free to download, and it tells you exactly what you need to install to play it (download the windows version) and when you install our framework, you can rest safe knowing it has been completely tested by me :) The game itself may be a little buggy but just remember it is built by ONE guy over couple of months.

Glory in the awesomeness of SHUGGY!!

p.s. I would recommend trying The Dishwasher too, but I don't think the makers released it. I can only find this video that is about 2 months old, I think the final version doesn't have red blood like this, its all inky.

Iran, the next Iraq

Iranian Unit to Be Labeled 'Terrorist'

U.S. Moving Against Revolutionary Guard

By Robin Wright

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 15, 2007; A01

The United States has decided to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country's 125,000-strong elite military branch, as a "specially designated global terrorist," according to U.S. officials, a move that allows Washington to target the group's business operations and finances.
[...]
The designation of the Revolutionary Guard will be made under Executive Order 13224, which President Bush signed two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to obstruct terrorist funding. It authorizes the United States to identify individuals, businesses, charities and extremist groups engaged in terrorist activities. The Revolutionary Guard would be the first national military branch included on the list, U.S. officials said -- a highly unusual move because it is part of a government, rather than a typical non-state terrorist organization.

Bold is mine, WTF!!! Bush just declared the ARMY of another COUNTRY terrorists. That is like saying, the Canadian army is terrorists. You know what this will lead to.. justified invasion of Iran without having to declare war. Declaring war needs approval of Congress, hey but if you are just "fighting terrorists", you can do whatever the hell you want. Can the country only invade one or two country at a time?

Demos

I have discovered game demos on Xbox Live and I am quite pleased with it. They come for free at about 1 gb size and you can download them WHILE you are playing some other game so it is like a little present at the end of game *_*. I have downloaded about 4 demos over the last week and just trying them out. Some sucked and some looked pretty cool. I feel like this is so much better than downloading PC demos because no installation is required, you download, you click play and then you just delete them. So convenient!!

Blue Dragon: J-RPG, this one I totally hated. The art style looks very ugly to me and the voice acting was horrible. I didn't even get passed the first enemy before I lost interest.

Eternal Sonata: J-RPG made by the same company that made Tales of Abyss. I thought it had very pretty graphics and music, seems very typical J-RPG. I got Velius to try it since he liked Tales so much. I thought the game play was alright until I discovered the way to circumvent the timed blocking action during combat is just to button smash B after attack. It may be pretty, but maybe too easy

Stranglehold: It is like MaxPayne except with a storyline of Hard Broiled by Chow Yun Fat. It is kinda funny to play a character that looks like him, and you can do these time slowing moves complete with stylish dives while you are duel wielding surrounded by white doves LOL. It was pretty amusing to play basically a John Woo movie. I find it hilarious that everytime I move him near a table or a counter he will start to slide across them like in an action movie, this results in everything on the said table getting completely smashed. After 3 -4 times of doing this, all I can think about is man, his pants must be sooo dirty! I doubt I will pick it up but it was interesting none the less.

BioShock: underwater FPS also out for PC., this game came with alot of hype. I think it won best game of E3 or something. I am not sure I want to play another single player FPS but I wanted to see what the hype was about. It was creepy man! I started this demo late last night after the requisite Tenchu session (failure again!!) and I had to stop about 2 minutes in because I was so creeped out by the music and the environment. Have yet to see any enemies so might have to report back on that. I can tell this is a great production though because the graphics was amazing, the art design is unique in that it is art deco and the music enhances the mood alot. We will see how the game plays later, (in broad daylight ;))

Hiking at Mount Rainier

One of my schoolmates CY came to visit Snoopy over this weekend so we all hang out together. They decided to go to Mount Rainier for a day hike since CY is such a hiking enthusiast. Mount Rainier is about 2 hours from here so it is good for a day trip. The day turned out to be really beautiful with almost no clouds. I have never been to Mount Rainier on such a good day, the two previous times I went, it was so cloudy I didn't even see the mountain when I was standing on it. We decided to take the Skyline Trail on the Paradise side. It is a 5 mile loop that has about 1500 feet elevation change. The description list it as "strenuous" and takes about 5 hours. I was a little wary about such a long hike but I figure 1500 feet was not too bad. It takes us right to the feet of the mountain and it is the same trail summiters take to go to the gathering point at Camp Muir. The hike started out with quite a steep ascend for about 20 minutes but it turned out after the first few hundred feet of pain the rest of the trail was quite doable. The view was spectacular and the wild flower meadows was incredibly beautiful. We saw a ant line of summiters crossing the glaciers far above. There was gorgeous mountains on every side and the weather is so warm and the sun was shining. I think this is one of the best hike I have ever done.










Rest of Album

hiking

Yesterday, I went hiking with M at Tiger Mountain, which is a range that is right next to our house. The trail we went on was only 1000 feet rise but I was still very winded as I haven't hiked in a long time. This resulted in merciless teasing from M who says I act older than her *humph*. Can she play dunx5 for 4 hour straight and not get dizzy? I don't think so!

Anyway, when we finally got to the top, there was a very beautiful grassy hill that overlooked the vast expanse of the area near our house. In the first picture, do you see where that ugly patch of construction is on the right? thats where our house is. So we sat down to admire the view, when suddenly these paragliders hiked up with their gigantic bags and proceeded to jump off the cliff. Apparently they were members of a paragliding club. I have never seen parachute paragliding before and it was an amazing sight to see them lightly jump into the air and float away like eagles soaring on their wings.



Link to the album

The Bourne Ultimatum

I went to see THe Bourne Ultimatum with M today. I have to report that it was an awesome movie. It was a perfect combination of crazy action and intense espionage. They had some really cool situations that was not a spy movie cliche. I found myself at the edge of the seat the whole time holding my breath for Bourne. I think I like this movie better than the James Bond movies because it is more gritty and more real (featuring the very shaky camera actions), had minimum gadgets. There was no "groan" moment with hacking thank God. Below is my favorite parts spoiled

1. The train station chase with Simon the reporter, it was soo intense, and so amazing with enemies at every turn and Bourne trying to direct him. IT reminded me of MIssion 16 of Tenchu where you had to sneak ahead of your target to kill everyone first. Very intense

2. The motorbike bomb that killed Neil, I was totally mislead by that shoulder bag as did Bourne, until you realize, holy shit, the "asset" was alot smarter than you thought. I am much more impressed with assets now, since they are not just like fodder for Bourne to plow through.

3. The massive car chase in New York city was very well choreagraphed and only minimum product placements hehe.

Quote of the Day

Scott, Emily, Ida and Me in the office, Scott turns to Ida in frustration:

Scott: Wouldn't it be great if we could talk in C++?

Ida: As long as we don't talk in lisp.

Scott: See, if this was C++, if I didn't want to hear you talking, I could delete the object beneath you. And I gave you a weak reference in the first place anyway, so then you'd just crash.

Me: You mean you'd delete Ida's chair?

Everyone: ....

[10 minutes later]
Ida: I think it's just rude.

Scott: What's rude?

Ida: Deleting my chair is rude!

fangirly post <3 <3 <3

I think it is about due for a fangirly post about my favorite singer Clay Aiken so here it is. Clay is doing a summer tour right now to support his 2nd album A Thousand Different Ways. Unfortunately I can't go this year since he isn't coming to where I am ( I am so sad, I have made it a point to go to every tour he does). The good thing is that he has a very close relationship with his fanbase. He lets people video tape all his concerts and put them online so fans from around the world can share. It is very rare that an artist is not so crazy about copyright issues. and it is known for a fact he downloads his own fan videos lol. So it is due to all this that I was able to basically watch every concert he has done on tour so far through downloads( Before you start to comment on my obsessiveness, =P all his concerts are totally different as he ad lib and improvise alot of it. yeah thats my excuse..). My favorite song so far is Lover All Alone, a beautiful song written by the great David Foster and lyrics by Clay. It is not even on his album except only as itune bonus. I love this song because it was penned by Clay and therefore it is an rendition of his own thoughts and feelings and he gets totally immersed in it as opposed to the more campy entertainment parts of the show. His tone and control is absolutely brilliant and everytime he sings this song, the entire place is completely quiet as everyone is mesmerized. So here it is, Clay singing Lover All Alone in Houston for the 2007 summer tour. I am not exaggerating when I say I am often moved to tears in the more tender moments sigh...



and while I am fangirly, I must include this other video. During the Sterling Height,Michigan concert, one of Clay's backup singer's voice gave out and had to leave the stage before her solo song. So Clay and the Quiana, the other backup singer completely improvised this duet of "Listen" from the show Dreamgirls. Having never even sang this song before. The harmonies were amazing for just basically on the spot improvisation.

Pwned!!

I am sitting here quite self-satisfied as I have managed to triumph twice in the eternal battle between men and machine yesterday!! It all started when M finally got sick of her 7 year old computer and decided to get a new one. Since I was too lazy to build her one we decided to go the easy route and get her a Dell E310, useless for gaming but quite adequate for internet surfing. The machine came quite without mishap and M was happy with it. Now M is actually quite computer savvy compared to her peers. In addition to checking her yahoo email, she can surf the web, download music, text chat in Chinese, do video chats and even get drivers for her accessories if I was not there. She is viewed with awe in her office as the tech guru. Though I am pretty sure she doesn't do it out of tech fervor, but rather to be able to not hear me say "What is wrong NOW??" in an extremely humiliating and condescending tone as I am known to do ;)

Anyway, the computer was quite usable until recently when M discovered the wonder of karaoke on the net. There are these massive chinese websites where you can download popular accompaniments, record your karaoke and then upload to it so other people can hear them. So to facilitate this interest, I got her a free audio recorder software and showed her how to record over the mic. This is when I realized that the Dell's onboard sound card isn't full duplex! This means you can't really play music and record it at the same time. You can only record whatever the mic pick up. I just assumed it was a limitation of the soundcard and told M to turn up the speaker REALLY LOUD so the mic can pick up her voice and the music coming out of the speakers (yes it is stupid! lol). It makes for sucky recordings but M accepted it and proceeded to record many quite lovely songs with sucky mixing.

But it is human nature to never be satisfied, after M listened to her beautiful voice accompanied by the sucky quality accompaniments, she started hinting that she wanted to record in more than 96 bps so to get better sound quality. After several hints, I decided that the best solution would be to get her an Soundblaster Audigy card which would solve both the full duplex issue and the quality issue since the mixing would be so much better. but as soon as I installed it , I realized that the mic didn't work anymore AND the front headphone port no longer worked either!! *shake fist in anger*. After hours of research, I realized that the Soundblaster Audigy only support mics with 2000 impedance. WHO has requirements like this!!?? not only that but it is incompatible with dell's motherboard which means no front headphone port. Well that was a bust, and then M totally dealt a horrible blow to my ego by mentioning how everytime I try to improve her computer I just breaks it, alluding to the fact that earlier I gave her a wireless optical mouse that broke the screensaver. This unbearable insult to my geek status increased my resolve to solve this once and for all!! (cue thunder and lightning). So after researching problems with soundblaster for a while, I saw something on the forums about my Dell onboard audio card which is a SigmaTel. I noticed many people on the forum having the same full duplex issue that I did and I suddenly read something incredible: that the SigmaTel actually DOES support full duplex but Dell, in all its evil glory nerfed it as an agreement with RIAA who is concerned about people recording internet radio songs!!! Have you heard of anything so absurd!! is RIAA out of its mind??!! What a stupid agreement in that can be easily circumvented with a $10 real sound card!.

SO after another couple hours of research, I realized only the Dell drivers were nerfed due to this absurd legal agreement and after I tried 6 or 7 SigmaTel drivers (XP system restore rocks!!) I finally found a LG notebook driver that unlocked the SigmaTel's full potential! Now it has stereo mix, input monitor among other goodies which allows M to do a complete internal recording. no more really loud speakers.

Moonfleck: 1
Dell+RIAA evil partnership: 0 !!!

And even better as a bonus, I was able to figure out the mouse screensaver issue which I have always suspected as a driver issue since I remember fixing this before. But it didn't work for M's computer for some reason and it was always a pain to search for it on the internet because if you search for "screensaver disabled" you never get anything relevant. However, I was possessed to try this search string " computer cannot recognize wireless Intellipoint". And THAT gave me a forum post that gave me the answer. Apparently the Dell machines has DVD drives that runs PowerDVD, which is incompatible with Microsoft Intellipoint Mouse which is incompatible with XP screensavers!!! It is amazing they shipped computers like this!!. So after getting to the end of the long thread, the holy light was shone on the Microsoft "HID non-user input update!!" And everything was resolved to a satisfying end. so again

Moonfleck: 1
Dell+MS evil partnership: 0

and I was rightfully restored in M's eye as her favorite tech guru, the way it should be.... *satisfied sigh*

A Noble Sacrifice for an Amazing Story

This is headline news on google news right now: Deaths in US TV helicopter crash

Four people have died after their helicopters, owned by rival US television channels, collided in mid-air while covering a car chase.
Both helicopters went down in a park in central Phoenix, Arizona, and caught fire as they were covering the police pursuit of a pick-up truck.

Let's all have a moment of silence fo the brave souls that sacrificed their lives to cover such a momentous event as a police car chase of a pickup truck. They can take comfort in the fact that their death will be covered by other rival tv station helicopters, the original car chase quickly forgotten.

but seriously, I really feel sorry for these people. what a horrible accident!

youtube rocks, politicians not so much

So, CNN made presidential debate history yesterday by organizing a Democratic presidential candidate debate consisting of questions submitted through YouTube. The candidates met in the Citadel in SC with Anderson Cooper as moderator and they showed youtube video questions selected by CNN. Overall 3000 some videos were submitted and they only had time for 36 of them. I missed the broadcast so I was catching up on it on.. you guessed it.. you tube. It was actually quite fascinating and refreshing to see real American people ask straight questions that are not carefully worded by journalists. Something you almost never see on tv, and certainly NEVER in a presidential debate where everything is carefully planned around talking points. The internet geek in me felt a very warm and fuzzy feeling towards the youtubers. There were some really excellent questions like the one the pastor in NC asked John Edwards about why he uses religion to defend his nonsupport of gay marriage. , the question asked how do Hillary feel about criticism that she isn't feminine enough and the question asked to Obama about critism that he isn't black enough. However, after watching question 3, I remembered why I don't watch presidential debates, it is to stop that nauseus feeling in my stomach which occurs whenever I hear politicians fairy dance around a question thinking that people won't notice. It is like watching a giant job interview where you know the candidate is making some sh*t up to suit what he/she thinks you want to hear. I think it can be demonstrated fairly well by question 36, a light hearted question meant to let the candidates have a break.



Come on people! have a sense of humor. BTW, Gravel is the only straight shooter because he has like 1% chance of winning so he can afford to say whatever he feels like. Gotta admire him for that.

on a only slightly related topic: this article about Senatorial Gaming amused me greatly. Any of you Wow peopel going to look him up?

Other E3 oddities.

Here are other interesting(or silly) stuff that I saw that is either too weird or on other consoles which means I won't be playing them. Some of them are cool to look at though like EchoChrome.

FolkLore : PS3, RPG, this is hailed as the next generation RPG that finally deserves a PS3 console. The game is a real time action adventure game with RPG elements, in the same vein as Genji and Devil May Cry. Supposedly with amazing graphics and storyline.

Super Mario Galaxy: Wii, this is Super Mario 64 in Space. Perfect for the Wii console. I am tired of mario though so no more for me.

LittleBigPlanet: PS3. This is probably the most interesting game that Ps3 has. It is a cooperative online sandbox. It is hard to explain without seeing the demo.

Pirates of Burning Sea : PC. MMORPG where you play Pirates!! You can be on a boat and have giant ocean battles.

Spore: PC. This is the revolutionary new game made by the guy that created The Sims. It looks so different from the previous trailer and it keeps getting pushed back so we are still waiting here.

Naruto, rise of Ninja: xbox360. I just thought this game has nice anime style graphics. I think you basically play through the anime, and then the fighting sequences are in the style of fighting game.

EchoChrome: PS3, PSP, this game has a really interesting concept, it is a puzzle game based on Object Locative Environment Coordinate System developed by Jun Fujiki, an engine that determines what is occurring based on the camera's perspective. (wikipedia) Too bad it is only for Playstation. I always admire new game concepts.

Geometry Wars Galaxies: Wii, why is this only on the wii!?? why?? this is co=op mode of the xbox360 arcade game Geometry Wars.

Nintendo Fit: Wii man, I am going to have to buy one of these for me.. um I mean for M.. yeah..

Pain : ps3, umm PS3 has a game that just throws you against buildings.. yeah.. weird.

E3 thoughts

E3 2007 happened this past weekend and I have been trying to keep up with the videos at E3Insider I also read some of the Kotaku reports about the show itself but I am not really very interested in that except knowing that it was less glitzy than the previous years. So here is a list of games that I think are the most anticipated for this holiday season. I think I would like to try most of them out if not actually playing them fully. The links are to their trailer videos on youtube. Admittedly these are biased towards PC and Xbox360 since I won't be owning the other consoles any time soon.

Halo 3 - Xbox360 FPS. well duh, although despite all the superhype, I really think this will be just like Halo 2 but for the continuation of story so it is mostly for completion's sake I guess. Not to mention I would suck at it without Velius to Co-op hee hee.

Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare - PC FPS,Xbox360, PS3. admittedly I don't think this game will be more fun than say BF2, but I am interested in the atmosphere and the intense battle scenes they have since it will be close to real life than their WWII titles. Assuming my computer can handle it. The game play footage they showed looks awesome

Assassin's Creed: Xbox360, PC, PS3 Action-Adventure. A new game that is not a sequel! what more could you ask for. This game has such beautiful graphics, a entirely historically accurate model of Jerusalem, completely interactive crowds and lots of assassinations. It is like hitman with a sword meets Prince of Persia! The only thing I didn't like was the voice acting but I guess you can't have everything.

Crysis: PC FPS, the most beautiful FPS ever made. Our computer will just choke and die when we load this game but it looks so pretty, and everything is destructible and you are fighting North Koreans and Aliens in single player!

Mass Effect: Xbox 360 Action RPG. Futuristic action RPG that has garnered alot of excitement. I think everybody said the story is going to be great. Built on the Unreal engine.

Lost Odyssey: Xbox360 RPG. This is for Velius as everybody said this is going to be Final Fantasy on Xbox since it is made by the same people that made Final Fantasy. From wikipedia: "Lost Odyssey's story is being penned by the award winning Japanese novelist, Kiyoshi Shigematsu who is working directly with the game's producer Hironobu Sakaguchi on the story sequences. Heading up the artistic demands of the title is famed Japanese comic artist, Takehiko Inoue, while famed composer Nobuo Uematsu has been recruited to create a more contemporary soundtrack"

RockBand: Xbox360, PS3 Music-Rhythm. Guitar hero meet drums meet karaoke revolution. This is all i can say..:)

Gears of War: PC FPS. This will basically be the same thing as Xbox360 but with some more levels. I think the multiplayer games should be fun especially now that we can use mouse and keyboard.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed: Xbox360, PS3, PS2 Action RPG. play Darth Vader's secret apprentice. so basically play the dark side. Sounds pretty interesting.

Grand Theft Auto IV: Xbox360, PS3 Action-Adventure. Another sequel. I really like the trailer for some reason. I suppose it would be at least as good as the first 3 if not better.

and lastly of course

StarCraft 2: PC RTS, well what can I say, it will be like StarCraft with better graphics =P.

cool co-op

Velius and I were talking about the new Gears of War for PC that is coming out soon and we got to lamenting how there are no more really good co-op games out anymore (GRAW was so painful!). I have been trying to keep up with E3 news this week and I saw this game Left 4 Dead under development.

It seems like the ultimate co-op zombie game! You play 4 survivors fighting off massive amount of zombies or for a change you can play zombies. I was watching a dev interview and it says the zombies have a AI director and are being procedurally generated based on survivor experience so you can never predict them. I think it will be really fun to play when it comes out. The graphics doesn't look too crazy either so our computer can probably handle it lol.

Carmina Burana

Tonight I took M to see Seattle Symphony Orchestra's production of "Carmina Burana" by Carl Orff. It was a last minute thing because I didn't find out about the show until the day before. We ended up with decent tickets though and I always wanted to see the production since I've heard about it so much. I knew M would enjoy it cause she is really into choral music, albeit mostly Chinese ones.

The show started with Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto in D major. It is a pretty famous piece although I don't think I have heard it in entirety. The guest violinist was quite good but I think I don't really enjoy the kind of frenzied solo sections they put into it. You can barely make out the notes. I guess violin concertos are not my cup of tea haha. The main theme is quite beautiful though. This piece also marked the first time I saw a ASIAN FEMALE conductor at a symphony performance. Carolyn Kuan is only 29 years old and she was incredible. She was so energetic and flamboyant that you just can't help but feel her enthusiasm and control. I thought she was super cool haha.

After brief intermission, we went on for the main course. "Carmina Burana" is basically 24 medieval Bavarian song text set to music by Carl Orff. The most famous piece is of course O Fortuna, shamelessly ripped off for many apocalyptic movie trailers. (this link is just for Velius ;)) So it was quite cool to hear the original in an symphonic setting performed by the Seattle Symphony Chorale. there is just something about listening to a 100 person choir singing in latin Gregorian Chant style that makes you automatically think of the apocalypse. Now I wonder if it is because the music invokes the feeling or is it because I have seen too many apocalyptic movie trailers set to this music haha.

In addition to the chorus, we also had 3 solo guest stars, a Soprano, a Tenor and a Baritone. The Baritone was actually really wonderful. He had a very deep and beautiful voice of course. But he was also very expressive and funny especially singing the drinking songs. He got the first spontaneous applause of the night because he portrayed this drunk with such charisma. I thought the Soprano was quite decent as well but M said she was only mediocre and her voice wasn't big enough. Since M can sing circles around me I defer to her opinion on such things :). I actually felt very sorry for the tenor because he only got to sing one song out of 24. So he had to spent the whole hour and a half sitting in the front row looking bored. But not only that, the only song he got to sing was about a swan being roasted on an open fire lamenting his fate. The tenor was quite big (very typical opera singer) and it was already incongruous to hear a very pure high tenor out of his mouth. Then he proceeded to sing in this very self pitying voice just made the whole thing extremely comical. Too bad he didn't get to perform more. I put the text of his song here:

12. Olim Lacu Colueram
Olim Lacus Colueram -----once I had dwelt on lakes
Olim pulcher exstiteram --once I had been beautiful
dum cygnus ego fueram --when I was a swan
Miser, miser! -------------poor wretch!
modo niger ---------------Now black
et ustus fortiter! ----------and well roasted

Girat, regirat garcifer-----The cook turns me back and forth
me rogus urit fortiter0----I am roasted to a turn on my pyre
propinat me nunc dapifer--now the waiter serves me
Miser, miser! -------------poor wretch!
modo niger ---------------Now black
et ustus fortiter! ----------and well roasted

Nunc in scutella laceo------now I lie on the dish
et volitare nequeo---------and I cannot fly
dentes frendentes video---I see the gnashing of teeth
Miser, miser! -------------poor wretch!
modo niger ---------------Now black
et ustus fortiter! ----------and well roasted

oh the Irony

So THursday is usually our group lunch day. Today, one of the guys there sent out an email that he really wanted to go to this famous fast food burger joint. The reason is because he is starting this incredible diet and exercise routine next week for 24 weeks where he will meet with trainer 3 times a day so he won't be able to eat anything he likes. So he is going to satisfy his burger cravings today. We all said "your trainer will hate you to learn you are going to gain 5 pounds before going to see him".haha. Anyway, so we all drove to this burger joint and went in. We went in two cars so our car arrived first, the other car is still on their way. I was in the diet guy's car. We went in the line and the first thing the cashier said was "the beef truck didn't arrive today! We have no meat, only vegeburger and frozen chicken" Then he grumbled "I don't know why I opened". Diet guy practically fainted HAHAHA. It was hilarious, Since we were already there we ended up getting chicken sandwich and fries. Man this is the first time I went to a burger joint and they had no burgers, they did have these excellent garlic fries.

10 minutes after we ordered, the second car arrived. They came in and we all yelled out "they have no beef today!!". They made a sad face of course, but as they got in line and waited, one guy suddenly smirked and yelled to us "He says the beef truck just arrived!!" -_-!!!!! It was totally hilarious as the diet guy's plans were completely ruined. We were like, your trainer is so good he anticipated your cravings and stopped you hahah. Oh the Irony!

vacation plans! ^_^

I am going to Alaska next week for about 10 days for vacation (feel bad cause work is really busy haha). I am pretty excited. I am going with my favorite fellow traveler Paddy and this crazy couple we recruited off the company mailing list. ( I say they are crazy because the guy just got married, he has never gone camping and his wife has never been in a road trip but they are totally gung ho about it.) Paddy always had this dream to drive the Seattle -> Alaska route. It is apparently one of the best roadtrips you can do. We did some investigations and found out that the one way trip takes about 6 days of driving which basically means we have to drive there and come back immediately. Also the rental fees were outrageous in the thousands range. so after weeks of planning (the crazy couple backed out once due to cost but came back) we decided to fly one way and rent a car to drive back. Avis actually had a summer deal for one way drive to Seattle so I guess we are not the only ones doing this. The cost turned out to be acceptable so here is our final plan: I thought I would post this here incase we all got eaten by bears at least you guys would know where I went -_-!

June 30th: Fly Seattle to Anchorage

July 1st: Anchorage - Seward, Anchorage - Denali National Park- Camp for the night

July 2nd: Shuttle bus tour to Wonder Lake, in front of Mount McKinley (10 hour round trip, this is gonna be so painful) camp for the night

July 3rd: Fairbanks - Deadhorse - Prudhoe Bay driving on the infamous Dalton Highway (12 hour one way gravel road to the Northern tip of Alaska inside the Arctic Circle) stop at the last camping site on Dalton highway - camp for the night

July 4th: Prudhoe Bay - Fairbanks - (Another 12 hour gravel road if we are still alive lol)

July 5th: Fairbanks -- Haines Junction and camp. This drive is 8hrs.

July 6th: Drive from Pine Lake - White Horse - Watson Lake (6hrs to get here) - Muncho Lake, BC (10hrs to get here, if we can)

July 7th: drive to Fort St John 7hrs

July 8th: Prince George - Williams Lake - stay for the night

July 9th: KamLoops - Seattle (should be back by midnight).

Route Map:

embarrassment -_-!

So today, in a routine presentation in a routine meeting, I was showing the team our newest test tools and how it can help them simplify testing. I opened boss's brand new laptop, opened internet explorer and typed in the address... connecting..connecting... Nothing. My hand is starting to sweat a little and I have no idea why it wouldn't work since it just worked before i walked in the meeting (classic example of Murphy's Law). So I pulled up remote desktop and connected to my machine because everyone is staring it at me and it is scary. Finally it connected and my desktop showed up, immediately the entire room burst out in a collective "OMG" as they gazed with amazement at my awesomely cluttered desktop. You will see what i mean in a moment. Then they started all to read out the icons I have, so here I was standing in the middle of the room mentally kicking myself for doing this and mentally trying to think if I have anything bad on my desktop (well I don't really but you get paranoid anyway). Then suddenly one guy said "what is that Paris Hilton file", then everybody went 'oooo'. I yelled out "it is her new CD, it is her new CD!!!!!!", and everyone was like "that is even worse!!!' -_-!!!!!! (incidentally, Snoopy this is all your fault! hahha). So after everyone thoroughly inspected everything on my desktop I was able to move on to my presentation with my face completely red hahaha.

screeny of my desktop ,see in 1600x1200 it really ins't that bad!! i still have 3/4 of the space!

fatal error

One of our guys got this error when trying to compile a file on Visual Studios

Fatal Error C1121
Error Message
call to CryptoAPI failed
The compiler made a call to the CryptoAPI and the call failed. Reinstall Visual Studio and possibly reinstall the operating system.

Nothing like reinstalling the operating system to comfort the user lol.

Quake Wars

I saw a video of the Enemy Territory: Quake Wars beta at Youtube today. It looks like a crossbreed of BF2 and Halo. It is strategic FPS with two sides, alien and human. You can be different solder roles (medics, engineer) and drive vehicles, but I don't think there is squad and commander features. the Aliens and Humans have completely different classes etc. Wonder if it is worth looking into. It is online multiplayer only with bot support I think. Can't imagine it being better than BF though. The release date should be sometime in 4th Quarter this year. I looked up the requirement and it is at least playable lol.

System requirements close to Quake 4
"In talking to Kevin Cloud and Paul Wedgewood of id Software and Splash Damage, it was expected that the game would have the same requirements as Quake 4. -- 2007 Santa Monica California Hands on preview session

Minimum System Requirements
Operating System: Windows 98/2000/ME/XP
Processor: Pentium PIII 800 MHz Processor or AMD Athlon
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 2™ or ATI Radeon™ 7000 or higher
CD-ROM: 4X or Faster
RAM: 256 MB RAM

Recommended System Requirements
Operating System: Windows XP
Processor: CPU Pentium 4 2.4GHz or Athlon64 3000
Video Card: Geforce FX 5700 or Radeon 9600 or higher
CD-ROM: CDRom 52x or DVD Rom 16x
RAM: 512 MB RAM

The Best Game Ever??!!

Saw some new info about the game Rock Band on our mailing list, it does seem to be turning out to be the best game ever (if it is true)! These are taken from a forum post at Game Informer

- One disk with 4 separate campaigns. Guitar, Drum, Bass and Vocal. Each can be played on its own from start to finish, in addition, a full band game is designed to allow for one huge co-op playthrough.

- Will feature full support for four player online play on both 360 and PS3. Any combination of on/offline play will work and each player can pick their own difficulty setting.

- Flexible community system will allow you to find bandmates anywhere in the world

- There will be a way for you to share your band's triumphs with the world, but the details are still under wraps.

- Musical fret-boards are now transparent so you can see more of the background visuals. Guitar is on the left side of the screen, Bass on the right and drums down the middle. Vocals scroll from right to left along the top of the screen.

- Guitars and Bass now have 10 frets. 5 for the regular sections of the game and 5 for the newly designated solo sections.

- Whammy bar is back as is the tilt to activate rock band's version of star power

- there is a five way switch on the guitar that allows for 5 different self-applied effects to the sound.

- Singing is now more in depth. There is a phoneme detector that will pick up individual vowels and consonants you say. Build up enough highly judged phrases and you'll be able to sing free-form. If you do well enough in free-form, then you'll trigger the vocalist's version of star power.

- Microphone doubles as a tambourine on many songs to combat super long guitar solos where the singer doesn't have much to do.

- Drums are apparently insane. You use actual sticks and hit one of four colored pads in front of you, in addition to a kick pedal attached to the drumming unit. Drummers will also have the ability to do fills etc. in their own little free-form section, do well and you'll trigger the drummers version of star power.

- If one person fails, the whole band does not fail, their section simply turns gray and they have to sit out the rest of the song unless one your band mates initiates star power, which will bring you back into the fold.

- If all bandmates can reach the end of a song, you'll be greeted with one huge free-form jam session.

- There will be a character creation system, and you can create multiple avatars that play different instruments.

- Four themed clothing stores in addition to licensed guitars and pedals and other rock paraphernalia.

- A full set of mo-cap stage movements have been added for each instrument. You can decide whether your vocalist moves like Axel Rose, or stands his ground like Clapton.

- 40 performance venues planned

- All peripherals will be unique to each platform. This isn't the developer's decision. Apparently MS peripherals require special circuit boards.

- You'll be able to craft your own band logo

- The HUD in the screens isn't final but is a good indication of what you can expect

- 4 songs announced in the article, not sure if this is new or old but whatever.
Weezer - Say It Ain't So - Original Master Track
Black Sabbath - Paranoid - Original Master Track
The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again - Original Master Track
Nirvana - In Bloom - Original Master Track

inspirations

In keeping with Kungfucius' theme, here is something I saw about Mr. Woo who builds robot in china. Wait til the end to see the most amazing one, It almost looks too good to be true. My cynical mind wonders if there is a guy in there pretending hahaha.

This is a segment from British show by Paul Merton, called Paul Merton in China


ETA:, after posting this video, I started looking at other segment of his show and I saw this..!!!

OMG, what restaurant they went to?? I have NEVER seen this eww....
Paul Merton in China - Chinese Meal

OMG, what a total waste of space!! that girl is right about Chinese rich people LOL
Paul Merton in China- weird French hotel

OMG, that is so funny!! lol I wonder what happened when the hotel manager founds out
Paul Mertonin China- mistaken identity

Trivia report

SNoopy and I made a come back last night with our newest team members CCP. They are Snoopy's friends who we roped in into joining us. I think they had fun and may come back. It also helps one of the guys on another team actually knew them so there is that competition factor as well haha. The questions were actually really mainstream this time, which made for a more fun experience even if we didn't do very well.
There was a category on gentleman sports that included Sailing, Polo, Snookers and Fencing (thank god for taking Fencing classes in college haha). THen there was Manly sports category which CCP totally rocked. We did ok on real estate, completely bombed the Cowboys and Indians category. The funny thing was that the first question was "what was the name of the Indian chief whose real name means "in the wilderness". We of course were clueless, so I randomly said "crazy horse??" (I had no idea and was making it up)> we all laughed and moved on, and then later, when they came to that question, they were like the answer is ...."Crazy Horse!!". Snoopy said "OMG< we got that one right!! did you put it down??" I said "err, I was just joking so I left that one blank". then I got beaten up for not putting that answer down LOL.

The bonus round was name that Classical COmposition. Finally!! a music category that was not modern rock! We did ok in that, It is sad that I can't remember any music that is later than 1800s lol. In the end, we came in 3rd to last with 29 points. Although now that we don't get free beer, I am not sure it is such a good result after all HAHAHA.

quiz of the day

Saw this in an email thread. The funny thing is I never programmed in PHP hahah.


Which Programming Language are You?

videos

I uploaded some videos I took on the trip. This is the first time I seriously tried out the video function. So looking back, I definitely moved too fast and talked too quietly. Oh well, will do better next time.

Also here is my Big Island hazard signs collage :) ( you might have to zoom in to see some of them) I think the reason they have so much signs is that basically the attitude on the Island is we warned you about stuff but feel free to do whatever you want.

celebrating Edward Norton

I always liked Edward Norton ever since I saw Primal Fear. He is such a wonderful actor and very lowkey, always doing interesting characters. I was reminded of him today when I was telling someone about The Painted Veil which I saw on the airplane. He was remarkably good in it. Then Snoopy watched The 25th Hour today. She was telling me about this amazing monologue that Edward Norton did in this movie. It was truly awesome. So here is it in celebration of Edward Norton.

warning: strong language

trip to Big Island

The task of recapping this trip is rather daunting as so much stuff has happened in 4 days and I am not really that good at remembering the details. so I guess I will do my best. I thought I would post the photos first. We had together about 1000 pictures. I have eliminated them down to 170. I had to get rid of alot of good pictures but I think uploading a thousand pics is a bit much. The pictures are based on chronological order and I made a map of our itinerary. As you can see we pretty much ran all the way around the Island except the most Eastern section. It is ALOT of driving as the island is about as big as Connecticut and Rhode Island put together except more mountainous.





Moonfleck's Hawaii Album

LOL

Since I was looking up stuff on Will Wheaton, I stumbled upon this : LOLtrek…
Link to the entire Star Trek episode “The Trouble With Tribbles” painstakingly redone as a series of still images in the style of LOLcats. It is hilarious and brought back good times. ahh tribbles....

PAX update

The official PAX site finally updated with some more info. They have invited Will Wheaton (aka Wesley Crusher of Star Trek TNG) to be the keynote speaker! He has a really funny blog about it on his blogsite about how they were going to give him a Wii for going haha.

The nerdcore band Minibosses will also be there for the Saturday concert. They are quite famous for playing game music.

back to normal life

As yall know, I spent my memorial day weekend in Big Island, Hawaii. One of the most exotic, otherworldly places I have ever been. It was an absolutely mind blowing experience. A full recap is coming up as soon as I actually get some sleep. I got off the plane at 8 am this morning and came straight to work. *dead*. But here is a taste:
According to National Geographic:
"Mountains are generally measured from sea level, in which case Mount Everest (29,028 feet; 8,848 meters) is king." However, "Hawaii's Mauna Kea, though, rises an astonishing 33,476 feet (10,203 meters) from the depths of the Pacific Ocean floor. Measuring from base to peak, Mauna Kea is the tallest mountain on earth."

Even counting from sea level, Mauna Kea is still an astonishing 13,796 feet. (by comparison, our own Mount Rainier runs at a height of 14,410 FT). It houses the world's largest observatory for optical, infrared, and submillimeter astronomy due to the remarkably clear sky up there.

and I was there on Saturday, on the very summit, on the tallest mountain on Earth, bundled up like an eskimo and barely breathing. IT was awesome! :)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
random thought: We were just given ShadowRun xbox and PC version. I wasn't that interested in the xbox version because my thumbing skills suck but I was highly excited about the PC version until I saw the "SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS" (notice not recommendations!)

SYstem Requirement of ShadowRun PC:
OS: Windows Vista
Processor: Dual Core CPU
Memory: 2 GB Ram, 4.5 GB free hard drive space
video card: Nvidia 7800 ATI x1800 (256 Megs or above)

ok. if you don't think that is insane, check out the small print underneath:

"Increased performance will be noticed on more powerful systems"

MORE POWERFULS SYSTEMS??? what is more powerful??? I have to freaking buy a new computer to be able to play my free game *fistshake*

wow is taking over the world

well what else is new right? I was just looking at google news and there was a news article on Google's latest tool Google Hot Trends where they list the fastest rising (not the most searched) searches in a day. It is pretty interesting to look at some of their graph of ascension. For example, Stone Phillips was #3 when I wrote this blog, but he is on a steady decline after spending about ONE minute at the top. As I was looking at this list, I noticed this term "ctmod" that didn't come up with any articles relating to it. Then I was looking at blogposts and I realized it is a wow mod term. Then my coworkers came to me and pointed out that the 7 out of the top 25 are Wow related terms. I guess Wow is as hot as ever (or because a new patch came out haha). In testament to its hotness, I saw this video on Kotaku about the origin of WOw character dances, its pretty well done and Tunuk brings back such great memories sigh...

trivia night

Our invited helper this week ditched us at the last minute. So without suspense we were last place again with a whopping 22 points. The announcers recognized our team name(we have a separate name for if it was just the two of us). Even they said we did terrible haha. I tipped over my water glasses in celebration :(

Although to be honest, I think we did alot better than I imagined. We pretty much guessed through the first 4 categories. Got zeros on song lyrics (as usual) and pharmaceuticals (people's knowledge of these is kind of scary actually). The bonus was figuring out the cover band, the song and the original artist from a song snippet. We didn't do that well but it was fun to listen to the music. This is my favorite kind of bonus section. :)

So has everybody seen the StarCraft II announcements? I was watching the Yahoo reports from Korea. That nation is very obsessed with StarCraft I think. The yahoo guy was all astonished at their starcraft tv channel (which I watched when I was layover in Seoul, it is strangely mesmerizing). Anyway, I watched some of the game play video and it looks JUST like StarCraft except with better graphics and some more units so I am a little disappointed. I guess I was hoping for more innovations. But I guess they want to stick to a tried and true formula, and whatever they have now looks good. It looks like it will come out in October. The funny thing was 2 days before the announcement, a guy on our team randomly send out a email to the chat list to ask about whether STarCraft II will be mmorpg, and that sparked a whole discussion around that. Then immediately afterwards they announced it. The funny thing was it was totally out of blue email. We don't usually discuss games on the chat anyway. I guess he had a premonition about the future lol.

karaoke

I was browsing GameStop last night when I noticed they had a $9.99 used Mic for PS2. I figure it will come in handy for the Veggie party so I bought it. Then, I figure, might as well browse the PS2 game section and see what they have (GameStop is devious). So I ended up buying a used copy of Karaoke Revolution 3. God Bless second hand markets. Tried it last night and I liked it alot. I actually knew about 70% of the songs, unlike KR AI which I only know like 40%. They have alot of modern songs within the last few years, this made the singing much more enjoyable. They only have 4 songs to unlock and I didn't know any of them so that was kind of disappointment. But overall, I thought the songlist was wonderful :)

amazing

the word "Cafeteria" is usually synonymous with "bad food". This is still true here in my building also. I usually buy lunch and it is always such a hard decision to choose between "nasty stir fry" and "even nastier roast chicken". Although to be fair, our cafeteria probably has more variety than most. Today though, I walked down the stairs at noon to the cafeteria, browsed the different stations and bypassed the pasta station and went to the deli, except instead of the regular "roast chicken", there was a sign that says "gourmet lunch plate- New York Steak and Snow Crab Legs ". I looked over to the station and sure enough, that is what is there, along with some parsley, and gravy among other things. I was COMPLETELY SPEECHLESS. Apparently even the cook gets bored once in a while, and aspires to be a gourmet chef :). and it was very good too !

Post for Tochi

Yes, the rest of you is not allowed to read it. :) ( I really need yall's email)

Anyway, I saw someone asking about Olympics NP on our mailing list so I compiled a bunch of the responses for you. They are talking about Memorial weekend, you won't have to worry about rain too much.

I go to the coast (La Push, near Forks) just about every Memorial Day weekend. Over the past 12 years, it has ALWAYS rained at least a bit. It’s usually in the 50’s or 60’s during the day, and probably the 40’s at night. Thus we have always stayed in cabins with HEAT. J It is lovely.

The cabins at La Push are “rustic”, but you are right on the beach (“1st beach”) and there is hiking nearby (“2nd beach” and “3rd beach”). Many people go there and camp, but I’m not into it that early in the season (too rainy). Kalaloch is supposed to be nice too, but I’ve never been there.

Given the late date, it could be difficult getting a reservation…good luck!


As a Seattle native who has been watching the weather around here for almost 50 years, Memorial Day weather is: unreliable. Only July and Aug are reliably dry. The rest of the months are risky.

Hurricane Ridge has some nice hikes and you can stay in Port Angeles if it’s wet. And the drive is a bit shorter than the coast. Better make your reservations soon though!That’s a busy weekend! The best places will likely be full.

Most any time of the year I would plan on rain in the Olympics. Just make sure you have a waterproof floor/tarp for your tent. Also most campgrounds require a camping permit. I would actually be surprised if you could still get a permit unless you are planning to go way into the back country. If you plan on just doing day hikes you’ll still need a park pass. We buy an annual pass each year that allows us into both the national parks as well as state parks for under a 100 bucks. I’m not sure what the price will be this year.

As for hiking over a two day period I would recommend Hurricane ridge. It’s very close to Port Angeles, and has a good range of hiking trails. There’s everything from a paved trail at the top to very rugged trails with little or no markings.

Enjoy your trip.

You can call 360-565-3131 for the weather information. The automated message is updated twice a day. Once at 8:30am and second one at 3:00pm.

We stayed in Red Lion Hotel in Port Angeles. It was good and prefer asking the room facing the water. The view is good early in the morning (if there is sun J)

Trivia Night Saga Continues

Last night Snoopy and I went to Trivia Night again with a new team member J. We had high hopes for J since he knows ALOT of sports trivia. So we thought we were well covered there. The night started pretty normal, the 3 funny guys were back to announce questions. I think they are my favorites out of all the question guys, because of their dry humor. The categories turned out to be quite mundane, nothing BT at all, or so it seemed at first: We first started out with the Year 1989, J was pretty confident since he was in High School that time and therefore should remember stuff. But we were stumped by the name of the ROmanian dictator that was executed that year (Nicolae Ceausescu), and the name of the Captain of Exxon -Valdez (Hazelwood) among other things, and here I thought I know all my communist dictators humph.

The next category was National Parks and we did really well, who knew that Grand Teton was named for the French slang for big nipples -_-!

Did not do so well on Long winded quotes from famous Docs, who remember what the hell the Monroe Doctrine said? Or the Immacipation Proclaimation? ANyway, it all went downhill from there, as we passed through current events, famous quotes (Snoopy really should insist on Benjamin Franklin for everything =P) and Famous movie quotes ( we only got Princess Bride and The Good, THe Bad and the Ugly).

The bonus round was picking out the top10 most powerful women in the world out of the top20 list by Forbes. We actually got 5/10 going for the Rich=Powerful rule. But we missed the Chancellor of Germany and Vice Premier of China. ALl in all, not bad for guessing. Our final was 23 points, which put us about middle way :) and alas, there was almost no Sports questions at all sniff.

The really funny thing was at the end when they were announcing the score from the last to first place, they went by the way of "this team, who did blahblah in the last few weeks, got this score". We were at the point where they were about to announce the 20s, and the guy started out with "this team, who got 23 points..." at this point we were like "yes thats us!!", guy:" did quite well in the previous weeks..." us:"... oh wait, thats not us" LOL, apparently we tied with some other more famous team :)

PSA: I already got fly schedule from one person, coming in at 10:30 am on Thursday, leaving at 7 Am on Tuesday morning. Get tickets soon and see if you can get around that time to save me some gas ;)

Veggie party scheduling

Here is my post about scheduling, we have two proposals so far on the range of times, I say Range as I know people will have varied schedules.

1. Thu, August 23 - Tuesday, August 27, we do stuff, no camping
2. Fri, August 17 - Sunday, August 25, Tochi's plan of camping for 3 days and then hang out in Seattle.

I suppose we better decide soon so people can buy tickets, I am leaning towards #1 as I don't have too much feeling about camping, I mean I think it is fun and stuff but maybe not on the level of Tochi and friends haha. However, if Veggies all want to go camping, I am definitely up for it, it will be adventure as well.

If it is a no on camping, we can always meet up with Tochi (friends?) for the rest of the week and hang out, since I assume the Tochi caravan is a go regardless? :)

put your preference in the comments or yall can email me.

Stuff to do in Seattle

Since the PAX veggie party seems very likely to happen, we should start think about what we want to do besides going to Pax for a day. Trivia Night has already been suggested, as well as Pike Place Market and camping in Olympics National Park. So I thought I would take this chance to list out some of the other attractions that I think are worth visiting while you guys are here. This is divided into Activity types and ranked by my personal like if I've been there. Obviously we can't do all of them and I might have missed some also so feel free to remove or add to the list etc.

Events
PAX- Penny Arcade Expo, the largest gamer convention hosted by the Penny Arcade, it is 3 days of gaming craziness. I figure we only have to go for a day, preferrably Saturday since that is the day with the concerts, or maybe Sunday depends on when the guitar hero tournament happens ;) Duration: 1 day, Cost $25 for one day or $45 for 3 day, Catnip Rank: ***

Trivia at Celtic Bayou : this happens Monday night at 8pm, the famed battleground of Snoopy and I. There seems to be alot of interest in a Veggie victory. So people wanting to join will have to leave on Tuesday. Duration: 2 hours, Cost: food and drink Catnip rank: ***

Museums
Experience Music Project - This is a MUST SEE for all rockstar wanna be's. It is in my opinion the most interesting museum in Seattle. In their own words: "EMP is a one-of-a-kind music museum combining interactive and interpretive exhibits to tell the story of the creative, innovative and rebellious expression that defines American popular music. Featuring a world-class collection of artifacts, unique architecture by Frank O. Gehry, state-of-the-art technology, and exciting interactive presentations, EMP will encourage visitors of all ages and backgrounds to experience the power and joy of music in its many forms. " . Not the mention the building looks like giant messed up guitar. You also get the Science Fiction museum for free. Duration: 2-3 hours, Cost: $15 Catnip Rank: ***

Museum of Flight: This is a pretty good museum if you like airplanes. They have a pretty extensive collection since we are the founding place of Boeing. I was pretty impressed with it. They also have an old Air Force One for you to look inside. I am not very into airplanes so it was not too exciting, but still a good museum. Duration: 2-3 hours, Cost: $14, Catnip Rank: **
Alternative:
Future of Flight Aviation Center & Boeing Tour. this is the museum at the Boeing Headquarters. I have never been there but besides seeing alll the latest in airplane design technology, you get to tour part of the Boeoing plant and see airplanes being assembled. cost: $15 Catnip rank:??

Museum of Glass: I decided not to list the art museum cause I figure there wont' be much interest. But I always wanted to go to this one. the NW has a pretty strong tradition in Glass Blowing and this museum is suppose to have some pretty cool stuff and a live glass blowing workshop. It might be a cool thing to do if there is free time, cost: $10, Catnip Rank: ??

Tours:
Seattle Underground Tour: A hilarious guided walking tour in Downtown Seattle that explains to you the history of Seattle city and some of the major events it has gone through. It walks underneath the city where the old streets used to be. Duration 1 hours, cost: $14, Catnip Rank: **

Seattle Harbor Cruise: this is a boat tour that takes you around Elliott Bay in Downtown Seattle. It is also guided and pretty fun thing to do on a sunny day. It lasts about an hour. cost: $18.61 Catnip rank: ** Alternatively, we can do the Locks tour which is 2.5 hours and about 30 bucks. that one is also pretty interesting.

Wilderness:
Olympics National Park: I have never been so can't really expound on its goodness but I figure it can't be bad, I mean it is a national park. I still suggest if we go, we just do a day trip. camping really is alot of work and takes up alot of time. :) Duration: 1 day, cost: $15 per car. Catnip rank: ??

Mount Rainier: This is another national park, it is about the same distance as to Olympics. Mount Rainier is an active volcano although it really hasn't done anything for years. You can see the peak of this mountain from Seattle city. It has many hiking trails etc. Although the weather would have to be nice, I have been there times when I am the bottom of the mountain and I can't see the freakin mountain at all. Duration: 1 day, cost: $15 per car, Catnip rank: **

Snoqualmie Falls: This has the advantage of being the closest to my house. It is only 15 minutes drive. It also has a nice hike down to the bottom of the fall. The fall is 270 feet tall. Velius has been to this one so I guess it is not as interesting now. Duration: 2 hours, cost: free, Catnip Rank: *

General Attractions:
Space Needle: You know, symbol of Seattle blahblah, I guess if you are a first timer you have to see this. It has a nice rotating restaurant up on top and the elevator is on the outside so you can see the way up. I've been to this place many times already. Another option is to go up at night or at dusk to watch the sunset. that is actually pretty nice. Duration: 1 hour, cost: $15 Catnip Rank: *

Pike Place Market - A kind of flea market in the middle of Seattle Downtown. It has that fish tossing thing Ender was talking about. It is pretty fun place to visit all the random shops and just walk around. Although I've seen them toss fish and it really wasn't that exciting I thought. They basically toss it from one side of the stand to the others. so maybe not get your hopes up too much haha. Duration: 1 hour, cost: free, Catnip Rank: **

Pioneer Square: it is kind of the historical center of Seattle with many old buildings and galleries. It also has a bunch of clubs for night life. A fun place to walk around. The underground tour starts here also. Duration 1 hour, cost: free, Catnip Rank: *

Alki Beach: A beautiful beach strip near Downtown. Good for walks and such. It is 2.5 miles long. it is famous for being the beach where they filmed a part of Sleepless in Seattle. Duration 3 hours, cost: free, Catnip Rank: ??

Wild Waves Enchanted Village: Seems some Veggies are big rollercoaster enthusiasts. Wildwaves is a theme park featuring Timberhawk- largest rollercoaster in Washington made completely out of wood. Duration: 1 day, cost: $35 catnip Rank: ??

Other options:
Vancouver BC: Vancouver is about 3 hours away so a day trip is possible.

chateau ste michelle : Washington's oldest winery. They offer tour and wine tasting. not sure if Veggies are into Wine or not. but it is really close to Seattle. cost: $5 Catnip Rank: ?? Snoopy says only go if you love wine and haven't been to Napa Valley =D

Microsoft: Someone mentioned a tour, I suppose we can walk around the campus lol. But you guys should go visit the company store, I get good discounts.

Ok, here are the major stuff I can think of right now. besides these, there are alot of places to walk since Seattle is surrounded by water so every direction has nice views. This is alot of stuff of course, I suggest one day at PAX, one day for downtown stuff (EMP needle, tours etc) and maybe half a day for a museum or two, and one day for an drive out(either park, wild waves or vancouver), ok discuss away

trivia night

After a few weeks hiatus when Snoopy was away, we went back to Trivia Night, this time with one of Snoopy's friend. With his help, we were able to squeeze out of last place by a mere 2 points for a total of 15!!! This week's questions were pretty hard. Although Velius tells me that any "normal" person would know the Godfather, father and cousin of Barry Bonds. Too bad none of us was normal, would have helped in the "Barry Bond is an Asshole" category. We also completely bombed the "60s one hit wonder" category. Did ok in the science category. The bonus round was the incredibly "变态“ question of name the top 20 grossing films of all time ADJUSTED FOR INFLATION!! We somehow missed all disney entries bleh. anyway, at least we weren't last place, much to the disappointment of our new teammate haha.

ETA; top 20 grossing film of all time adjusted for inflation, source: boxofficemojo

Title Studio Adjusted Gross Unadjusted Gross Year^
1 Gone with the Wind MGM 1,329,453,600 $198,676,459 1939^
2 Star Wars Fox $1,172,026,900 $460,998,007 1977^
3 The Sound of Music Fox $937,093,200 $158,671,368 1965
4 E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial Uni. $933,401,500 $435,110,554 1982^
5 The Ten Commandments Par. $861,980,000 $65,500,000 1956
6 Titanic Par. $844,515,900 $600,788,188 1997
7 Jaws Uni. $842,758,600 $260,000,000 1975
8 Doctor Zhivago MGM $816,811,300 $111,721,910 1965
9 The Exorcist WB $727,541,800 $232,671,011 1973^
10 Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Dis. $717,220,000 $184,925,486 1937^
11 101 Dalmatians Dis. $657,455,500 $144,880,014 1961^
12 The Empire Strikes Back Fox $646,028,600 $290,475,067 1980^
13 Ben-Hur MGM $644,840,000 $74,000,000 1959
14 Return of the Jedi Fox $618,910,900 $309,306,177 1983^
15 The Sting Uni. $586,560,000 $156,000,000 1973
16 Raiders of the Lost Ark Par. $579,973,400 $242,374,454 1981^
17 Jurassic Park Uni. $567,234,400 $357,067,947 1993
18 The Graduate AVCO $562,688,100 $104,642,560 1967
19 Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace Fox $558,153,800 $431,088,301 1999
20 Fantasia Dis. $546,426,100 $76,408,097 1941^

culture day

I went to the Seattle Art Museum yesterday with some friends. They are grand opening after renovations so they gave free tickets to everyone. I didn't even know it was there until yesterday. For a big city Seattle doesn't have alot of museums. I was totally disappointed with the science museum when I went before( Houston's was so much better) so I didn't have high hopes but it actually turned out to be pretty great. The museum is situated right in the middle of downtown Seattle. It was very modern looking and the exhibit halls were pretty big. They had 3 floors with mostly paintings and some sculptures and clothing. I was most impressed with the range of subjects they were able to cover. They had a rather large modern art section (expressionism and abstract expressionism). Stuff that just goes way over my head but was interesting to look at nonetheless. I just wonder how come people think that painting two colored squares is so cool. They had a pretty sizable oil painting exhibit with some gorgeous works, an Asian exhibit filled mostly with japanese art, some very interesting "native" art from Africa, Australia and Americas. I especially liked the seritaph paintings done by BC native Americans. They are really beautiful. I can't find any info on Seritaph on the internet though (how strange is that!) Anyway, it was fun thing to do for a day.

Later in the day, I went to hear my friend's band Peratus play at Waldo's bar. I never heard them before so it was an interesting experience. I guess their music is best described as "Heavy Metal"? Not something I would normally listen to but I can certainly admire the energy of the music and the performance. I actually got there kind of late so I missed my friend playing the Keytar. He is a 80s dude haha. I thought they put up a great show. The last song was so full of energy and passion that people went up and jumped around in front of the stage. Although I realized later, their band was actually pretty mellow considering the band that came up next was Second Coming. SC is actually pretty famous and their lead singer was screaming so much I was afraid he was gonna tear his vocal chord but I suppose he is used to it. Their music was much louder and much more angsty. I can't say I liked the really fast stuff but some of the slower stuff (comparatively speaking) was not bad.

So I started out the day looking at artworks and ended the day with my ears ringing, all in all, not bad :)

ETA: I just realized the reason that I can't find seritaph is that I remembered it wrong, it was actually SeriGraph.

Spiderman 3

Our team went to see Spiderman 3 as a morale event today during the day (yay no work). The theatre was packed with other techy nerd groups that got off work and kids who got off school. we were able to get whole rows together as a group which was always nice. I liked the movie alot. It was well done, the story was pretty complex and it tied up all the loose ends nicely. There was alot of awesome action sequences involving tight flying in cramped spaces and brutal beatings of pretty much everyone. I think they really tried to pay homage to the original comic by introducing lots of symbolism and themes into this movie. The movie was also packed with comic moments to relieve the constant beating up of everyone. you will know what I mean when you see the Jazz bar scene. (groan from everyone) one shining surprise moment was the brief appearance of Bruce Campbell (Autolycus in the Hercules tv series). He is always hilarious. Anyway, I won't give out too much details. The only fault I would say is that the story is almost too complex to fit in 2 and half hours. I feel like they tried to cram too much stuff in. I think it would have made 2 movies easily and with more breathing room for everybody. Would love to hear everyone's opinion of it.

A sight to be seen

Many people may have heard me complain (endlessly)about the terrible weather within the NW winter/spring where cloudy days are followed by rainy days followed by cloudy days in an endless dreary cycle. However, I may not talk about another phenomenon that happens so rare I almost don't think about it anymore. As rare as a beautiful sunny day is around this time, a clear night sky is an even more rare thing. The most crystal blue skies during the day will almost always be followed by nights where a deep veil of clouds hangs unmoving over the city. The darkness is so eternal and stifling that the moon and stars seems more like mythical objects than real things. I think it has been at least 3 months since I've seen a clear night sky. This is why it is such a rare treat when I drove out from my late dinner party tonight and saw the most perfect FULL moon shining brightly in the sky. It is surrounded by the thinnest of clouds that was not able to obscure its light. It was even more beautiful when I drove over the bridge and saw its pale reflection shimmering over the black waters. I was so mesmerized that I almost swerved out of my lane. I was determined to rush home as quickly as possible and take a picture of this sight. Alas, just as I was reaching home, all the while straining my neck to keep the moon in my sight, The ever ominous cloud cover slowly crept in, until the last silver lining flickered and disappeared, and the moment was lost.

Dating Woes

So, I am at an age where basically any random stranger whom I meet seems to register my single-ness and my age and automatically start to set me up with random guys from all walks of life. This has gotten especially ridiculous funny this year to the point of making me speechless. It all started when I was in college, where M promised me she will never try to set me up with anyone as she is very "liberal", being the good innocent person that I was I believed her. So needless to say I suffered a major shock when starting around last year, she started to bring up random guys that she either know at work. or who are relatives of her friends that she thinks I should meet. At first it was just a casual "so, I know this guy that is nice", then it became 'I got this guy's email and phone number, you should reply to him" to "We need to take a better picture of you so we can send to this guy" Notice the increasing level of desperation... Anyway, this was of course all done with my permission as I figure it is better to nod and smile. Besides, it is kind of expected of M. Since in Asian culture, if you don't have a steady bf by the time you are 25, people think you have some weird disease.

So I have done my part in emailing strangers who live across the country, completely pointless if you ask me. I am firm disbeliever of "blind dates" and "online dating" (perhaps I am missing out?). This is all tolerable until recently, when basically almost everybody I know starts to mention random boys to me. Case in point, I met a girl about 2 weeks ago at a wedding reception who happen to work in the next building over. She is Chinese and married (alarm should have sounded). She seems like a nice person and I like talking to her. We have had lunch twice now, when all of a sudden she started asking me about my dating life and what kind of boys I like. This all ended with today when she came to my office and said "btw, I know this boy that wants to date you, what do you say ".. ME: ........ Her enthusiasm can only be described by the fabled mythical being of “媒婆“, whose passion in matchmaking is surpassed only by the layer of powder on her nose. I was completely speechless since I am unaccustomed to such direct questions. So I kinda made random noises and tried to change the subject. It is almost funny the situation that I am in now haha.