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!