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.