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Thursday, May 15th, 2008
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10:55 am - movies
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Laura and I saw Harold and Kumar 2 last night. It was all right. It was pretty funny at times, but it didn't have the inner quality of the first film. A lot of the bits went on too long and got stale. I even got sick of NPH. All told it appears that the producers just want a bite of the raunchy comedy sequelization market; someday down the road we'll probably see Harold and Kumar presents: The Naked Mile or whatever, direct to video. But so far the franchise is still watchable.
Iron Man, which we saw last week, was solid. I enjoyed it a lot. Great acting, direction, effects, The Dude, everything it needed to keep me entertained. I did have some issues with the script but it is definitely at the top of the pile of comic book movies.
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| Friday, May 9th, 2008
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12:57 pm
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Laura and I are back in New Orleans making final preparations to leave for good. First she has to graduate. It appears that we might get a kitten; Correctly letting Scout acclimate to another cat will be an important task.
There was a big roach today, vacuumed it up.
Edit:
OH YEAH! We need to get our armed forces the hell out of Iraq, and pronto! The situation totally sucks there. I assume our presence just exacerbates the waking nightmare Iraqis face every day, but even if it does not, our forces' commitment to keeping order means they pretty much get blamed for everything awful that happens there. It's Catch-2002, people! It's time to fall back on isolationism and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. If you think leaving would be admitting defeat, try to console yourself that it was mission accomplished after only a couple months--most of the last five years were just us trying to make peace of an uncontrollable situation. Like cunning Odysseus, we must cut our losses, and make our escape before we're stuck in the cyclops' cave forever.
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| Friday, May 2nd, 2008
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4:11 pm
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Fiji... trying to write on Laura's palm was very slow.
Here we are in strange non-reality land. Resort.
Free coffee shop internet after seeing the hotel charges $7fj for five minutes up to $80fj for two hours or more.
The U.S. news seems censored from outside the bubble. Iraq looks really bad. It appears we should've packed up and left when the mission was accomplished.
Nice weather here. It rained last night but we've been getting plenty of sun by the nice pool.
Coming home soon. Late on the 4th, not the 3rd like we had believed.
Birthday soon.
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| Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
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6:13 pm - Aus
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Laura picked a really good thing to do yesterday, which was go to the Featherdale wildlife park. It's a little out of town but right next to the railway, so we took a little ride and walked through the slightly bizarre Sydney burbs to get there. And oh man! Was it worth it!
Tons of the animals were really active--like koalas climbing around and jumping from tree to tree. And big fuzzy wombats, and echidnas, and a tasmanian devil. We pet a wallaby and a koala, and some musty kangaroos. And I touched the echidna. And the wallabies had little babies in their pouches. Woo! Taste my overstimulation!
Also we saw a movie on the largest screen in the world which was really impressive due to the IMAX 3D format. The encompassing field of view, 3D effect and picture clarity takes watching the film to a new visual level. When IMAX 3D Digital comes out (sometime soon) ease of access could create a new interest in going to the movies.
Fiji tomorrow, after a layover in Auckland. Fun!
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| Thursday, April 24th, 2008
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9:16 pm - Sydney
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Laura and I are still alive and well, now in Sydney, just in time for Anzac day, which is kind of cool because it remembers how bad-ass, yet unsuccessful, the Ozzie/Kiwi troops were in battle at Gallipoli in WWI.
Like, way to be heroes, sucks that you're dead.
Anyways, we'll see how Sydney turns out. Imo find me a wombat pronto.
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| Monday, April 21st, 2008
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5:21 pm - enzed kiwiland trivia
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Tantrix must be the official tourist town game. I rarely see it in normal city game stores. It was invented here in New Zealand and so it's around. In the first few towns we were in I saw the travel version (little tiles, totally cute and desirable) but it was more expensive than I expected so I didn't buy it. Then I decided I would just bite the bullet and pay the ~$30US it costs, and then I couldn't find it anywhere. Until today.
Today Laura and I saw Amon Hen, Ithilien, the ford of Bruinen, and the pillars (well, the chasm where the models were digitally inserted) of the King. The latter is just down the river from where adventure-bungy jumping got off the ground. We watched someone jump.
We also drove on definitely the worst/scariest road i've ever been on. It was cool. When we had to pass an opposing car, on the outside, with a hundred meter plunge over the edge of chipped rock and dust to our left, one of the middle-aged women on the tour was terrified to the point of hollering "no, no, please no!".
Last week we went to a McDonald's to check out the regional differences that I find interesting. I had a Kiwi Burger, which was essentially a quarter pounder with lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, um, an EGG, and BEETS. They also have the Baby Mac which is just a normal hamburger made up like a Big Mac and is genius.
The scenery here (in Queenstown, coincidentally close to where much of Willow was filmed) is really, really beautiful. As it's gradually becoming autumn here, the trees are a vivid palette of green through orange, the sky is deep blue, etc etc, it's just remarkable.
Apparently when LoTR was filming, it was the largest employer in New Zealand. Wild.
The rocks on the shore of Lake Wakatipu are awesome for skipping.
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| Saturday, April 19th, 2008
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11:55 am - NZ - Wellington
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It's raining here.
Today a Helm's Deep Elf, Nathan, drove us around and told us a bit about Wellington. It's a cool city, with a lot of beautifully undeveloped coastline. I'd totally make movies here.
I'm liking Kiwiland more and more as we spend time here. When getting a feel for this place, it's easy to appreciate how much work they put into making it a cultural and natural paradise.
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| Monday, April 14th, 2008
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3:34 pm - NZ 2
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Having a good time in New Zealand (en zed). Laura and I drove (on the left!) out of Auckland yesterday and visited Waitomo Glowworm Caves .. The cave tour was friendly and a bit shabby like many kiwi attractions; the glowworm grotto itself (viewed in the dark as we slid along silently through the water in a wooden boat) was fantastic (though Laura seemed to think it was a bit cheesy). The associated Museum of Caves was tiny and had an awesome, unintentionally hilarious educational multimedia presentation.
From Waitomo we came to Rotorua, which is basically the tourist center of all the nearby geothermal wonders. We checked in to our hotel and enjoyed a bit of culture at the Maori dinner/presentation next door. I stuck out my tongue a bit.
Today it rained all day but that didn't stop us from making it to Wai-o-Tapu Thermal Wonderland. We made it just in time to watch the geyser that goes off every morning at 10:15... because they force it to erupt by pouring soap into it! Regardless, the thermal pits and smelly bubbling pools were beautiful and interesting, like the rest of what we've seen. The rain only dampened (ha) our spirits a little and we relaxed afterwards in the natural hot spring pool (and unnatural chlorinated whirlpool) at the hotel.
I could say more about Auckland (Devonport across the way was really nice) but I'm out of time.
Oh, and they have the Daily Show here. It's on CNN.
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| Friday, April 11th, 2008
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11:15 am - New Zealand quick update
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Laura and I are alive and well. Auckland is pretty cool. The weather has been beautiful. Everything is beautiful.
I saw a kiwi bird at the zoo. I liked seeing it.
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| Monday, March 24th, 2008
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5:08 pm - Geometry Wars: Galaxies
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I've finally got a chance to play Geometry Wars: Galaxies, and so far am very impressed. The developers were able to add tasty ingredients to the simple shoot-and-survive formula without changing it. Namely, variety (offering dozens of stages, each with a different flavor) and character building strategy. For example, there's a stage that's small and cramped and mostly spawns diamonds, offering a chance to prove your serpentine dodgy skills; do you choose the safety of the close range sweep drone or rely on excellent passive damage from the turret?
Galaxies' simplicity and faithfulness to the original only serves to reinforce how fun the core gameplay is. It's a shame Galaxies is only out for Wii and DS, because I think any of you who have spent hours on end playing the original on the xBox would really, really enjoy it.
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| Wednesday, March 19th, 2008
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12:56 am
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| Monday, March 17th, 2008
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2:22 pm - In case you didn't kn...
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At the urging of Jason:
Do you use non-beta Firefox to read comics like XKCD where the joke is often in the alt text? And do you suffer from long alt text being truncated, so you have to right click/properties to read the whole line? If so you can download the following Add-on which will make those captions non-truncated.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1715
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| Sunday, March 16th, 2008
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12:36 am - 4th Edition D&D
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I've read a lot about 4th Ed. D&D and I think I get it.
Contrary to my first impressions, I don't think it's going to be more like a board game than 3rd Ed, though they have introduced elements which are (e.g.) reminiscent of Descent. 4E should feel essentially the same as 3E, except with combat that is is more focused and more fun; given that combat is about 60-80% of most gaming sessions, at least, that's a really big deal.
( Read on. )
I gotta say though, some of those new powers have really stupid names. Flying eagle monkey of the silver fist.
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| Wednesday, February 27th, 2008
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2:12 pm - Bah
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Oh, facebook chess, how you amuse and frustrate me. There I was, minding my own business with a slightly-better than even record, when all of a sudden out of nowhere come four losses in a row. My euphoric, turn the tide moment last night was forcing stalemate in a failed game. Bah!
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| Sunday, February 17th, 2008
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5:52 pm
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Hm. Lately I've been playing chess on facebook. It's pretty good. I still make stupid mistakes though.
And I've been playing City of Heroes. I got Elani to level 50, my first 50, over double XP weekend. So now I can play an epic archetype. Pretty cool.
City Of has always been pretty much on and off for me, on for a month, off for six, that kind of thing. But I've been playing it regularly for quite a while now, and it's because I joined the LJ/CoH community. I don't like everyone, but most of them are decent people and decent players. And because it's not attached to a particular character or server, it has the advantage of outlasting a super group or limited global friends list.
In some way I feel that some sort of forced community could be implemented in MMOs to make them stay fun. Whether it's an overarching goal that unites a limited set of players or arbitrary team chat, I feel like it would help to give people a small class of peers that they can feel more comfortable associating with.
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| Wednesday, February 13th, 2008
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4:58 am - Nocturnal Dilemma
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I generally stay up late, and as of late there have been few exceptions to that fact. Last night, probably since Laura was on call and didn't come home, I stayed up even later than usual. And now tonight I've passed the lateness threshold, where I reach catch-22; i.e., it is too late to go to bed, because Laura's gotta get up in a couple of hours and waking her up would be really mean, but I also feel guilty for having never come to bed. So hopefully I can wake up really tired, avoid drinking a bunch of coffee, and go to bed at the same time as Laura tomorrow night.
Unless she goes to bed at 9 again. That's just crazy.
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| Monday, February 11th, 2008
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7:52 pm
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"Mr. Moore, will you sign my DVD of 'Watchmen Babies [in V for Vacation]'? Which of the babies is your favorite?" - Milhouse
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| Thursday, January 24th, 2008
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7:52 pm
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It would be easy to take for granted how awesome my friends are for putting together such an elaborate trip to London in my honor, and then to foot the bill for my travel expenses on top of it.
I just want to say thanks to everyone who had a hand in planning and supporting The London Escape in some way, and to those who attended, I'm really glad you could be there, and I hope no one went broke. I hope some day, some how, I can make it up to you all.
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| Saturday, January 19th, 2008
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12:46 am - London!
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After half a day of tiresome driving, waiting, flying, and some lingering dread from not wanting to get any potential hopes dashed, they finally told me where we were headed. In Montreal airport, before we waltzed through transfer customs, Mike ripped off his shirt, flinging buttons, and revealing the 'London Escape' T-shirt he wore beneath.
Stonehenge! The London Museum! Pubs! Bath and Windsor Castle! Hostel! Avenue Q!? Buckingham Palace! Espresso! Big Ben! Lots and Lots of Walking!
We're having a good time.
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| Friday, January 4th, 2008
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3:49 pm
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I've been playing a lot of The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass lately, and while I'm going to beat it before I give it a full review, I've gotta say that it's pretty awesome. The game is laid out to be a bit longer than I'm used to for a DS game, but when I think about it it's probably about the size of New Super Mario Bros., but with a lot more depth.
Plus, you do everything with the stylus! I'm used to pulling out the stylus to drag items on the trade screen, or select from a menu quicker, and so I am impressed by the wide variety of functions the stylus performs. It adds to the playability in ways that justify the DS's existence.
My biggest complaint is one common to modern games: I was irritated by the overload of cutscenes and backstory at the beginning of the game when I just wanted to jump in and start exploring.
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