Underwear Ninja comes with Space Suit

MJ inspired music by cee-lo green

2010-11-10T13:57:00.005-05:00

so i started to watch cee-lo green's new video (above) and i thought its kinda basic but then i started digging it when the bassline came in. and then the more i thought about why i liked it at that point the more i realized that its because it reminded me of michael jackson's "billy jean".
the synth stabs have the same syncopation and the bassline walks in much the same manner. the chords are different but hey he woulda gotten sued otherwise.

cee-lo gets a lowercase c for creativity.

pigeons be gone this instant!

2010-09-23T02:00:00.003-04:00

do you have pigeons on your balcony like i do? (did). do you walk out there and see just massive piles of pigeon droppings like i do? (did). do you want to rid yourself of these pesky flying rats once and for all like i do? (still do).
well here's how you do it.

wait til night, and they're all cozy and going to sleep on your balcony. and they let out their last poops on your balcony before closing their eyes. and then quietly open the sliding door, and step out a little.
and wear a bedsheet that covers your entire body.
and now briskly introduce yourself to them and make like you are reaching to give them a hug!

i thought they might have hurt themselves flying out as furiously as they did.
some of this poop is really caked on here. i think i have to go to home depot and get a scraper of some fashion.

Twister: the truth

2010-08-17T11:46:00.002-04:00

i'm not talking about that silly game that people "play" so that they can get all touchy on each other. i'm talking about the movie. actually, not the movie itself, but the attraction at universal studios in florida that was inspired by the movie.
the attraction is named "twister..ride it out" but there is no actual ride. it's a simulation where you stand in a room and watch as a twister comes and destroys a 1950s barn town.
the intro is laughable as you're waiting to get in the room. you get to watch video of bill paxton lazily tell you how dangerous a twister is in his overacting goofy way.

you stand in rows on this platform that is designed to look like you're under an awning, presumably of an old wooden building.
you look out from your platform to this scene of a small section of town at night. there is a drive in movie screen, an old 1950s style car, an old movie theater marquis, maybe a diner looking buiding, a bunch of trees, and a powerline. the powerline is the key ingredient here. well... besides the actual tornado of course.

you see the twister approach from afar through dim lighting, it gets closer and you see trees blow around and water splashes you a little. then you see a really small tornado in front of you that is real. then there are some sparks (i think it is to simulate lightning) and you watch the buildings rip apart. a cow flies in front of the audience. the old timey car gets pushed into a fire hydrant spewing water everywhere on the set, and the awning blows around as the tornado gets closer to you. the powerlines rumble around and ignite the water from the hydrant and there is fire to dazzle the audience for a few seconds. then the awning is ripped away and collapses as your platform falls a few inches and the lights go out and everything is calm again and bill paxton says "thank you for surviving twister," again in his uninspiring voice.
well here's the clincher. here's the truth. here's what i see happened that can be the only logical explanation of what we just watched.
you, the audience, die in the twister.

to recap: the twister comes close, the town is ripped apart, it comes for your awning, you are flown through the air as it is destroyed, everything turns black and silent. you died.

i hope that bill paxton isn't the one that i see after i die like it is on this attraction at universal studios.

the kitty whisperer

2010-07-25T20:13:00.002-04:00

so when i get down to mom and dad's house and i see dixie running away from me, i learn that she is skiddish around strangers. mom says steve has been trying to pet her every day he is here, and scott says kitty won't even let him look at her.
so i made it my mission to pet her. on the very first day! i got her to lower her head a little and i ran my finger along her head and cheek.
after that it was all down hill. she ran and ran from me. about the 5th day here i determined that she isn't actually scared of me. she just doesn't like me!

until tonight!

yes, she let me pet her for a good 5 seconds. and then she let me pet her for about 30 seconds! that's half a minute of pure unadulterated petting action around her head and neck!

..and then she ran

scott and i went to ikea today. and we would find what scott would call "the swedish".
the swedish is a noun, not an adverb. every item in the store is called the swedish by scott.
and any item that doesn't quite add up. or isn't as particularly useful as the adverts would suggest, scott would call it "the swedish glitch".
so we would walk around looking for the swedish, and we would be picking up a swedish. and if the swedish was good we would put it in our bags. if it didn't pass the test then we "found the swedish glitch".
i don't know where scott comes up with this stuff but i played along and couldn't help but lol.

dad has perfect pitch

2010-07-25T12:56:00.002-04:00

dad has perfect pitch. i can press any key on the piano and he can tell me what note it is without looking.
i am jealous.

he's a bit shakey when he plays though. i guess now is a good time to learn flight of the bumblebee.

i do not have perfect pitch. i have fantastic relative pitch though. of course scott was quick to chime in that he had perfect pitch but he gave up the pitch part.

write, blog, document. do it.

2010-07-22T23:22:00.002-04:00

i'm undertaking a massive project while down at mom and dad's house. i am charged with rummaging through all my "precious memories" items and separate the ones that are actually very valuable to me from the ones that really are just junk.

this has already turned up 3 full trash bins full of junk. like old cassette mix tapes of songs that i recorded off the radio. songs that i have in itunes now anyway. my class books from college courses that i don't care about. castle grey skull and snake mountain. they are just the shell anyway, all the parts and trap doors and stuff are missing. stuff like that.

of the things that i cannot throw away though are some old trip journals that i found.

among the journals were 4 different vacation trips that i jotted down every random time i thought to do it. at 9 years old, 10, 11, and 14 years old. it was fun reading these out loud. you get a much more vivid picture of what was happening at the time, what i cared about, and all from my perspective. for example, i seem to think scott is always in my hair on purpose and i do nothing wrong at all! he does it for the thrill! lol
well of course if he were to have kept a journal too then we may get a better idea of what 'actually' happened.
like right now mom and scott are playing warcraft in front of me. if i were 9 years old right now i might log that they both hogged the computers for hours on end and laughed at my misfortune to each other while i suffered in the dark solitude.

so let this be a lesson. take photos, videos, and write. write stuff even if you think its boring because in 10 years your perspectives will change and it will be fun to see what really mattered to you at that age.

To Infinity and Beyond!

2010-07-21T11:46:00.006-04:00

every time i think about the concept of infinty i get overwhelmed. mostly because i just can't fathom something that goes on forever. there is nothing that has no end. right? but that is not the case. there exists that which has no end. and it is out there in real life right now. for us to observe even. and that is overwhelming.

its easy enough to think of infinity in number terms. after all, numbers go on forever. .3 repeating for example. or just counting up forever. see? its infinite.
for whatever reason though, that does not overwhelm me. counting up numbers doesn't lead me to ponder mysteries about the epically mysterious number 4657 quadrillion. that has no intrigue to me. but here are a couple things that are infinite that do have intrigue to me.

infinity #1: time

when did time begin? we all know that time is concept that we thought of to measure sequences of events. but would you consider that we 'invented' time? or did we 'discover' time?
well the way i see it, time existed before we could label it as such. can paleantologists approximate how long the dinosaurs lived? yes. therefore time existed before we could name it time. and therefore time was discovered, not invented.
so does time have a beginning? well we can't say that time began when we invented it now can we? so you try to think back back back before dinosaurs, before continents and pangea. before earth was created and the solar system was being born. this is all happening through time. its not fair to measure time in years when you think about the grande scheme of the cosmic universe. not when an 'eon' is but a mere blink of an eye. or less. ...infinitely less =O

that's the rub. how far back do we go before we find the beginning of time? the big bang? well ok.. but did time exist before that? yes. for how long was the big bang there for? what was there before the big bang? emptiness? for how long was there emptiness? you see where i'm going here? time is infinite! and since time is infinite that means it exists in both directly infinitely. forward through time infinitely (which is where we are right now) and backwards through time infinitely.
now i'm going to go out on a limb here and theorize that before our big bang, there was another universe. scientists have already observed that our universe is comprised of galaxies that are moving away from a single point. yes that's right. you heard me. entire galaxies are moving out from a center point. in fact that's what helped this big bang theory in the first place.
so in order for there to be a big bang, it was the universe contracting in on itself to form that ginormous ball of mass.
so getting back to time, if you were to go back in time before the big bang, you would get to see another universe. back up further, another big bang. one before that?
actually, which big bang are we in? are we the 4th big bang? the 397th? the 18 trillionth? its all guesswork there of course. since time is infinite going backwards, its possible there are infinite big bangs. o my lordy!=O

infinity #2: space

the final frontier. well i don't know if william shatner had thought about how true that statement is. when you consider just how vast our universe is.
you know that so-called "most important picture ever taken"?

here it is. marvel at it. scientists left a telescope pointing at a spot in the sky, the blackest spot. and left the exposure open.

that's the image they got. those are GALAXIES! you know the entire star wars series took place in just 1 galaxy. and that's just pointing the camera in 1 degree out of 360. the odds are astounding that there is life out there. so astounding that i'll just go ahead and say it with certainty. yes, there is life beyond our solar system. intelligent life.

so if you were to travel faster than light. lets say you travel at a speed of "speed of light cubed" just to save time. and you were to zoooooom out of our galaxy. zoom past the other galaxies. zoom zoom out of our universe! then what... space. infinite space! what is that great black out there? a wall? whats on the other side of the wall? space? and beyond that? and beyond that? its space its infinite.

because it is infinite, there are infinite probabilities that something is even beyond our universe. there could be a big bang happening right now out there creating another universe. there could be infinite big bangs happening right now, and infinite universes. multiverses! our equipment is too primitive to measure it. or maybe its just so far away the light hasn't reached us yet. or maybe the light has already reached us and passed. maybe a multiverse passed by us three quadrillion eons before our big bang happened. and that's only in 1 direction out of 360 degrees. infinity extends down, up, back, diagonally.. everywhere. infinitely!

where does it end? when is enough enough? when can we say "ok there is no more. there is nothing else but emptiness beyond this". well mind bogglingly answer is that we can never say that. right? because it is infinite there is the infinite probability that there is something else out there. in fact i can sit here and say that there is a 99.9 repeating chance of there being a room full of space monkies typing the complete works of shakespeare right this second and i would be right.

think about that. there is a room of monkies somewhere in infinity right now typing out shakespeare. in real life. right now.

Music Appreciation: Gladiator

2010-07-10T18:42:00.006-04:00

the day cooled of a tad today. a welcome relief after this heat wave we're having. i've taken to sleeping on the floor in my computer room with the door closed because that's where the air conditioner is. its not powerful enough to cool the whole apartment and a bed doesn't fit in there with all my stuff. it's not totally uncomfortable though, i can get a good night's sleep.
while kauffam was here last week i got a lot of sun exposure. my skin started to peel yesterday and underneath is a light tan. i actually got a chance to go outside today! so i decided to go to mcdonald's for dinner. woot!
as i was passing starbucks i noticed that guy there again! i'm wondering what his story is now. i bet dad could make up an imaginative one for him. let the record show that it was 7:30pm when i spotted him there. i try to avoid eye contact because it would probably be weird now.

i made sure to check into starbucks and mcdonald's on foursquare. i converted #1 NY Nuthouse into a high school since i'm the mayor. i'm trying to get the school night badge, so i guess i have to get up at 4am to check in.

i finally watched the movie "juno" which i had always been meaning to do. it was a clever movie.
it makes me feel like everything will be alright too so i give it good marks.

this past week i've sat down and really dug in deep to all the mp3s that scott gave me for christmas. his entire catalogue (at the time). i finished actually listening to all of them last week, but now comes the sorting. i'd say i've already thrown away about 200mb of duplicate songs already. now i'm fixing the info on all the songs. this is not a small feat!
i started sorting by artist and making sure it is as it should be, now i'm sorting by name. i've made it into the B's alphabetically. i'm doing this, btw, to make it actually possible to search for a song and toss the duplicates. and to add whatever info into the "comments" section that comes to mind when i hear a song.

so today's listening music is "Barbarian Horde" from the movie "Gladiator".

It is reminiscent of Holst's "Mars" in how it starts out and the chords he uses. especially between 2:30 and 3:30
then as it picks up after that i just love the dense chromatic chord progression.
then around 4:30 it really picks up and it turns into my favorite angsty/battle type mood. well, maybe not angst. maybe more like adrenaline.
on a side note, if you want pure angst you can't really get any more pissed off-ish sounding than the song "Alpha" by Sevendust.
anyway, at about 5:30 it then turns into Klaus Badelt's "Pirates of the Caribbean" soundtrack. kinda odd actually.
at 6:30 it abruptly takes a turn downhill. that's pretty common in movie scores though because of what is happening on screen. it just kinda gives one smooth hoorah and then tapers into nothing. to be honest i don't give a damn about the rest of the track. at 9:15 a new theme appears and could be mistaken for an olympic theme of some sort. just less inspiring. i don't know why, i know all the ingredients are there to be heroic and majestic sounding, but it just puts me to sleep.

o well just wanted to post that. i might have more music appreciation posts as i go through these songs in itunes.

Week with the Kauffam Day 8

2010-07-07T10:18:00.003-04:00

its the 4th of july! happy independence day!
its also the last day with the kauffam
took the train in and met up with them in the marriott marquis about 8:20 and when i got there good morning america was showing the segment we were in! good timing!
steve was easy to see and cj and mackenzie were in the front on a lot of the early shots. you kinda couldn't see me. i just looked like a stalker pervert peering out from behind the bushes. the ladies on camera were talking about their calorie counting meals for july 4th and then the camera turns over to cj front and center and he lets out the world's most sincere yawn. lol. i don't blame him, its good morning america after all. the show is plagued by having a less than stellar report card for all things action-packed. i don't believe they had one single ninja invasion or explosion on their show last year!
the camera panned over to the other half of the table where you could clearly see scott, some of steve, and a stalker perv in the bushes. once in a while they would change cameras for a different view and you saw rhonda's face.
we then moved all of our bags and stuff into joe and bev's room because kauffam was leaving today but they were staying another 2 nights. we then headed downstairs for breakfast, the kauffam had mostly already eaten so scott and i headed over to junior's bakery. for some reason they aren't on the list of tlc cupcake places either =(
scott got another cupcake. this time chocolate. much better this time around! so even though nobody got the cupcake badge, at least scott ate a good cupcake in new york. mission accomplished!
so we then jaunted over to starbucks to meet up with the kauffam.

and now its time for...
RHONDA'S "GREAT" LIE - the conclusion

steve was there to present me with a box of reese's pieces! i think he was attempting to buy me off. this charade never happened! so i have to say now that rhonda is exonerated of her earlier deceptions. the (multiple) incident(s) never happened.

scott split up with us bound determined to go to every cupcake shop from here to the river and check in to them for his cupcake badge on foursquare. the rest of us went into the times square toys r us again. this time not in a rush, we were going to see all of toys r us this time. we pretended to play on dance dance revolution. we met up with joe and sandy kleine. nice people! sandy is papa joe's sister, which would make the klienes my step aunt and uncle. by marraige. i think. anyway it was my first time meeting them and i didn't know why they were hugging me until after cj told me who they were.

we ate at subway and scott magically showed up. he was watching where we checked into on foursquare! scott is sure now that the cupcake badge does not exist.
steve checked in on how the nathan's hotdog eating contest is doing. it appears joey chestnut won this year by only eating 57 hotdogs, 10 below last year. kobayashi showed up but didn't compete because they want him to sign an exclusive contract to only eat at their sponsored events. last year kobayashi ate 64. its possible he would have won...

we then tried to play ping pong in bryant park but there was no attendant there so we had to keep walking. and we saw this group of 20 somethings gathered to what would appear to be a weekly get together. i didn't really understand what they were doing but one of the things that stood out was when they would all yell "woooooooooooo 1 2 3 how'd you do it!"

we headed over to the new york public library, where the ghostbusters did their first gig and whose lion statues inspired the logo for the ritz carlton.
inside there was a display of thomas jefferson's original declaration of independence! this is the version that he submitted to continental congress on july 1 1776. the congress made several edits before ratifying it on the 4th, and you can see where jefferson had underlined the parts that were omitted. these are all originals and in his handwriting and very fragile. so they were kept in a dark room and light was shone on them at short intervals. needless to say no flash photography in here. of particular interest in the edits was a whole section that denounced slavery, but had been stricken from the declaration to appease the southern states (south carolina and georgia specifically).

we then headed up 5th avenue to check in to some of the souvenir shops. most of it junk you might find at any tourist attraction or gas station. shot glasses, pencils, weird lighters, shirts, bla bla bla all with I <3 NY logo on them. it was hot out so i went to dunkin donuts to pick up some strawberry coolatas. walked up to rockefeller center with the big apple made of legos. took pictures of atlas statue across from st. patrick's cathedral.

then we saw a diesel store. who's slogan these days is "be stupid". uhhh.. great. they had a dude in the window holding signs that say various things like "why be smart when you can be stupid" and "check out these balls". o ya i should mention he was standing in plastic balls. he would try to get people to come up to the window with him and pose for pictures. then a short while later we saw the girl version of him go into the window display. she was hot! and in a bikini =D
ok so their marketing worked on us... we went in the store.
and we saw probably the world's biggest watch. steve likened it to just wearing an iphone on your wrist. so why buy the watch when you can just wear your iphone?

we headed up a little further and got our pictures with the famous LOVE sculpture.
we headed back over to 7th ave and on down to times square. the costumed people were in full effect now. we passed by 3 spongeblobs in 10 feet. and 2 statues of liberties. i guess they didn't coordinate their time slots very well. of course our favorite joker was there, the guy that wanted a tip after asking us to take his picture. and the unsponsored fake minnie mouse, elmo, and blue elmo. i say blue elmo because its not cookie monster. it was just like the red elmo costume except it was blue fur instead of red. no wacky eyes no oversized mouth no wider midsection. i'm pretty sure you could order these costumes online somewhere from a korean website. and they all had trick or treat bags where you are supposed to put your money after you get a picture with them...

we checked in to every cupcake place down 7th avenue, never did get the badge. checked out of the hotel and kauffam left in a taxi to go to la guardia airport.

i saw them last!!

i beat orc assault

2010-07-06T15:08:00.001-04:00

i decided to see what cj was so excited to play. i got the bronze medal and i'm the highest ranked american on the board.
if you see the scoreboard look for "pazooza palooza"

the secret is getting the longsword and then the executioner sword, then when you level up spec into speed. then you just run around and hit them without them being fast enough to hit you

Week with the Kauffam Day 7

2010-07-06T08:00:00.002-04:00

today is yellow day 2
breakfast is sort of on your own, we were all split up. steve recommended we go to PAX and he strangely seemed to know every item on the breakfast menu and what number it is. scott mentioned flapjacks and steve said "o you want the number 6".
so scott decided at some point that since he's having such an awful time trying to get the foursquare cupcake badge that if he just eats a really good cupcake then that will still be a completed mission of sorts.
and lo and behold PAX has cupcakes. and the cupcakes "look" pretty good.
so for breakfast we both have a sausage egg and cheese sandwich and scott also picks up a cupcake with green frosting from the refrigerated display case. then he noticed that same cupcake behind the counter display case. he asks what the difference between the two and the cashier just appears to not even understand that we are talking to her. he asks again and she says "anything else?". hmm.... so i take my turn asking her what the difference is... and she says "you want one?".
ok its obvious now that they outsourced the cash register job.
we just pay for our breakfast and start to chow down. we get to the cupcake portion. the icing looks green and a little faded. and it has what appears to be crunchy poop on top. also, it has no smell. scott takes one good bite and says he doesn't want to finish it. that it tastes like freezer burn and dust.
so i pick it up to eat it. how bad could it be?
its weighty. that's a good sign... i think.. and its somewhat moist. or greasy. or whatever it is i know its not going to turn into powder in my mouth. so that's a good sign too.. i think... right?
i take a bite. wow ok i don't want to even swallow this. there is nothing sweet or cupcakey about this. i think this might be the first cupcake they ever made from 1924 and kept it in that case ever since. yes it was freezer burn and dust.
as we left PAX the cashier must have heard us verbally bashing the cupcake. she kept saying "so sorry. i'm so sorry". that's the first place i've ever been to where they apologize for selling you something.

we met up with the kauffam across the street in times square on the set of the good morning america show. they were pre recording a segment for tomorrow (the 4th of july) and it was all about counting calories for typical summer grilling items. like instead of having a pork sausage you could get 2 hotdogs and a hamburger. instead of potato salad you could have carrots and stuff.
so we made sure we were present in the background, all in our yellow shirts. i couldn't really find a spot on camera so i was behind their fake shrubbery. they did a few takes because of flies in the shot or a fire truck driving by. and then they got some stock shots of us waving and cheering. they use those shots to intro and outro the segment. then we hit up starbucks and sat in a times square for a while.

we then took the subway to grand central station for pretty much just pictures but also to try to get whatever cupcake purveyors were in the area there too for foursquare. pinged 3 different places, still no luck. in the main terminal they had the world cup showing and lots of people crowding around to watch.

we took the 4 train uptown to the MET. this museum is free but you can donate whatever you want. steve and i walked in and headed to the egyptian exhibit. cj and mackenzie right behind. but it looks like everyone else got stopped by the guard lady. she said its a mandatory donation. which is pretty crummy. so i think the rest of the party donated a quarter or something small.
steve noticed that all the egyptian statues either had a flat hand or they were holding a hot dog. every one of them. some have 2 hands flat, some have 2 hot dogs, some have one hand flat and one hand holding a hot dog. we still don't know what this means.

we ate lunch inside the MET. the prices are pretty steep of course. i figure just ordering something from the menu is donation enough for this place. scott got a seat right next to the air condition duct. he was freezing. i could tell he had to be cold because i was cold and i wasn't in front of the duct. meanwhile i can see his backpack he set down beside him blowing around.

we toured the rest of the museum without much ceremony. the part of the MET that we especially wanted to see, the famous painting of "washington crossing the street" as mackenzie called it, was closed for whatever reason. so we continued on and out the museum and went through central park. joe and bev went back to the hotel and scott and i rented bikes, which he's being trying to do for years now. it was a nice day for bike riding and the hills were mild.
after the bikes i had to leave to go back to my apartment to kill lich king on hard mode. but of course when i get there they say we don't have the right people so they cancel our raid.... again.. grrrr!

i have some life cereal and banana nut cheerios for dinner, and then i see scott's twitter. they are at olive garden! and not only that but they are at the table the cj specifically showed me as the best seat in the house! i'm so jealous. i had cold cereal and a canceled raid. they had breadsticks and salad and a view of both hershey store and m&m store. QQ.

i spent the night at my place. too tired to go back into the city. i went to bed at 9:45 and it was kinda hot in my apartment.

Week with the Kauffam Day 6

2010-07-05T22:03:00.002-04:00

so we had a pretty good nights sleep at the marriott marquis. the sheets are a juuuust big enough for the bed, not big enough for 2 people to share covers though.
today is blue day #2
so we decided to go down to world trade ground zero and battery park/wall street area.
breakfast turned into an adventure of sorts trying to find a dunkin donuts. we found one at a subway stop on 58th street. it was a hole in the wall type place.
steve ordered a dozen donuts and the lady just threw a bunch in a box and handed them to us.
it was pretty odd that she didn't let us pick which ones we wanted. when rhonda pressed why we weren't allowed to choose she retorted back quickly that "we didn't tell her we wanted to pick".
i don't know about you but that is like 3 kinds of ridiculous. to her credit she picked decent flavors. its possible she gets customers in a hurry i'm guessing.
so we took the 1 train down to chambers street with joe and bev and saw the world trade center ground zero site. there was a little souvenir shop on the side that was interesting because it had an isolation booth to record your recollections of the events that morning. and when the tower is done the recordings will be used somehow in the museum part. so i recorded myself so maybe i'll show up sometime in the future at the freedom tower.

we then walked down to wall street and in the old first national bank (i think). at some point i got locked out of foursquare and decided to forgo trying to get achievement badges. it was when i was trying to ping hale and hearty for my healthy badge and several gymsthen we saw a rotating street with a bomb sniffing dog. maybe i can find a video of that somewhere for youtube...

we then headed down to battery park and kinda hung out a little bit. cj spit on the ground, the bench, and all over himself.
we then headed over the chipotle for lunch in what would appear to be the longest line of the year for that place.
after lunch we then took the subway up to brooklyn bridge. my first time being on it. everyone's first time actually. i was surprised that the pedestrian walkway was wooden planks.

after brooklyn bridge we got split up. i went back to my apartment to grab my laptop and met back up with them at 8pm in times square to catch "in the heights" musical that i knew nothing about.
and it turned out to be kinda awesome. it was all reggaeton and salsa-y but it wasn't cheesey; they pulled it off. it was supposed to have this dude from high school musical in it but he wasn't there. didn't stop them from advertising him though. here's to hoping scott "acquires" the soundtrack and "loans" it to me...

the good thing about getting out of a late show in times square is that you're already at your hotel. i loved that! that makes 2 nights that it got late in times square and we simply took a few steps to our room.

Week with the Kauffam Day 5

2010-07-05T18:50:00.005-04:00

Another good nights sleep. Today is red day.
today is probably the only day rhonda didn't yell at me for wearing my red seminoles cap. the caps she had were all color coordinated but i vetoed wearing them after yellow day because it was too hot out. well any photo we took she accused me of ruining the picture because my hat didn't match. but today was red day!!! so i blended in perfectly today! =D

the morning was spent well watching wipeout on hulu and doing laundry.
we had a lunch snack thing consisting of hard boiled eggs/egg salad and snacky veggies like carrots and celery.
left about 12:30 headed to the marriott marquis in times square. kauffam had 3 nights reservations there.
checked into our room, met up with joe and bev neihart (nana and papa joe), and went up to rockefeller square. we continued our cupcake crusade and checked in to all the cupcake establishments nearby but still to no avail. scott is especially miffed because the gps on his new iphone is much better than the gps on mine and steve's, so while we could check in to places 1000 meters away, scott would have to basically walk inside the buildings to be able to check in. teehee!
we took the studio tour up through the nbc building. we got to see the studio where they film dr. oz, which also used to be conan o'brian's old studio (sorry conan!) and we got to see the studio that they tape jimmy fallon show in. it was fun seeing the tricks they use to make the studios look bigger on camera than they actually are. they really are small spaces.
then we got to see where they do the saturday night live show. i was particularly interested in that since i actually watch and like that show. jimmy fallon and dr. oz not so much but snl.. now that's a cool place!
o ya, one more thing to mention about the studio tour is the shrine they built to muppets creator jim henson. apparently they put him in a broom closet to wait for a show and there were some old water pipes there, so while he was waiting to go on he drew faces on the pipes. they look like his style. so they turned that area into an homage.
we did "top of the rock" where we go on the roof of 30 rock. in order to actually get up there though they force you to watch a commercial for 5 minutes about swarovsky diamonds. woopity doo this presentation has nothing to do with rockefeller or nbc. it was a random waste of time.
pretty good view up there. good enough even to see a huge fire erupt in brooklyn. it would turn out later on the news that it was a warehouse for holding cabinet making supplies. so it was basically a gigantic tinder box.
we saw the local weather lady giving a news cast up there on the roof with us. and we would end up seeing her on tv a few times giving weather updates too. we would say its "our girl" coz, you know, we are totally best buds now that we met her and took our picture with her on top of the building!
then we had lunch/dinner at subway in the subway stop underneath rockefeller.

we headed down to harold square again, but this time going to macy's and wandering about the floors. did the wooden escalators and tried, yet again, to take a picture of someone doing the escalator scene from the movie ELF but yet again having too many people around and the pictures aren't great. ugh! some day we will conquer that picture!
so while we were leaving macy's we looked at the "lacoste" brand cologne and the salesman came up to spray some on us. there was green and blue versions. of the 3 ladies present (nana, rhonda, and mackenzie) none of them could agree on which smelled better but mackenzie was sure that the blue version smelled like chips. potato chips.
the salesman ended up telling us how baseball is the best sport and going on and on about A-Rod (alex rodriguez). to the point where he actually ceased trying to make a sale with us. and then a security guard came up and started talking to him about baseball. we had no interest so we said bye and he just kept talking to the security guard about baseball. i think if we told him we wanted to buy one he would have just told us to go away while he talks about baseball to someone else.

and now its time for...
RHONDA'S "GREAT" LIE - part 2

so we headed to toys r us specifically to get reese's pieces. i stormed in there with the reluctant troupe behind me and darted straight for the candy section. and there was a small bag of reese's pieces there for $3. and if i were to buy another bag to equal the amount being sold at hershey's it would come out to $6, which is $1 more expensive. so not only did rhonda have no intention of going to toys r us in the first place, but when she said they were cheaper there it was also wrong.
(again, to her credit, she thought the price would be cheaper because other items were cheaper. but again, its much more fun to raz her on this)
to be concluded...

then we went to the marquis and went to bed. i left my laptop at my apartment and would have to go back to get it the next day.

Week with the Kauffam Day 4

2010-07-03T21:26:00.003-04:00

it was a pleasant sleep. the weather was cool and i actually had to use some covers! yay!
we headed out and skipped starbucks this time. headed straight for the tkts booth in times square to try to get tickets for a matinee musical.
our first choices were billy elliot or memphis maybe. billy elliot sold out as we were waiting in line though. we ended up getting west side story.

we had lunch as sbarro's. steve found 2 women that looked almost identical in every way. even their clothes. he called them "the matrix twins".
after lunch we went next door to the times square visitor's center. i'm guessing that most people don't even know it exists. it wasn't busy.
it had the 2005 new years eve ball on a stand and lit up so you could see it from up close. there were no attendants or stanchions so it was pretty much just go up and do what you want to it.
mackenzie pointed out that the lady behind the counter at the cash register was playing scrabble online. she must not get much business. just the obligatory personnel there to answer questions or take money if you need to buy something. things like I <3 NY shirts and christmas ornaments shaped like taxis. naked cowboy cd. times square pencils and whatnot.
of note were the confettis that you could write a message on and drop in their box. they said they would release it with all the other confettis for this year's new years. i wrote something like "have a happy and lucky year" and CJ wrote something about "drink some orange guice" making sure to spell "juice" with a g.

we got to our west side story show and it was nice. it was interesting because the sharks sang and spoke half their words in spanish. also, the ending always makes me tear up when maria is giving her last lines.
we walked out of west side story and saw fake elmo. it was just a dude in a red sesame street costume with a bag for tips. definitely not sponsored by childrens' television workshop. we also saw a similarly unsponsored spongebob squarepants who we dubbed "spongeblog sparepants".

cj's olive garden campaign paid off. we ate there. though not in the exact spot he was at last time. i made sure the lasagna i ordered had plenty of cheese on it. its important for lasagna to be cheesey! we found out he doesn't know how to pronounce the word "labyrinth". well ok, here's the backstory:
cj keeps mentioning all these things about new york that i've never heard of. like a casino in the basement of the subway tunnel or that there is a "labyrinth" secret entrance in the janitor's closet in the marquis. he tells these things like they are facts he read on a coffee table book or maybe he watched it on an episode of unsolved mysteries. so i start asking him details about it, and follow through his reluctant information. and through the process of talking through this i notice the story doesn't quite line up. and i ask him if he's making this all up. and he will say "no its real!" and i will say how he knows this and he will say "its 100% real! ...in the book i'm reading!"
so that's when the palm of my hand goes on my forehead. of course! its real! in the fictional book!
well this will happen a few times around new york and i'll end up eventually growing wise of this, but that's how i found out about his pronunciation of "labyrinth".
so anyway, cj is turning out to be quite entertaining with his 8th grade randomness. at some point during dinner rhonda was talking about some dude and cj blurts out to me "i dare you to be dead in 5000 years". being how that is random in more than 1 way i started laughing, and then he says "why are you laughing? its not a joke its a dare!" to which i start laughing more.
its kinda like that all day with him.

so olive garden was a success. a good time was had by all and afterwards we headed across the street to hershey's store. the decorations outside would lead you to believe its a lot bigger in there than it is, but it smells very nice and candyish when you walk in =)
there was a machine that dispenses candies when you turn the wheel. that is, its a big chute and a funnel at the bottom where you place a bucket to collect. you can make whatever candy you want fall in the bucket. the attendant asked me if i wanted to try but i said i didn't intend to buy a bucket of candy for $20. she said we could just do it for fun and she gave me a bucket to place under the funnel. now to get the candy out you had to turn the steering wheels, which there were (at least) two there. cj took one and mack took the other one. and they both started to furiously turn the wheels trying to get the candy out fast. the candy that came out was all hershey kisses.
so about when the bucket was half full cj stopped. mackenzie kept going full speed ahead. then when the bucket was full cj was yelling "stop stop!" and mackenzie was joyfully turning the wheel full steam ahead. she turned that wheel gleefully while there were hershey kisses coating the floor around the machine and down the aisle. yes it was a big mess of hershey kisses and people had to tiptoe around the candy store to not step in them.
as we got down to pick them all up and give them back, the attendant just said to keep them. they were all over the floor just keep them. YAY MACKENZIE!

and now its time for...
RHONDA'S "GREAT" LIE - part 1 (she actually helped with the title)

so there was a nice big bag of reese's pieces in the reese's section of the store. and it was $5.
i love me some reese's pieces so i was going to get it. rhonda told me they would be cheaper at toys r us, and that convinced me to put the bag back on the shelf. but when i put that bag back i traded it for a jonesing for reese's pieces.
we left the store and headed for the subway home.
... wait wait wait! we're supposed to go to toys r us! you're passing toys r us! you never intended to go to toys r us?? oooooooooooo deception!
(to her credit, i did ask to be talked out of it, but its much more fun to raz her on this)
to be continued...

on the trainride home scott and i both gave cj an earbud from our iphones to listen to music. he became kind of a mix meter, unplugging whichever earbud was playing the "bad" music. it became kind of a contest.

we ended the night watching twilight new moon. its the one all the tweenage girls are crazy about. i was told to watch it without bias and i definitely tried to give it as fair a watching as i could. and here is my honest opinion: bad writing, bad screenplay, bad acting, bad music, bad everything its all just bad. i think i'm the most qualified to give it an unbiased watching too because i really haven't exposed myself to any of that stuff. i wouldn't expect any real movie review to give it good marks unless they had read the books and/or been made aware somehow of the movies beforehand. i'll be leaving the twilight stuff to the tween girls.

the weather, again, was cool. it was a good nights sleep. yay!

Week with the Kauffam Day 3

2010-07-02T16:50:00.002-04:00

it was another hot night. rhonda has taken to sleeping with a frozen water bottle in bed. we didn't have pancakes this morning, it was cereal and M&Ms.
after our morning starbucks ritual we headed to the 7 train.
today was blue day. every time i say blue rhonda corrects me that its aqua.
we set out for a quick subway trip to coney island. it was a nice day for coney island; sunny and clear. a bit hot but there was a nice breeze. as if it knew i was coming and made preparations beforehand to combat my whitey paleness.
rhonda was particularly impressed with the bathrooms at the CI subway stop. she has some supplies she carries with her in case any facilities aren't up to standards while out on trips. and she used ALL of them in that one bathroom.
we went to nathan's original hotdog stand. it was about the size of a decent mcdonald's but it was all open to the outside. i was impressed with the amount of countertop space and cash registers they had. surely able to handle hundreds of people in a short amount of time. lots of employees (50?) standing around waiting for the influx of people swarming for the annual hotdog eating competition. it will be in just 4 days from now and televised around the world.
we had to have our own hotdog eating contest of course. and we were into our hotdogs when a homeless chap appeared and yelled gibberish at us and everyone who would hear him. if he had someone following him writing down what he said i'm sure it would read: "GRM DUT FRGL BLGM FLR BHRM!!"
i'm sure the translation is probably "welcome to coney island! i will clean up after you for free! it's my pleasure, have a nice day!"

steve noticed in particular the cell phone radio towers disguised as palm trees on top of the buildings.

i appreciate the layout of coney island. its about as hang-outy fun oriented as you'd hope. there's a beach of course, and then a big boardwalk that runs the length of it, and concession stands and fun in games all along the boardwalk. and on the other side of the concessions are the rides. i like that. see in florida we have beach of course, but it has no refreshments anywhere near it. anywhere. its all hotels and expensive condos. so if you want to spend a day at the beach you have to bring everything with you, and then get your car dirty after. but at coney island everything you want is conveniently spaced as far apart as you want it to be. bravo.

so we headed to the rides at coney island. first on the list was the wonderwheel, in operation since 1929. it has a line for stationary bucket car things and a separate line for "swinging" cars. those cars are on a track in the ferris wheel and glide in the wheel while you're riding it. fun! while we were up there i noticed probably the worst ride in the world. it was little mini monster truck ride that made a circle. no ups or downs, just a circle. i think 5 mini trucks all connected like an elephant line.
rhonda has about the same motion sickness as dad i think. she opted to stay on the ground and take pictures.

we had our hearts set on finding a zoltar machine like in the movie BIG. what we found instead was a granny machine. basically does the same thing except it looks like an old lady and the ticket it prints out says insanely simple fortunes like "your actions will give you great fortune!" or something like that and at the bottom it says "want more fortune? insert more money!"

after that we headed to the cyclone, probably coney island's most iconic attraction. the first roller coaster i think? it was a bumpy ride. and the cars were small enough to assume that there would be more space than this if they open it up. i think my bar is still closed can you open it? what, its open now? you mean i'm contorting my body trying to squeeze in and the safety bar hasn't closed on me yet? o boy... yes, think "mean streak" but built with warwick davis in mind as the average height of the customers.
the coaster is run by a bunch of 20 somethings that don't seem to really care about anything. you go in and they open the bar for you and then you sit and they close the bar and send it whenever they feel like it. no quota or organization really. no head counting. i don't think they paid much attention to anything and wouldn't be surprised if you were to tell me they were watching tv or something while they were doing this. this worked against scott because we all got in the cars, scott was checking his bag and camera at the booth, then they let another family in and there were no seats left. dummies. so scott was left just standing there and they just kinda looked at him with a dumb look and didn't know how to handle it so they sent us through. uhhh.. bye scott! it was funny that they had a tip jar after you got off the ride. ha!
rhonda, again, took pictures of us from the street below.

we headed to the boardwalk and got some drinkies and snackies. and we saw a photography crew taking pictures of what i suppose is a clothing model. she had on probably the hottest leather outfit i could imagine for such a hot day. like a trench coat made of thick leather. and a furry fuzzy black/white handbag. they had lights and stands and a fan on her and told her to walk forward and then walk backwards and forwards again and backwards. all with this fan on her. the thing is, that fan did nothing but make noise. the natural wind was blowing her hair around and no matter how high that fan guy set it, it was doing nothing. they finally just decided to turn it off. of note were her fingers. she had troll fingers. it looked like she was cooking smores on her fingers.
then we went over by the "shoot the freak" paintball game. we didn't play it but it was funny hearing the guy yell to everyone to come over and shoot the freak. it looked like a trash alley.

we hit the train back to the city and got off at harold square. scott and mackenzie saved the planet by playing "plants vs zombies" on his ipad. at harold square we went to the starbucks and got $2 frappuccinos because of our receipt coupons from this morning. we went in the manhattan mall and quickly left because it is totally lame with no stores in it really except for jc penny's. i'm going to name it "crummy mall" from now on.
we took the subway to columbus circle. and headed into central park. by now the dusk was starting to set in and the temperature was nice. i really enjoyed the weather and it reminded me why dusk is my favorite time of the day. there was a community band there playing some uptempo tunes.
in central park we saw plenty of performers. a scruffy bearded fiddler who was basically playing open fifths over and over, coulda been tuning his violin for all i know. actually i doubt he was tuning it. it was bad. and of course he had no money. but then a japanese troupe came and was all impressed with this "traditional western music" being performed. they gave him all sorts of money.
saw a little kid doing impressive yoyo tricks, and a horrible a capella family performing by the fountain. some new jersey violin sextet. and a dude blowing huge bubbles. the wind was not helping him out either. the little kids around him, all eager and in awe, would basically pop the bubbles before they were formed. it made me wonder where the heck are the parents!

headed to the subway station by the apple store at the southeast corner of central park.

for supper it was grilled cheese sandwiches. courtesy of steve. the weather had cooled off a lot. it felt great in my apartment! we watched an "obtained" .avi of ice age 3. this would be the first night we had a really good sleep. it felt awesome in my apartment i even turned off my air conditioner! (as if that did anything anyway haw haw)

Week with the Kauffam Day 2

2010-07-01T09:29:00.002-04:00

the night was hot. really really hot.
we decided that unlike yesterday, today we would try to spend lots of time indoors. and what better way to do that than going to the museum of natural history. yes, the same museum featured in "night at the museum".
for breakfast again we have pancakes, and this time with the addition of little smokies breakfast sausages.

today was yellow day. we stopped at starbucks again and that guy was there again. i guess he has a morning routine of going to starbucks like we do. and this time he was recommending we go hiking in the mountains... on the hottest day of the year...
i don't think he knows we spent all day outside or that we have practically no air condition.
we got to the museum and did the planetarium first. the planetarium is very cool! and very good at making you feel small and insignificant in the grand scheme of the cosmic universe.
without going into too much detail about the exhibits, it was a tiresome walk around the museum and 2 full days of walking is starting to take its toll on my feet. steve, ever the podiatrist, calls it plantar fasciitis, which i dutifully translated into what i call "my feet are sore".
some ibuprofen and i'm fine though.
the cafeteria in the museum is noteworthy because of the exorbitant pricing of all items. as high as 1000% markup from what you could find wholesale. yoohoo drink boxes for $3.35? pass.
of course they would name is "yahoo chocolate milk" even though there is no yahoo and no milk involved. i guess the yahoo part is how much raw dough they are making from the sale.
See scott's blog to see how much his basic meal costs.
cj wanted to make sure i made the S in that last sentence capitalized.
and he's scratching my back while i write this now.
he really wants to play orc assault and go to olive garden.
in fact, olive garden has quickly become the de facto dinner destination by him and he will end up advertising olive garden at every opportunity.

about 5 o'clock we headed out of there, in the rain. scott and steve got locked out of foursquare so i got to claim all the check ins for all the places we passed.
cj also invented a song that quickly became a smash hit to himself. it goes like this:
"there's a squirrel in your pajamas and you gotta get him out, what do you do"
we ended up at time square and saw a lady in an orange dress making everyone say "ali cante" or something like that. "allez cante!" i don't know. she had what looked to be a very low budget film crew with her. very low budget. she mouthed the words to what i guess is a song she recorded, for what i suppose is a music video of sorts. so if you see a dude in a yellow hat and yellow shirt walk around her during her music video it's probably me.
i'm not sure they'll end up using that footage anyway since i think the purpose of the video was to show her singing in times square but during all her shots there was a big beer truck basically blocking the view of all of times square.
scott and mackenzie played piano in times square. there was a public piano sitting there for general use.
this big dude in a joker outfit came up and told us to take a picture with him. then he said "can i get a tip" which struck us as really odd since he asked US to take a pic of him. like maybe he should be giving us the tip. i produced a dollar for him, whatever. he smelled bad.
christopher showed me olive garden in times square, but we actually ate at chevy's.
we went back home and as we passed starbucks we saw that dude still sitting in there. what the heck does he live in there?? he's becoming an icon of that place now.
and just watched some general tv programming. there were no "obtained" movies showing.
we went to bed tired and hot.

Week with the Kauffam Day 1

2010-06-29T20:20:00.010-04:00

the night was hot. really hot. my little air conditioner doesn't put out enough cool air to make a dent. i was sweating while asleep. it had to have been in the 90s overnight. i feel bad for all who are involved in sleeping over at my place =(
so what does kauffam have waiting for them when they wake up? wonderfully wonderful blueberry pancakes! except mackenzie gets without blueberries of course. you know, mack has a very limited palate, she likes ketchup and will eat half a chicken tender but not much else.

anyway, today was green day, and we decided to head out and stop at starbucks (of course!). we struck up some light conversation with an odd patron at starbucks and then headed to the park.
photo scavenger hunt in full swing, we enacted a scene from West Side Story under a bridge complete with dance choreography and singing. it was on the list after all =)

the park was full of soccer fields, and every soccer field was in use by soccer teams. i bet these fields see use all year round in fact. we took pictures in trees and pictures at the basketball courts, all for our scavenger hunt. there was a dried out fountain where maybe 5 or 6 kids were playing soccer. one of the kids was curled up in a fetal position in the middle, and we supposed he was hurt. the other kids just continued playing, kicking the ball past him and such. lol. is it mean that i find that funny?

we started heading to the site of the world's fair, with the huge globe and flying saucers. and on past that to a goodly cop that we had to get a picture of for our scavenger hunt. and then when we left he caught back up with us and questioned "you don't know where you're headed, do you?"
well it appears that there is a druggie anonymous rally going on about 50 yards away to the south. and that its this cop's opinion we probably don't want to go heading over there.

ok fine, we'll just look for four leaf clovers and play on animal statues for a while instead. and saunter over to the new york museum of science. scott dubbed it "nice guy" because of its logo "ny sci". steve noticed that there were people pulling up in their cars and practically abandoning them on the side of the road and rushing to get in the building. he knew something was up. so we ran like buffalo following the crowd blindly, and as it turns out it was the last day of the year to get in for FREEEEE if you get there sunday before 11am. we got there are 11am. =D
the museum turned out to be a bit cooler than i anticipated. fun and interactive, like a museum "should" be in my humble opinion (imho).
through our museum experience i found out i now throw a baseball in true wild pitch fashion, but i threw it faster than a 10 year old! 47mph. i didn't remember just how many back muscles are involved in pitching =\ actin and myocin
i was able to squeeze the test of strength in both hands equally, and stronger than the others in our party. it was a demonstration of actin and myocin, the microscopic process that makes muscles contract.
the cafeteria had featured eisenberg hotdogs and went into detail describing them, like that brand is a featured item. and i admit the bag it came in was impressive and large. the hotdog itself however isn't quite worth the hype. its a little thicker than a slim jim and about as withered. the "new york style pizza!" was equally disappointing. it looked like a hockey puck that they had painted red and put cheese on.

after spending most of the day there we left about 5pm and headed north to the 7 train. passing under a bridge where the "trolls" lived. yes there were trolls. about 10 of them. with shopping carts. selling food. char broiled food. like chicken and corn and stuff. and apple sauce in huge jugs. it was all very suspect and i surmise they were all mexican. the genius part of the whole thing was how they converted plastic shopping carts into fully functional grills.

we took the 7 back to flushing and ate at the local chinese restaurant whose name escapes me. fu shu or something like that i think. with suspicious people parading in front. i won't go into much detail about the food because i'm really really tired but it was a good time.
we got home and watched fantastic mr. fox. i fell asleep through a good portion of it though. despite the hot hot hot hot apartment.

plus, i am validated now from all the those years ago. there finally is proof of existence for Number One New York Nuthouse. i can prove it!

Week with the Kauffam day 0

2010-06-29T08:04:00.002-04:00

i start with day 0 because its noteworthy that i tell you that i've finally unpacked and moved most of the boxes that were piled up in the corner of my living room. its a good thing i did too because we ended up really needing the space.
this is the day i am to meet kauffam at the airport and welcome them to new york! but the buses are having some kind of service change now and it didn't exactly work out that way. actually, all of MTA is having a service change now with some subway lines being discontinued and such.
the day is mildly hot and my poor little air conditioner doesn't really do a good job of cooling the whole place. i didn't really know the extent of how this would be a problem when i left it on full blast for a day in anticipation of their arrival.

so they took a cab and met up with me at my apartment. those sunny state people all have nice tans and i look like fresh linens. we drop off all the luggage and determine where the beds will go and head on over to BJs wholesale groceries place. most of what we picked up would end up being m&ms and stuff. i mean we got cereal and bread and various stuff but we definitely made much more thoughtful decisions in the candy aisle(s).

we headed back to unload our stuff and then ate dinner at Joe's Best Burger. It was at that point that the kauffam scavenger hunt manifested itself. cameras were going off as the teams had their radars tuned to finding things like "4 people on a bench" and "a guy with a mohawk riding a bike".

we got back to the apartment and o noes the air conditioner didn't really do a good job of cooling the place while we were gone. in fact, it was about the same temperature outside as it is inside now. so we decided to put a big fan (obtained from BJ's) into the window and forego the air conditioner. after all, the air will get cooler overnight it might not be so bad. its just like grandma's house!

after watching a completely legit downloaded movie, "how to train your pet dragon" it was time to go to sleep for the night, fiddling with scott's ipad in bed.

blog resuscitation

2010-06-26T18:07:00.000-04:00

check check check

yay!

2008-07-03T20:58:00.001-04:00

woot woot there are other kauffmans playing wow now besides me!

alone in the dark => me at the studio

2008-01-20T21:36:00.000-05:00

to the left is a screen grab of the game i'm working on "alone in the dark". i hope this game is as cool as i'm imagining it to be. it sure is eating up a huge amount of my time at the moment.

since i'm doing all the heavy lifting for the voice and sound effects for our contract, we've hired a freelancer to help run sessions and edit.

well i just had a kind of flattering moment today at the studio while we were waiting for the next actor to come in to read his lines.

we were chit chatting about this and that and it somehow led me to mention that the first game i did sound for was neverwinter nights 2.
before i could even finish saying "2" he half threw his hands in the air and laughed.
then he says something to the effect of "i play that alot and the sound design is awesome". and then says something to the effect of how he and some friends occasionally compare sounds to that of the various magic spell sfx from nwn2.

i was speechless. the only thing i could say was "thank you".

i shoulda told him to mail a letter of recommendation to blizzard so i can design what frostmourne sounds like when you see it, and pick it up the first time wooot!

on that note: my wow life is going ehh.. my guild is a tad on the weak side for the moment. we only have a handful of players that are properly geared for running these end-game instances. so a lot of my time is spent helping other higher-lvl guildies get better gear. we need a solid 15 people to get into the next raid instance that i need to get into: Karazahn. and in the meantime, i've also started a second character named "ludicrispeed" who is a little less than halfway to lvl 70. his main purpose so far is just to look nice =/

but anyway, "alone in the dark" is due for release in march. no wait, september, no again its may, or.. i mean... july? really its anyone's guess. i have heard all the aforementioned released dates and have seen a build of the game in december that would lead me to believe anything.
i'll be happy if it is released before next year.

omazing grace

2007-12-05T19:22:00.000-05:00

i want people to sing wif me too

a truly imaginative performance

2007-11-30T23:46:00.001-05:00

this is just wrong on so many levels
only watching can you understand

Those Crazy Japanese

2007-11-06T21:28:00.000-05:00

real life tetris

zombie roach

2007-10-24T23:54:00.001-04:00

woa!

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/02/03/wasp-performs-roachb.html

commercial music biz

2007-10-06T17:26:00.000-04:00

i'm still alive

2007-10-04T07:37:00.000-04:00

but i'm overworked and overplayed.
i have lots of music to write, sounds to record, and now i'm casting voice talent for a game that will be released on all major platforms.
add to that some responsibilities i've picked up in wow and you have a dude that doesn't blog much.

absolut mullet

2007-08-28T08:03:00.000-04:00

this is actually a 10-minute long ad for absolut vodka
its the story of the mullet hairdo
there are hidden absolut bottles EVERYWHERE
can you find them?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxSH64k0KfA

rowling is god

2007-08-14T22:19:00.000-04:00

the harry potter silence is lifted

what a great book!

harry potter

2007-07-22T18:59:00.000-04:00

this is a call to people to NOT TALK about harry potter.
not until everyone has read it.

talking may reveal too much

continental air: my hero

2007-07-13T08:29:00.000-04:00

headline: heroic stewardess remedies parenting problem

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070712/ap_on_re_us/toddler_booted

i know i don't have a kid so i don't "know" what it's like. but i also know that kids can be made to respect your authority. i'm positive there is much more to this story than just the recounts of the banished mother.

if continental has started to exercise a policy on in-flight disturbances, i'll fly continental from now on.
kids are a headache in closed spaces like that. planes, trains, buses, ect.
you can't get away. i get twitchy when a kid starts singing loo loo looooo lo lo lo lo lo over and over again for an hour and i can't get away. ok ok so he's only 19 months old. take the stewardess's advice and use the baby benadryl.

parents need to exercise a courtesy to other passengers. having a kid doesn't give you a license to annoy or offend anyone. instead, having a kid is the opposite. its a burden that you choose to take on. having a kid is a pact that a parent makes to be responsible and take action, or else face the consequences of bad parenting.

1993-2007

2007-07-10T23:04:00.001-04:00

rest in peace gypsy. u will be missed =(
i hope there are a hundred lizards to chase where you are

wow!

2007-06-03T22:48:00.000-04:00

i'm lvl 63 gnome mage now out of a possible 70 levels

i've been to sooo many places and seen wonderful things

its been 6 months since i started with my 1st and only character: swuteimsayin

one might assume that when i hit 70, i will beat the game?

... no. not even close.

i've reached a respect for this game that i wasn't prepared for. this game breathes it's own life. this stems from the wow universe being so incredibly expansive and detailed.

at first glance you probaly wouldn't think it was that detailed. the basic structure is the same: enemies wait to be killed and you go up and kill them. but once you've reached a certain point, it takes a turn for the epic and becomes very rewarding.

when you've reached that certain turning point where the scales are set larger. when you are faced with the need to band with others to succeed, and character abilities count. and personalities count. when you are ready to don that magical cloak or whatever it is. that's when you realize just how big this virtual world is. and you realize that there is so much more left to do.

i expect that i have another 3 or 4 months to go before i "beat" the game. that is to say, "beating" the game means defeating the main boss of the Black Temple in the expansion. that is a raid that you can't even get to without first finishing a different raid.

i haven't even gone on one raid yet.
and there are many...

flambouyant western jerks!

2007-04-30T00:16:00.000-04:00

iran is outlawing western-style haircuts. well, not that i care what iran does to make its people want to leave, as long as they do... but i had to laugh at the picture of "western-style" hairdos in the window.

NO SPIKEY HAIR WITH THAT SNARKY WESTERN SMILE!

4 second frenzy

2007-04-10T23:38:00.000-04:00

you only have 4 seconds to figure it out AND accomplish it

guess i'll go eat worms

2007-04-08T17:54:00.000-04:00

i'm level 44 and have a couple rare items now. i've got a small list of friends that i can ping when i need help and vice versa. i'm in a guild.
and i had my first taste of what it might be like being in a raid party. well, it was raid-ish.

a raid is when all these people get together at a decided time and storm the castle/dungeon/cave so that they can get ancient treasures and rare items. its typical for a raid to last hours.

i wasn't in an "actual" raid party, but everyone in my group (except me) was there only so they could kill the last boss of Uldaman, and loot his corpse for the magical item left behind. i was the only one that had a quest to kill him, so i wasn't there JUST for the loot.
my group fought valiantly all the way past waves of troggs and rock golem men. we died many times, resurrected, and fought on. (hey, its easter, resurrecting is the thing to do!) it took us about an hour and a half to make it through and kill the titan of uldaman.

and then i took the treasure.... and boyyyy o boy were they angry with me.

understandable since i just rendered their 1 1/2 hours of blood sweat and tears a complete waste of time. and i got a frigin sweeeeet magic ring to show for it. the ring i have is worth almost as much armor points as the rest of my gear. so i'm almost double defense now, plus other bonuses to character traits.

in WoW, when you loot an item like that, its rendered "soulbound", which means you can't give or sell it to another player. the only thing you can do is wear it, destroy it, or sell it to an NPC merchant (selling it back to the game) for lots of gold. if you loot something in a group, it will ask you if you want to "need" it or "greed" it. now if its an item that is inferior to what you have, ie: you're just going to sell it coz you don't need it, then you select "greed" and the computer does a dice roll for you to see who gets it.
if, however, it is an item you need to complete a quest, or if you can wear it AND its better than what you have, then you select "need". the "need" will trump "greed". and if 2 people select "need" then they will dice roll for it and so on.
so when this totally sweet item came off of the dead titan, i saw i COULD use it (being a mage, i have restrictions as to what i can equip) and it was farrrr superior to any ring i had.
so i selected "need"
everyone else selected "greed"

now my name is absolute mud. my guy, swuteimsayin, may be talked about by those people in my group as being a "ninja" (shifty/shadey. someone that steals your loot)
of course, anyone else in that group could also wear it, and it was far superior to anything they had too. i assumed everyone would select "need" like i did.

the ffools

say cheese

2007-04-01T14:13:00.000-04:00

i've seen a lot of pics from the princess cruise that people have taken. did you guys know that we were even there?? i mean, i know we're kinda aloof... we were on the lowest deck trying to get dad's wireless working on nebs. at least we were there for the group photo, but we figured that when the ship starts moving you'd come and join us.
you mean to tell me that the ship was moving the entire time???

wakey wakey eggs n bakey

2007-04-01T01:56:00.000-04:00

now here's an alarmclock that means business. real business.
like, literally...

i can't be made to use this alarm clock. i'd go broke.
(i wonder if you can write these off on your taxes?)

claudio carpi

2007-03-26T23:52:00.000-04:00

now HERE is a guy who knows how to take someone's picture. these are true portraits; great setup and mastery of lighting. and the subjects are taken with personality. even if they are staged, they still capture something active. there is energy, there is a story, there is art in the shading. yes this guy is someone to have your portrait done by.
hooray!

ny got the juice

2007-03-21T07:56:00.000-04:00

hehe
i saw this outside madison square garden on 33rd and 7th. there was another a couple blocks down. i wonder how many there are in the city now.
i dropped in some mail and felt like a real jedi master!

(not)

few short rants

2007-03-15T21:19:00.000-04:00

jeez what a day to blog something
there are so many things one can talk about
such as it being allllmost warm today, enough to wear just a shirt
and now its freezing and expected to snowish tonight.

but besides the weather, just look at whats in the news

you got a black princess now. ya, disney created a black princess...
lame!
and whats worse, she's the "frog princess"
o jeez, disney. its obvious you're just trying to appeal to a wider market. but the "frog princess"??
and worse still, its set in NEW ORLEANS!!
if it isn't one stereotype its another.
chocolate city indeed.. and you can thank their mayor for that metaphor. jeebiz
wasn't nala good enough?
fairy tales are all about ye olde european feudalism. you know, where they actually came up with knights fighting dragons to save the princess in the castle. these are european tales so ya all the protagonists are white.
what the hell kinda princess is from new orleans? princess of mardi gras?

neeuop... not buyin it. you'll have to think of a different black princess, disney. one that might be from o i dunno.. africa!? i might even go for some mulato princess from brazil or something. you know, where africans actually colonized (instead of being forced into slavery)
but you won't find a princess, white or black or red or whatever, in the states.

but i guess the big picture is that every little girl wants to be a princess and now little black girls will have a role model. they won't have to take a sharpie to thier little mermaid dolls now.
black barbie never made it onto the big screen as far as i know, so this is disney's big chance to reel in a new audience.

but in other news, there's a $1000 pizza available in new york.
and no, it doesn't fill up central park with its girth
its actually much smaller than a normal pizza (or what dominos would call a "medium")
and its got all kinds of crap i don't want on it:
caviar, crème fraiche, lobster... its basically a seaweed special
its ugly it looks gross it won't fill you up and each bite costs you $50

then you can walk down the street a little and eat ice cream as serendipity for $1000 (no lie)

next up: the $10000 hamburger made out of processed and mechanically separated $20 bills and prepared by trained yaks

can't wait for the next harry potter movie
been getting excited with all the talk about the final book, deathly hallows
July 1st!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
and the order of the phoenix movie coming out july 13th. thas alotta potter in a short span. there will be trumpets and glory and feasts and fireworks
and after that.. nothing for a loong time until the movie comes out.
on the harry potter website you can pretty much find any sort of merchandise you'll ever think of that has to do with harry potter... except the books.

get this man to the dermitologist

2007-03-13T21:07:00.000-04:00

this guy probably doesn't have a social life to brag about.
kinda makes you wonder how he can wash himself. can't really hold onto a bar of soap, huh?
from what i gather its made of the same stuff as fingernails. or maybe he grows barnicles.
either way i feel really bady for him

boo daylight savings

2007-03-11T12:57:00.000-04:00

i made sure to set my alarm today to go off at 10am
o how proud i was to get up on a sunday before noon.

to my chagrin, it was 11 =(

NOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooo!!!!

it would be nice to fall back twice a year. now THAT would be interesting and justifying.
in fact, why not fall back once a week? how much would that roxor!
humans are, in fact, on a 25 hour biological cycle. it would stir things up a bit.

also, i think we should all live in teepees coz they're better in a lot of ways

can you say "overrated"?

2007-03-05T21:59:00.000-05:00

i wouldn't say overrated. i'd say gloriously overrated.
i found a photographer that apparently has tricked many famous people into thinking his photos are "good". his name is martin schoeller and he takes the most unflattering pictures of celebrities that i've seen. he even made angelina jolie look hideous. the only one that looks ok is marilyn manson, but that's all makeup anyway.
i see this as an example of people WANTING to believe his photos are so great, that they refuse to notice how horrible they look in the flat, harsh light. with horrible lighting technique to give every one of them seemingly zombie-esque eyes.

ok now, the only celebrity i've ever taken a photo of is dan quayle. bah! and what's worse, he didn't know i was taking his pic. so i'm no pro photographer. but what i AM is honest with myself. and i honestly hate this guy's photography.

hooray weekend!

2007-03-03T13:40:00.000-05:00

ugh
got home around 3 last night (this morning) so ya i was in bed til about 1.
got up and dressed in the manner of a 90-something beach-dweller.
decided i need milk so i put on a coat (even though its gorgeous out) and headed to the grocery store.
as soon as i open the door and step outside i feel like a vampire. i'm all in black, pale as a sheet, and the sunlight is blinding me, nay scorching me due to my nocturnal escapades.
and i wasn't doing anything "escapady" last night either so get your mind outta the gutter. fyi i was playing zelda for wii, which is actually more fun that it looked. so far.

but anyway, thats just today.
what's more fascinating is what i learned yesterday. underneath the newspaper in back of the trash bin i found a 50 dollar bill.
no i didn't
but i WAS practicing trumpet in heavy melody late on thursday and this old dude comes knocking. he says he heard me playing trumpet and he was all interested. he used to play trumpet and he's got a pocket trumpet and wants to play duets. i'm like "ok, sure"
and we do some small talk and i find out he's got a studio right above us with a pro tools setup.
well that's kinda cool, i thought. at least he checks out. he's not like a homeless irish guy who's looking for a way into the building. knowing he's got a studio, i know that he's got somewhat of an ear and he might not suck too bad when we're dueting.
and, btw, he's about as irish as an irish can get. he had a derby hat on. his names charlie. he's got that soft chubby white face that they have (knowwhatimean?). i'd expect his full name is charlie o'furniture.
but anyway, he stopped by the studio yesterday to talk with the guys. i didn't know they knew him. they had a long conversation about something behind a closed door, so i don't know the real reason why he was over. i suppose it mighta been about legal issues or copyrights or some kinda friendly consultation. i was around for a little bit of the small talk and he was talking about how he's upset at ASCAP coz they don't give him royalties for "hefty hefty" anymore coz they don't consider it a song now.
what? excuize me? you mean like "hefty hefty hefty, wimpy wimpy wimpy"??
yes, that's the one.
he's the guy behind that all-too-familiar mnemonic.
now i wanna know what the heck they were talking about!

why bush won the election

2007-02-27T21:09:00.000-05:00

This site cracked me up. you gotta go through all the pages. they really make kerry look like an ass

bathroom talk

2007-02-23T00:04:00.000-05:00

public bathrooms, actually

it never really occurred to me that this phenomenon is strange until today, washing my hands.
the little blob of semi-dry soapy gel on the floor tiles under the soap dispenser.

why is there a puddle of soap there? i certainly didn't add to it whilst i dispensed myself a handful of soap. in fact i don't recall ever having that happen to any soap dispenser i've used in the past.

what kinda person would be so careless as to miss or only get partial soap in the cup of his/her hand? (in this case, his). in a rush? looking in the mirror? there is a very minimal amount of concentration involved in this task. does the soap dispenser leak? not when i'm around.

i never really thought it was strange before. i more or less thought "o well these things happen, the soap is over the floor.. naturally some will spill from someone"
but you know what? who would spill??

big pimpin up in nyc

2007-02-14T23:12:00.000-05:00

yes look at me flossin with my new diggs. that's right, i finally got a wizard hat proper.
that's all i was looking for. either baldness or to have a proper magician hat. like merlin or dumbledore or gandalf.
nowhere in any fantasy realm do wizards wear cowboy hats or headbands that came from the 80s. you should see the countless nonsensical items that you can wear as clothes in WoW. and part of the problem is, the crummy-looking gear probably will give you better stats than what you want to look like. i ran around for weeks wearing a black hood with little bat ears because it protects me better than the cowboy hat.
but now! i went to the auction block and paid good money for this pointy hat. and its a lot better than what i had, which is a bonus but not necessarily needed coz i woulda worn it anyway (i'm a mage! i should wear pointy funny-looking hats!)
i was thinking about writing blizzard an email saying just that.
sure is a good thing reality set in before that happened.
so i'm a lvl 38 gnome mage now, and that never gets less awkward to say out loud. i've discovered that you can do death matches that are actually not all that bad.
oh ya, btw. i'm not really a nerd, i just play one in a virtual fantasy realm.

... now i need to see about getting some proper robes instead of this robin hood vests and blue jeans (and timberland shoes??? wth???)

chuma chuma, ehy chuma chuma

2007-02-13T21:24:00.000-05:00

aaahahahahahahahahaha

i accidentally pressed the down channel button while watching HBO. HBO being the lowest number premium channel, i usually start there and puruse upwards through cinemax and showtime.

its channel "jus punjabi"
yes! found a good hindi music video/film channel. takes me back to the days watching roshni and dhanik in south florida.
and not much has changed in those 6 or so years.... seriously

but then a commercial came on. and it was a white dude speaking plain english! wth!? I thought "hmm that's strange" but i'd soon learn how not strange it is:

"blah blah blah.. don't know geography? no problem! don't know english? no problem! we'll help you! just call 1-800- 955-TAXI. we have the highest employment rate for new recruites"

how perfect is that!
i literally pointed at the tv and laughed. i guess they really know how to market to their target demographic

do YOU need a good cause?!

2007-02-04T12:46:00.000-05:00

if you need a good cause to rally behind, look no further than "Cause Group". We strive to find YOU the perfect cause to promote....

this is a pic of the "farce of the penguins liberation group"
that's what these people call themselves.
figures they come out of england, land of wacky protesters.
they are protesting against the exploitation of penguins in movies like happy feet and march of the penguins.

ok these people need to find a new cause.
how bout global warming or hunger or countless other popular causes? use your passion to make the world better...
maybe they all were like "we all have different penguin costumes that we love but we don't know how to use them"

we may actually be looking at the entire organization, captured in 1 snapshot.

youtube sux

2007-02-03T13:16:00.000-05:00

ok it had to be said. once and far all.
youtube sux!

where it once used to be a place where you can view anything you want, it is now a tangle of copyright infringments. so much so that any worthwhile video has been removed for violating the terms of use.
the good is that they will allow ANYONE to upload videos for the world to see.
the bad is that anyone WILL upload videos for the world to see.

i'd say that a solid 95% of all youtube videos are pure junk. dull videoblogs, stupid walks down stairs, tweens laughing at ketchup on the floor.... pure garbage that should never be uploaded to youtube.
not to mention that all the "most watched" or "highest rated" videos are of some korean tv show. are there really 5 million koreans all voted for their lame shows all day? or maybe the most viewed is some 30-something hillbilly that tricks everyone to listening to his passionately incoherent ramblings by inserting a picture of britney spears in the middle of his junk.

youtube has become mostly trickery nowadays

but if i try to watch the star wars gangsta rap, or the cat cleaning machine, or the southpark world of warcraft episode? "this video has been removed yada yada"

and google video aint better. its actually worse.
thanx google..
thanx for crappifying what was once an endless potential of entertainment

you just wait... they'll start a subscription fee. i have foreseen it.

then put your little hand in mine...

2007-02-02T19:34:00.000-05:00

happy groundhogs day to all those punxatawnians. punxatawniites? punxatawnons?

ran into a problem with WoW

2007-01-31T07:19:00.000-05:00

yeehaww....

i hate my hat. at level 32 i can wear my first hat.
i'm a mage, i want a nice pointy magician hat.
like merlin or something.
but the only hat available to me is this "highly valuable" piece that makes me look like a redneck fisherman. like i just popped out of "song of the south" just call me braer gnome.
ya and what's worse, my hand-crafted "magicians' robes" don't exactly off-set the whole southern look. i had to gather spider silks from 10 putrid green spiders and this is what that tailor made me? what am i, general lee??
those designers over at blizzard better whip up some better designs or i'll do my quests naked. how do you like that?! now you got a naked gnome running around your world refusing to be trailer trash!

how much$?

2007-01-27T23:19:00.000-05:00

now, people with feisty cats can wash them without all the trouble
automatic cat washing machine

national champs

2007-01-09T07:04:00.000-05:00

i would just like to take this opportunity to say congratulations to all those gators fans out there. looks like your boys were sensational enough to be the top story on cnn.com (the despicable news source)

daaaa d'da d'da __ ______!

in other news, i got "elite beat agents" for DSLite. it is campy and fun and i ran my battery down on it the first time playing it.

hello my name is geek

2007-01-01T22:27:00.000-05:00

i was at the grocery and the debit swipey thing was taking an unusually long amount of time. the cashier was kinda sweating it a bit so i said "don't worry, it takes as long as it takes".
then i was told i have a lot of patience and i thought "heck yeah i got patience! i'm a level 20 mage gnome!"
All the walking walking walking you have to do. WoW really stands for World of Walking. and my particular character is the wussiest in combat. anything touches him he's dead and you have to walk walk walk back to your body as a spirit. once i fell off a waterfall and couldn't get to my body for 2 hours.
everything takes hours. and the higher you go in levels, the longer it takes to get to the next one. you can imagine how long it took for my wussy, fragile guy to get to level 20.
and worst part is, i'm kinda proud of it. check my little guy out. doesn't he rawk now??!?

WoW has me hooked. someone needs to intervene.

who's sane?

2006-12-29T22:41:00.000-05:00

it just goes to show you how important a news outlet thinks a story is when there is massive evidence present that they didn't proofread before posting. i can just hear them in their offices, papers flying, on the phone with all their guys out there, eyes open and hearts pumping... get that story out there NOW!
yes, cnn.com has put a story on their web site like just now about saddam hussein's death. reading, in memorable font and sepia pictures, "saddam hussein, 1937-2006"

he is supposed to be being killed about now actually; on the other side of the world. quick to end him before 2007.

broken links to other stories, type-o's, and half of sentences pasted in front of other sentences (to be read a little futher down too) are just a few of the clues that leads me to think they did some copy paste and didn't proofread before they had to publish it (before he dies, or maybe before the other media giants report it)

oops, wait...
they just posted that hussein is reported dead now by 1 reporter. AND they changed the title of the entire article to "hussein executed"

ya, quick on their toes these guys.

bush jr to big daddy: "high five!" (said with borat accent)

WoW

2006-12-26T22:34:00.000-05:00

i've been playing the "world of warcraft" 10 day trial.
if you don't know what "world of warcraft" is then you probably haven't sat down and played a computer game in the last 2 years. look it up on wiki or google it.
its the most popular MMORPG in the world.

i actually remember liking the original "warcraft" when that came out in the mid 90s. it was the predescessor to "age of empires," actually. but WoW is not the same thing and shouldn't be compared to the original.

and here's the scoop on the game for all ya'll that wanna know what the big deal is:
ya it can get pretty addictive when you are given a new quest every 30 min and you have to work your way up all the levels. and the world is gigantic and relatively detailed.
i found myself passing the time as "swuteimsayin" the magic-weilding gnome.

the music is very simple. mostly chords and decorative harp or chimes or something. no grammy nominations but it does fit the general "feel" of the game. all except for the low-quality samples they used for the instruments. it is all painfully midi-sounding. no real instruments here. but its ok as long as you keep the music volume pretty low.

i don't understand the server qeue.
it tells you what number you are in the qeue, like say the "world" is full and you have 51 people in front of you. then it tries to give you an estimated waiting time.
and i was fine with waiting around to play. after all, mr. and mrs. smith was on and i didn't have to stare at my monitor.
but the number is erratic. i was number 52, then i was number 85, then 12, then 33, and so on.
isn't the qeue supposed to go only 1 direction? down, right?
i felt like people were cutting in front of me or something.
not sure how that works but it was really annoying and eventually what stopped me from playing.

southpark did a parody of it called "make love not warcraft" and its very funny (coz alot of the stereotypes are *sigh* depressingly true). and o ya, if you really wanna watch it, you'll have to deal with the french subtitles because comedy central has swept up all the real versions on the internet.

arrest michael bay

2006-12-22T19:39:00.000-05:00

the new transformers movie trailer looks disappointing.
like it missed the mark.
it looks like the movie was made by a couple old guys that have no idea what transformers are all about coz they were way too old when transformers were popular so they put their spin on it.

the special effects look good.
the movie itself looks possibly action-packed.
and it looks disappointing because it won't be about transformers.
it will instead be about giant alien futuristic machines that can take the shape of vehicles.

if you can't tell the difference then you'll like the disappointment that will be released on july 4th.

fantazyland

2006-12-21T22:31:00.000-05:00

sorry for being out of the blogger buzz for a while
i wasn't feeling very inspired.

not that there aren't a lot of things to blog about, but i just didn't feel like it.

but this site must be shared with the world

happy days

2006-12-10T22:19:00.000-05:00

why can't the US have manholes like they have in Japan? they rawk!

so tis the season, as they say
yes, the season of christmas lights!
more importantly, UGLY lights

start stumbling

2006-12-05T08:33:00.001-05:00

if you haven't heard about it yet..
try out stumbleupon.
it works with firefox

you tell it what kinda website you want to see, then press "stumble".
it brings up a random site based on your preferences and user ratings.

i have found so many sites on video games, comics, pictures, and just funny/interesting things. I love this stumble thing!

Happy Thanksgiving to All

2006-11-23T22:57:00.000-05:00

Every single turkey is now an enemy of the republic.
gerble gerble

so what have i to be thankful for this year?
well:
1) the opportunity to work on audio for a AAA title video game.
2) that game, neverwinter nights 2, has been launched and i am still working at the same company that brought me on
3) i am able to "do things" with my "free time"
4) i am saving a lot of money on rent this year
5) getting into and about the city is much easier this year
6) i'm still kickin'
7) i have developed my patience enough that i can swallow my pride when i need to, keep my mouth shut when i need to, and maintain a level head and stay on track
8) everyone in my family seems to have successful goings-on in their own life-tracks

yes i am thankful for many things this year.
hopefully next year i'll have a few things to be thankful for as well as i struggle and sacrifice through this career that i've chosen. and maybe i'll figure out where i left that spoon.... *dun dun dunnnnnn!*

blah

2006-11-17T22:39:00.000-05:00

i hate goodbyes
i've never been good at them
and i'm always left feeling like something hasn't been done

its one of the downfalls of an imperfect world

star wars

2006-11-13T06:45:00.000-05:00

farmers impoverished in india are selling their kidneys

man that's extreme and i don't even know how i feel about it.

in other news, i've been watching the star wars marathon on cinemax (all 6 episodes back to back) and i've come up with some new theories.

theory 1 - most of the acting was horrendous. it was the music, sound design, and special effects that made it dramatic. big ups to industrial light and magic

theory 2 - anakin is a big softy. when in episode 3 he saves the emperor from mace windu; then he's put in the same situation in episode 6 when he saves luke from the emperor. so if you ever want anakin/darth vader to do anything for you, just lay on the ground in agony asking "please! please!" and he'll probably kill whoever you want

theory 3 - they should have made 4 prequels. but they weren't allowed to because episode 4 was already made =(

theory 4 - i know what the worst sound effect in the star wars universe is. do you?
(hint: episode 3, giant lizard that obi-one rides before meeting general grievous)

Fed-Ex

2006-11-08T21:44:00.000-05:00

well britney spears and kevin federline are getting a divorce

who didn't see that coming?

or even so... who wasn't hoping that was coming?

as much as i don't pitty britney spears, at the same time i hope that she can find some peace in this world. and i hope k-fed moves to france and becomes a struggling grape farmer

also their second son, jayden james, and i share the same birthday.

what does that make me? well, just mark

hooray!

2006-11-06T22:18:00.000-05:00

guitar hero II!!!!
today's the day!!!
woooooot!

yes, there was much rejoicing and there will be much a partay 2 B had!

geeks across the land, unite!
come together in rockhood!
RAWR!
>=D

stuff to be said

2006-11-03T18:52:00.000-05:00

today was a day to be had
it started out with me breaking up a fight on the 7 train between two middle-aged middle-class women.

we got our neverwinter nights 2 deluxe edition video games delivered to us.
problems: its missing one of the items that is supposed to come with it, it doesn't load onto the PC (it says wrong disk), and i got bounced back when i tried to email tech support.
...and i'm not that suprised. well, i AM suprised, just not THAT suprised.

i organized and burned the "official" neverwinter nights 2 soundtrack to disk. the tracks sound great. i listed the tracks with the gamer in mind. what would make the most sense, with regard to taking you "through the adventure"

and yes, the word is out
the heavy melody halloween party was a success.
it seems most of the new york video game industry exists in the chelsea district.
check out these blogs from some of the people that were at the party.
destructoid
destructoid is a daily blog all on the video game industry.
freeverse
freeverse used to make mac-only games but now they're branching out into cross-platform titles.
the coolest part is that heavy melody is the best audio house for video games in new york, and we're right NEXT to the developers! talk about a win-win
now, if they would only allow me to take a crack at musical scoring for these things... >=D

Happy Halloween!

2006-11-01T21:25:00.000-05:00

H-A-Double L-O-W-Double E-N spells Halloween
H-A-Double L-O-W-Double E-N spells Halloween

halloween means ghosts and goblins, skeletons, monsters, and howling cats
spooky masks and jack-o-lanterns, witches and devils and big black bats

halloween means ringing doorbells, scaring the people who open the door
"trick-or-treat" gets you candy and apples then go to the next house and get some more

ever tried looking for this song?
if you want it, download it here

he doesn't want us to cut trhough our chains...

2006-11-01T21:05:00.000-05:00

i watched the movie "saw" and i thought i wouldn't like it but for some reason i just was in the mood to watch a flick and it grabbed my attention and was compelling. i genuinely liked it. i guess i gotta see saw 2 and 3 now

=(

2006-10-11T20:35:00.000-04:00

scott comes to visit me tonight and i'm sick with the flu.

of all the days i had to be sick, it had to be when scott visits. grrr!

killar killar killar killar

2006-10-09T19:16:00.000-04:00

Go-li maaaaaaaaaar!

go-li-mar mar mar mar mar mar

go-li mar
mar
mar

mar

mar

mar

maar

don't eat it!

2006-10-06T22:47:00.000-04:00

This guy is awesome
he's a really funny read

ode to twilight zone

2006-10-05T20:47:00.000-04:00

don't get on the ship! the book, "to serve man," it's a cookbook!

america's finest news source

2006-10-04T06:09:00.000-04:00

cnn.com now hosts theonion.com once a week.
that was kinda neat i guess, but it just goes to show you the kinda news that cnn.com puts out there in the world!

what happens at the gym stays at the gym

2006-10-01T13:33:00.000-04:00

there's a point to be made here but i haven't figured out what it is yet.

i live right beside a small hole-in-the-wall kinda gym. when i pass by usually i see maybe a person or two on the treadmills and hear some loud dance music coz the doors are usually open. i usually think "man i doesn't seem to be very busy when i pass by" but i've just been blowing that off because i only pass it in the morning or late night.

one night i came home and walked by it and there were about 20 very obese women in there having a grande ole time. thinking this must be some kinda call-to-action, i silently nodded in approval at their attempt at a healthier lifestyle.
until i saw... what is that? is that what it looks like??
o geez...
yes, it appeared to be a potluck. chips, dips, cassaroles, cakes, and soda all over. and this was all on a big table next to the treadmills and weights.
i took a moment to stop walking by and stand there, cracking a half-smile, and soaking in all the ubsurdity.

hussein in the brain

2006-09-26T07:05:00.000-04:00

what to do about saddam hussein and his antics in the courtroom?
he has said that he's boycotting the trial.
what does that mean?
is it he who decides how the trial will continue?
why don't more criminals "boycott" trials?
can the trials continue without him present?

that other judge had to go. he believed that saddam was not a dictator. that those around him created a dictatorship.
riiiight. that would mean that saddam was drugged, bound, and gagged. that he could do nothing to stop any injustice. that even though he was the feared ruler of a country, he was not allowed to know of anything happening with his people. would someone please try to convince me that this is true.
ya, that delusionally biased judge had to go.

and saddam is upset about that (as would any common criminal) because now he's lost his ally in the courtroom. so he throws temper tantrums with his defense team. what happens now? how can he get away with stalling the proceedings? he's taken control of the case.

another jewel of the internet

2006-09-24T22:44:00.000-04:00

i'm pretty sure this is what the internet was created for.
nowhere else can you find random awesome stuff like this .gif

i can still smell the sulfur

2006-09-21T21:00:00.000-04:00

damn that chavez guy. its one thing to hate bush, but he REALLY hates bush.

but, on the other hand, he might be just trying to play the american public. denounce the leader and at the same time giving heating oil to the poor.
that's slimy

i don't think bush is such a bad guy. i think he's an idiot that needs to listen to his people more. i think he's got the wrong idea on how to make the best of things. but i also think he's genuinely trying to do good. and i think he believes he is doing good.

in either case, its very purile and for the pres. of a country to rant so bullishly without discipline or tact.

way to go, mr. classy guy chavez... now i like bush more than you.

yes!

2006-09-18T07:21:00.000-04:00

>=D

happy birthday to me

2006-09-12T05:13:00.000-04:00

26 was fine and all that, but we'll see what this whole "27" thing is all about!

rememberance

2006-09-11T23:42:00.000-04:00

this guy is a true patriot. i bet he was in nam, man!

tadaaaaaaaa!

2006-09-09T17:56:00.000-04:00

TV!
I have TV!
now... what shows to watch!?

the thing about..

2006-09-09T00:24:00.000-04:00

the thing about not having enough money from atari to get a lot of SAG talent is that miscellaneous characters will have to be recorded for free or at the studio's cost. misc. characters are people that appear in the game once and then you don't see them again. like a thug that is picking on someone that you're supposed rescue or something.
so all the money goes to the "important" characters. real actors that we have to pay for to voice characters that travel with the player. and they sound great.

but what about the miscellaneous characters? there's like 50 of them! ok, not sure EXACTLY how many, but a very large amount. and they could have anywhere between 1 and 25 lines of dialogue. and these fall on our heads to make them "believable" and good and everything that it needs to be..... like that line from the movie "wayne's world" when he says "i know its a small part, but c'mon! we can do better than that!"
it's like that, but without the money to get an actor that can do it right.

so to start, how do you get people to read lines for free?
friends? acquaintances? ourselves? you know, there's only soo many characters that 1 person can do before he/she starts sounding like the same person.
i think i've reached the point where i've expended all my friends, people i know (or heard about), and finally, myself. friends are good for a different voice i guess, but most people (i've found out) can only be 1 person. as in, they can't transform their voice or be creative or maybe they're too shy or something. and then there's the question of whether or not they can act... or be able to take direction and coaching in how to read a line since the slightest inflection on a word can change the entire meaning!

the thing about me doing voices is that as it turns out, i'm not the world's worst actor for this kinda thing. or maybe i'm just getting the hang of it because i'm around pro VO people a lot. my problem has mostly to do with me sounding pretty much like i'm 18 or so. with some post-processing lowering my pitch, i can probably sound like a 25 y/o if i etch out a gruff voice.

the thing about doing VO is that 1 person might be able to get away with voicing for 3 different people depending on post processing, changing the way lines are read, or changing the voice. after that, it gets to be like "that guy sounds like that other guy but with a deeper voice"
bottom line: it stops being believable that it's a different character after 4 different voices. tops!

so why don't i tell you how this played out.
now i'm pierson (a deserter coward that the player tries to convince back into the militia), inn_attacker1 (a bladeling that bursts into an inn demanding to seize the player), a githyanki sergeant (reports to the evil lich queen of the player's whereabouts), evil druid 2 (one of three mages that gets maniacly corrupted), sun soldier (alerts the gaurds that the undead are unaffected by the light), lizardman shaman (rallies the lizardfolk against the player when he stumbles upon their ritual to the "stone god"), and a captain of the guards (rallies the troops together to defend the fort)
and i'm all out of voices.
in fact, you're gonna hear me and be like "hey i know that voice, that's mark!"
ok ok true, the world doesn't know what "mark" sounds like, but they ARE going to notice that druid 2 sounds a lot like that coward back in west harbor.

and there's little i can do about that now because this whole NWN2 thing has to be wrapped up by friday next week. all audio delivered. that's right, it gets shipped out for printing! any changes that happen now will occur as a downloaded update when you install the game. so they're gonna get x amount of misc. characters that are voiced by me and the others i work with at heavy melody.

al's your pal

2006-09-02T22:41:00.000-04:00

Ayman al-Zawahiri is a funny guy. he's calling for all brits and americans to join al-qaeda.
HA!
sounds a little like support for terrorism is not quite as glamorous as it used to be.
"decide today, coz today may be your last day"

riight.... and what would i look forward to as part of your organization?
blowing myself up
i see...

orlen?

2006-09-01T19:27:00.000-04:00

Blararaaaaaaarrrrggh!

where the heck are all the old people and why don't i know them??!?

never know who you'll meet

2006-08-28T22:38:00.000-04:00

well today was a long day
i put in a 15-hour day at the studio.
and tomorrow will be even longer.
its all due to the amount of SAG actors coming in to record lines of VO.
we planned it so that each actor can be in and out in about 30 min
and i'm 1/2 of the people orchestrating this operation.
one thing that was noteworthy was that i got to use the packets of starbucks coffee that i hoisted from the seattle sheraton. i tore open the packets and dumped it all in the coffee maker. it was good, but a little paper-tasting.
one other thing that was noteworthy was when jason griffith came in to read the lines of "Bevil". he thought heavy melody was cool place and he said it was "a dream come true" to be there. he loved the friendly staff (me, since i ran the recording session by myself coz everyone else was on a conference call) and loved the hominess of the studio. actually, he's been to quite a few recording studios in ny. he says most of them are dingy. it turns out that he does VO as sonic the hedgehog and shadow the hedgehog for "Sonic X". i thought that was pretty cool. (for those of you that don't know, sonic x is a staple saturday morning cartoon on fox's "4kids tv". i've actually had it playing in the background a few times in my apt. and not just that, but he's the official voice of sonic the hedgehog in the sonic game series. actually, i just did a wiki search for him and he' s the voice of stormshadow in the latest GIJoe series too.
but anyway, here's the coolest part. apparently he really loves this place. he's even offered to do VO for whatever we want for FREE! that coming from a pro SAG VO guy is awesome! can you imagine what that did to my self esteem?? i mean i get at least partial credit for that, right?
well anyway, time for me to get whatever sleep i can salvage.

blog makeover

2006-08-26T23:24:00.000-04:00

i gave my blog a facelift. i like it; i think it works.
i just have to figure out the title though coz its ruining my face!
and its covering up my pretty ny sunset
(for those bloggers out there that have been keeping up with my postings... yes, that's the ny sunset photo that i posted a while ago)

seattle: day 3

2006-08-23T06:24:00.000-04:00

the first class of day 3 was an XACT workshop. Yessssss!
(XACT stands for "cross-platform audio creation tool" and is the toolset that microsoft uses to implement audio for all their stuff. PCs, xbox, and 360)
definitely been looking forward to this so i can get an idea what the heck they're all talking about and ask some questions.

it was a class of about 30 computers with windows vista on them. pretty cool. they look a little different but i can't see any MAJOR differences from xp.
the xact toolset actually isn't able to run on vista... so we all had to restart the computers in xp mode.
derrrrrrr..
so our instructor starts right in. before we all even have our computers rebooted he's going through all the features of xact. then some staffers suddenly remember we're all supposed to have hand-outs that help us follow along on paper. they do a little scrambling and leave the room to get to the copier.
then he's pulling up all these sounds that we're "supposed" to have on our computer, but don't for some reason.
so we have no sounds to work from.
i end up doing a computer search for .wav files and found a sound of a gun shot.
too bad i can't hear what it sounds like though coz there an error message that tells me there is no audio hardware or no support for audio or something like that.
might as well though, coz the headphones we were all supposed to be supplied with never showed up...
so at this point he's chugging right along and i'm really trying to figure out what he's talking about by using my gun shot sound in the same way he's doing it. going through the motions and hoping that mimicking him enough will produce the same effect.
the whole workshop was a fiasco in my opinion and i let them know that in the survey.
i went up after the class and asked him about implementing and
basically how to start from the ground floor of all this business. it turns out that i actually don't have to write code, like i thought i would have to do from all that talk on day 1.
i thought i would have to learn c++ or c#
but instead, you tell the programers where to put the sounds and they do it.
et voila! the rest of sound implementation is giving them instructions. you make sounds and set parameters using XACT or middleware, and then those programs spit out instructions that look a lot like hypertext and you hand that over to the programers.
well, that's the simple way to explain it anyway.
after that workshop, i had a clue what this was all about.
i went to look at middleware booths. booths for audio, booths for graphics, booths where they show middleware that mimics human expressions. cri, wwise, fmod, creative labs.... all these are just for audio. pretty cool. they're all trying to demonstrate how easy their programs are and how great you can make things sound.
then in the afternoon, after lunch, there was a panel for audio middleware. for those of you that don't know what a "panel" is at a convention: they each give a presentation and then there's a Q+A at the end.
it was awesome being on the other side of a convention like this instead of running A/V gear. thing have a much different perspective.
after that, we were done. and it was time for exploring the city coz it was still day out.
*see pic to the right..... leaving gamefest*
one thing to note about seattle is the trollys. they're not like "trollys" but more like buses with rods on the tops of them to catch the wires strewn about 10 ft above the street.
its kindof an eyesore but maybe they save gas. that's chris in the pic...
that's another thing.
chris is in a lot of the pics i have. i'm not in a lot of pics because noone takes pics of me. and if they do they don't do it right.
we walked down to the port. where i snapped this pic...
of course i contrasted and darkened it a bit, but only coz i wanted to use it as a wallpaper. its more interesting to have a highly contrasted pic as a wallpaper than just bland buildings. you can see the port cranes and the 2 stadiums (i think one is baseball and one is football).
i also saw a sign that looked kinda like the starbucks sign, but it was scary.
actually, it WAS starbucks. but it was one of the first ones. this IS the land of starbucks after all... and every restaurant and hotel served starbucks coffee. and i took all the starbucks coffee packets from my room all 3 days so i have about 6 days worth of coffee yay.
but anyway i didn't think to take a pic... you can probably find what it looks like online. it was the same girl, but brown. and instead of just her face, it showed her whole body. which was nude. turns out she's a mermaid with two tails (that's the freakish part). the hair goes to her waist and doesn't cover her up.
and then i was looking for totem poles. the map showed totem poles. my mom said there were totem poles. and i was like "hellz ya das what i'm talkin bout!". thinking i was gonna see some crazy totem poles. but... i only found 1 and it was lame. it only had 1 carving way at the top. and the back of it was flat. in fact, you wouldn't even be able to tell it was a totem pole if it had wires strung to it (like a telephone pole).
how disappointing.
the from the totem pole was this shot of people laying on the grass. i thought it was pretty and kinda showed "seattle by the water".
we started getting hungry and looked for a place to eat. the criteria: find a place that serves alcohol and find a place that serves something like a menu from applebees or friday's.
actually, there are NO places to eat along the water unless you want fish. and i didn't want fish.
i ended up eating fish.
and before it got too dark chris wanted me to take a pic of this ring in the sky. he was actually quite urgent in how he told me to take a pic of it. i don't think chris had every seen something like that before coz he was absolutely amazed. i was like, "uh, it looks like a plane made a u-turn". it was still cool nonetheless and i guess if i was from the early 1900s i would think it was a sign from aliens.
the Public Market stretched for at least half a mile. for some reason they were really big on this whole "pig" theme. everywhere you looked in this market was a pig statue or pig sign telling you where to eat. why pigs? why not fish? its not like the restaurants sold any pork products anyway. apparently the Public Market was in a levi's jeans commercial in the early to mid 90s. guys throwing fish. guys catching fish. all done in levi's jeans. and i think that tradition is real and still goes on. something about throwing fish. this is a big thing to the seattlites and they play up the whole "famous Public Market" thing because of it.
these shots were taken at the top of a san fran-esque hilly street. i couldn't make up my mind which pic i liked better. it all depends on which setting i use on my camera how it color balances. here's one that looks more green/blue and one that looks more pink/orange.
so that's basically my trip to seattle. left in the morning to get to the airport by 1p (seattle time)
heard about a bomb scare at the port about 20 min into the flight, got back about 9p (ny time).

now to download all these middleware sdk's and figure 'em out!

seattle: day two

2006-08-20T01:08:00.000-04:00

so i get up and take some shots of the alexandria rossoff building. it's got a funky "apple core" base and is the focus of most of the pics i took out of my hotel room window. mostly because its the only really interesting building that i have a few of.
head down to the lobby at 7am
chris has some problems with his card key (he left it in the room) so i had some time to peruse the USA today. well well well look what they're talking about in the lifestyle section. microsoft to unviel XNA for creating your own video games *pictured here*. to be released TODAY.
hmph. i wish i woulda heard it before america did but oh well. i'm here and that's that. turns out that the keynote speaker was talking about the picture that was in the newspaper.
after a quick walk to the harbor coz we got lost, we ended up at the convention. which, as it turns out, was right next door.
yada yada yada boring keynote address that unviels the XNA program. i like the concept. and i wanna try it out.
the smallest room in the whole convention was allocated fo the audio track of classes.
and man o man were those confusing

they basically told all about the guts of XNA and how it's a little different from earlier directX in the way it routes, processes, and plays audio. how it's very similar to PC in most ways. and its all very technical and very powerpoint-oriented.
ya it was rough and i'm gonna have to look back at those notes and powerpoints again. i haven't even worked on 1 xbox title yet and there's people (like the guy that wrote the music for the "halo" series) in there that have the pleasure of asking questions like "what's the advantage of multi-streaming on 4 and 5 instead of 1 and 2?" and other gibberish that i'm too ignorant to understand.
what I wanna know is "how do you put sound in an xbox game...." ugh i'm outta my league here.. i feel like "derrr derr dughghh"

after a day of banging my head on my table there was a par-tay across town at a bar/segway transport/barbeque club.
yes, it was a mishmash of things that didn't seem to go with each other very well.
there were:
xbox 360 games on plasmas screens to play on the walls.
a live band on stage. but no drummer. just a drum track. (lame) especially lame since the reason to go to one of these partys is to network and mingle. and it made it really hard to do when everything you say has to be a shout and every other word people say is "what?!?"
an open bar, which was nice.
fannnnntastic barbeque chicken and pork!
gogo dancers, which was nice too but a little awkward considering the current clientel. it was actually pretty funny to see the geeks of the US stand and stare at gogo dancers.
a mini segway transport rink. really mini.
its hard to look "cool" on one of those.
unfortunately, i didn't think to take pics of it except for one of the stupid gimmicks that the band had to try to sell a cd of their crap *pictured here*.

the bus back to the hotel was nothing of note and would have been unworthy of a tale save for 1 "gentleman" who, when he got on the bus, yelled "yaaaaaa, microsoft PARTY! woohooooo!" very sarcastically and then gave the entire bus the finger.
...and then proceeded to tell us how ignorant we all are because the engine only uses 1/6th its processing power. how we're all "fucking idiots" because we didn't utilize out multi-threading. mind you, he's yelling all this. apparently he takes these things very personally.
he singled out a middle-age woman and started calling her a fucking moron. she said "i have no idea what you're talking about" and he was shouting about how that's the problem.
"you just wait til christmas! when you're all out of a job!!"

and as it happened, one of the lead program designers for xbox was sitting next to him.
i could elaborate on what their conversation was about (since i was sitting right in back of him) but i'll just say that he put him in his place. the dude was almost to tears after being told about what makes a good processor and what, instead, makes a good video game.

seattle: day 1

2006-08-18T23:46:00.000-04:00

seattle didn't seem as big as i thought it would be
coming into town by shuttle bus, we (chris, my producer and I) passed boeing, the ports, a couple stadiums, the space needle, and then we're there.

clean city too. mighty clean.

and at times it seemed like there was nobody there. but i guess coming into town on a sunday afternoon might look like that.
we stopped off at the sheraton and tried to decide if we should take a taxi, the monorail, or walk to the "touristy" part of town, the Seattle Center. that's where the space needle is and a couple museums.
me: "how much for a taxi to the seattle center?"
valet: "hmm... under $5"
ok so as it turns out my map is drawn a little like a theme park map. crazy cartoons drawn out of scale. it looked like the seattle center was on the other side of the world. but you look down the street and its right there.
we walked and beat the monorail.
it was boring walking down the street of seattle. same sh%, different city. they had banana republic, nike, gap, *yawn*....
i can get any of this stuff in any other town in america. its too bad that it worked out that all stores are everywhere now =(
i DID get to see a starbucks joint that had the original logo on it. a fully-nude mermaid with 2 tails on a wooden sign. finally, a little something you can't see somewhere else...

20 bucks to get in the needle? pshaw!
instead we went to Experience Music Project (EMP) next door
its supposed to be a rock museum of sorts
it sounded so promising. especially for a couple music biz dudes here for an audio implementation lesson at the conference.
inside it was too wide for its own good. they didn't have enough stuff to fill the place it seemed.
there were some manaquins showing the garb of some famous musicians (not originals), a history of the seattle music scene, a walk-through dedication to hendrix, a pitiful exhibit on hip hop (it was mostly graffiti art and some spray paint cans behind glass), a "rock out" section, and a gift shop. the rock out section turned out to be the most fun because it had real instruments (guitars, keyboards, drum sets) that you could have a recording sessions with. but as fun as it was, it was still something i could readily do at any other time (music biz dude). i got a shirt at the gift store so i could have something "from seattle" (don't have any immediate plans to return). chris always complains about my wardrobe so i let him pick it out. its too small, but he says that's the style these days.

so we got outta there and hailed a taxi (btw that 1st pic was a hasty out-of-window shot as we drove by) to get us to registration at the conference center. nice place.
they had xbox 360 games, PC games, food, open bar, and a masseuse. i signed up for the massage and i got a dude. and he was really light on the touch so i was bored and wanted to get a-playin' on those video games.
my new favorite game right now is call of duty 2. its immersive in its own way.
then i was officially on "company time" and i had to network and mingle.
met a middle-agem quiet, lonely guy named drew who, before becoming senior director for xbox live, worked for the gov't making military games. he drove tanks and shot guns for research and developed real-time war simulators that they used for combat training for tank operators in the middle east. he had a bundle of interestingness hidden behind his casual boredom.
we were having a grande ole' time before SoundDelux *dun dun dunnnn* showed up and started blabbing about how many terabytes of SFX they have. (ya that's, great.... i was talking to drew)
met a dude from australia presenting some audio middleware called FMOD. he'd been up for about 40 hours and loved talking about monkeys. he goes on a trip to another part of the world every year and watches the monkeys there. he's even suffered in the coldest mountains to look at rare monkeys in their natural habitat. he was actually babbling about them, but he'd been up for 40 hours so he was excused.

chris and i headed back to the hotel at about 9pm and planned to meet at 7am for breakfast.

more about gamefest to come...

2006-08-16T22:33:00.000-04:00

just as my flight left seattle this morning for new york, not 20 min into the flight, i hear on the tv seat back that there was a bomb scare at the sea port.

i think i had good timing on that one =)

gatorade and what now?

2006-08-10T22:57:00.000-04:00

well i'll be leaving on sunday for "gamefest" in seattle. while there i'll learn about implementing audio into xbox 360 games. woot!
i'm flying jetBlue flight 175 from New York, and flight 176 on the 16th back. a nice 7 hours in a seat with minimal leg-room. both ways.
so this terrorist plot comes at a "convenient" time. and by "convenient" i mean bad. now i'll have to wait for an extra 3 hours in the airport.

but you know what... is it really a "bad" time? i mean, WHEN is a good time? hmm?

i was all bummed about waiting for 3 hours in the airport and how big of a hassle it is. i was bummed for all of about 1 hour. and then i saw the TIME magazine photojournalism of the foiled plot:
flights canceled
delays
hordes of people sitting in boredom in airports

it hit me. i woke up and realized... absolutely beautiful..

now THOSE are the kind of photos i'd like to see after a terrorist plot. photos of people in various degrees of fatigue, waiting for a ride home. there wasn't a single photo of a crashed plane. no photos of familys torn apart. no photos of innocent people losing their lives due to a selfish obsessed self-loathing abhoration of a human existance.
yes, i was very happy to see the people put out like that. and i'm all too willing to have to wait for however long in the airport or to not be allowed to take items in a carry-on bag. i'll smile all the way to the 12th chime because it could be worse. a whoollle lot worse.

a few hours is a meager price to pay

it is new york after all..

2006-08-05T15:19:00.000-04:00

saturday. what a day. wait all week to go to IKEA!
yay yay woot woot IKEA to get some shelving for my new room.
went to a diner with my new fam for some breakfast
came out and went looking for the car
..and its gone.
there is another car in its place and some smashed glass around the area.
yup, my roomy got his car stolen.
the police said they (the thieves) did a "good job" on it.
they took out the radiator, the passenger airbag, and left it in the middle of the street somewhere in brooklyn. its times like these that i'm glad i don't have a car while i'm up here.
it was otherwise a gorgeous day out. beautiful weather. the ice cream truck was a little more annoying than usual though...
so i'll be doing IKEA shopping online while my roomie goes through the insurance process and gets his car fixed.

i dug it in a "dark art" kinda way

2006-08-05T10:47:00.000-04:00

so last night i went to a housewarming soiree in astoria. i say soiree coz it was small and not rowdy. but neither was it boring. although at one point there was talk of monopoly and i was totally psyched! (neerrrd).
it was for paul boren and his girlfriend serena. they were the ones who invited me to the boat on the 4th. he does camerawork and is somewhat of a filmmaker and she is a waitress. there were paintings all around. most were pretty cool. a few looked like they belonged in a series. those ones were large murals of brown paint splashed and rubbed in different ways. one had footprints on it, on looked like jesus was on it, one had a huge circle with a couple "ghosts" painted inside. i asked about them. he said "you wanna watch a video?"
the video was a little like the music video of "closer" by NIN. it was basically shots of him laying down on this large canvas shirtless and having this paint poured over him, and then he would rub it around and stuff. and then the next shots were of him inserting a needle in his arm and having the blood drip through a tube into the jar we just saw before.
so ya, it turns out all those murals are made of his own blood being poured on him and smeared around. he's done this several times and collects about 2 pints each time. you can imagine how he looked at the end of the video. turns out everyone at this soiree has seen that video at some point.
"do your parents know about this?"
he said his parents asked him if they could see some of his latest projects. on christmas day. with his other relatives there too.
i really wanted to play monopoly but instead ended up talking about craig thompson's third book "carnet de voyage" (which serena got for me a couple weeks ago coz she was thoughtful)

early afternoon banter

2006-07-30T19:40:00.000-04:00

a semi-cute latina came walking up to the bench i was sitting at waiting for the 7 train. a dude (miguel, i would learn) sat next to me and she sat on the other side of him. here's the convo that occured:

H-hi
M-hi
H-what's your name? (at this point its clear she's a hooker)
M-miguel..
H-your cute
M-hmmhm
H-you have a girlfriend?
M-hmmmurhhmm no
H-you want one?
M-hmhhrhhgm
the rest ensued in spanish, but i could make out "cinco"(5)

i was a little disappointed that she didn't solicit me instead :( i probably have more money than miguel and i look better. not that i would have accepted necessarily, but it'd still be nice to have been asked!

booze and the city

2006-07-30T19:21:00.000-04:00

i went to "the cutting room" to watch a guy i work with play in a band. its a place like no other. a vaudeville. with singing old grannies, nuns telling one-liners, and transvestites that do a dance in a chicken costume while stripping totally naked.
not really my kinda place, but i promised i'd see the band.
and then i saw "mr big" from sex and the city. i had to do like 10 glances coz he didn't quite look like him (no makeup?). i mentioned it to someone and they're like "o ya he owns this place".

i wish i could say we hung out and stuff but i didn't really know what to say. "hey man! what's up"
I didn't really like the vaudeville anyway.
"hey man i never watched sex and the city much. this act is kinda lame. what's up i'm mark!"

but it was kinda cool anyway. makes sense though that he would be here in nyc. silvercup studios is in queens (where they filmed the series). actually, silvercup is the largest film studio in ny. and they're looking to expand and build a highrise in LIC. my train passes there every morning but i never see anything going on.

viva taco bell

2006-07-30T19:14:00.000-04:00

i went to the queens center mall the other day to drop off my cable modem. its a mall very unlike the rest of ny. clean, bright, upscale... reminded me of florida malls.
and the food court reminded me of florida malls. and i ate at taco bell.

now the thing i like about taco bell is that its not authentic. real mexican food is full of ingredients that may or may not sit well. and then its expensive of course coz its authentic. much the same with all these new york restaurants. chinese, italian, french cuisine... they're too authentic!! too pricey, too "special," and too tasty. taco bell was fantastic! food that will fill your stomach and be bland enough to just get the job done and move on. and its cheap coz they use grade F meat. that's how i wanna do mexican food (sometimes)

he's no match for missile-missy

2006-07-29T11:43:00.000-04:00

ever wonder "what can i do to my cat to humiliate it that hasn't already been done?"
well, here is another way..
action cats!

it looks like a SNL skit, but still is funny when you think it could be a real product. they did a good job on it too. it reminded me of "dino riders" from the 80s.

we kidnap and ravage and donkey-la-hoot!

2006-07-26T22:41:00.000-04:00

yarrr mateys! me went n' saw pirates a'da caribbean yar!
it be a foiyn film, says aye!

those critics can take their reviews and put an X on em and try to use their new map to find their arses. its a movie about pirates doing piratey things. and i like pirates doing piratey things.
and what's dis now 'bout derr not bein a plot. der be a trickines' plot 'er two says aye!

wouldn't moiynd takin' a peep agin!

..
...ARRRRR!!