Sunday, May 23, 2004
The pungent stench of mildew emanates from the wet dungeon walls...
Comments for May 23rd Here are the comments for this entry; now you don't have to scroll down everytime you just want to read the comments. I can't put javascript into my entries, so the # of comments isn't showing up.
Haven't updated since Thursday afternoon, so it's a good time to update. And then I'll probably let this update be the most recent for a while, so it accumulates enough comments of an update this size :P
Anyways, it's been a long time since Thursday afternoon. So what happened Thursday? As far as I remember, important points of notice are CSI and iSketch. Then comes friday, where we had our fitness assessment test, and the ambrose/david get-together, and a bit more iSketch. Then came Saturday, which was the d20 game. And elsewhere, I'll have some offtopic remarks.
CSI:LV on Thursday - well, at 8 was a re-run, and at 9 was a new episode. They were both pretty good episodes... the 2nd episode had a... weird ending. But it was interesting. I also liked the case, because unlike most other cases, the victim was still alive in this scenario. And the victim was very co-operative - it's nice to see a change of pace, where people are co-operative and not so hostile. It felt like the case could've ended in the first 20 minutes, but of course, there had to be a twist. And then the rest of the episode proceeded and *something* happens and so Catherine Willows (a CSI) feels bad.. So I like the little parts of quasi-character-development here and there, but I'd rather not have too much of that in CSI.
CSI is like on, season 4 now. Season 1 feels probably the best - well, in season 1, the cases made sense, everything seemed quick to the point; but then, for the show to keep continuing on, things had to change. Cases seem more obscure, more twists so the viewers won't get bored, make them keep on guessing, etc. etc. - So the show has changed a bit, but it's still great. You should just expect weirder endings and stuff. And yesterday's ending was pretty weird. It's a good ending - and it's actually pretty damn cool. Alan probably liked the ending too, or at least the concept of it.
** Ack! I'm current wearing a suit. Well, not a shirt, but a t-shirt, and a suit. Ya know that uncle from Vietnam that came yesterday? Well, we're going out for lunch at a nice sit down restaurant... maybe Arby's... :P - nah, some "wedding-style" restaurant my mom said - so a Chinese restaurant where they bring you a pretty big meal with different courses... **
Okay, it's about 10:15 now, and I'm not wearing the suit anymore, cuz it's not time to go yet. And I'm eating a pop-tart. Lunch is at 12. If this entry takes too long to write, I'll just leave it and I'll continue it after lunch. So it might say "10:00" on the time, but you won't see it till 3:00.
Anyway, after CSI, came the iSketch game. Wen couldn't make it, so it was... umm... a bunch of us. It's been a few days, so I don't remember too much, but we still talk about it sometimes. Duy and I, Jason, Alan.. steward, copilot, communist, a bunch of other cool words. I took a few pictures of the game, and some of the other games. I take pictures of a lot of games nowadays... ^_^ Maybe you can try to guess some of those. Some of them are pretty easy. Anyway, there were better pictures, but I didn't copy them of course.
iSketch-1
iSketch-2
iSketch-3
iSketch-4
Throughout the past few days, we played a lot of Settlers of Catan. A lot. So, we have some pictures here and there, but I also don't feel like analyzing them right now. Yesterday's 4-player game on the 6-player board was... interesting. Strangely enough, my none-useful starting position (although I made a ton of sheep and ore) gave me the win. Well, I decided to extend the game by showing them my cards (I was gonna win the next round) so they all plotted against me and stole my longest road. But, technically I won that game, Duy won 2nd place. So... there's been a lot of Catanage, but I won't analyze it yet, nor post pictures.
Now it's Friday. 11:30 am, had our fitness assessment (FA) test at the fitness center. The assessment should've been taken before we started training, but unfortunately they couldn't book us in at an earlier time slot. So that day we told Anthony, our FA person, all about ourselves... our goals, our eating habits, etc - got measured, body fat measurement, some training exercises, etc - more training exercises on Wednesday. So that's the end of that chapter.
Later that day, we were supposed to go to Ambrose's house because he couldn't make Saturday's D20 game, so we could have fun on Friday. But we didn't have the car, so we couldn't get out of the house, so Ambrose came over instead, and later David joined us as well. Highlights of the day include Ambrose microwaving frozen fish - which caused the fish to turn black and smell really badly, and the plate to break in two.
Played Catan, played Mao, played Indian blackjack/poker/etc. Indian stuff is kinda funny. Hehe. Went to Wendy's for dinner. Vinh had a kid's meal that came with jokes that amused us for a few minutes... well... kinda.... I had a spicy chicken sandwich rather than a non-spicy this time... spicy is pretty spicy. Well, no, but it was spicy for me. I'd rather have a regular, and take the spicy beast sandwich at KFC.
Waay later, it was late at night, so David asked us if he could sleep over, so I let Duy decide. Mom before told us that nobody can sleep over, but since David was coming back the next day, we decided it shouldn't hurt. Anyway, the next morning we got in a bit of trouble for a minute, but then it passed. David was sent home because we had to do some house chores, so David would come back later, start the d20 game, leave in the middle for an optomotorist oppointmont, come back and enjoy the rest of the day.
Then came Saturday afternoon. Jason was the first to arrive, and then Alan. Ray said he was coming at around 2:00-2:30, but he didn't show up until 3:15, so we decided to wait for him before the game started... and David wasn't here either, so waiting a little longer shouldn't hurt too much.
Anyway, David didn't show up for the game. We shouldn't've let him go. With the 6 hours of sleep or so we got, I wouldn't be surprised if he went home and just slept. Plus, in the evening was a thunder-rainstorm, which could discourage anyone from going outside, so I wouldn't be surprised if just decided to stay home the entire time. Anyway, David did come later, at around 9 pm.
Anyway, back to the d20 game. David would've liked it. At least the mission. What I mean by that is, well... in the first mission, everyone was hostile, and it was a bit dumb. In this mission, it was the players that started the hostility. Anyway, the game started with a vehicle chase sequence. The lingerie shop blew up as the players were walking pass it, wounding Ricky (who was drunk and unconscious) and Wen as it exploded. Then car engine sounds and tires squealing were heard in the distance, and a few seconds later a couple of headlights started heading to the party's direction.
Anyway, before the game started, it was suggested we use that grid-looking tablecloth instead of a map. To use the tablecloth, we needed figures. So I grab a few toy-cars from my desk, and the group spent about 20 minutes playing with lego characters, making themselves or weird constructions, finding vehicles, etc. etc. So after about 20 minutes of lego fun, the mission was ready to start.
So far so good. Unfortunately, in d20, vehicle combat rules are strange and difficult, and the cars were too big to fit in the grid. So, we screwed some of the formalities and decided to focus on the action, up close and personal. So instead of a grid square representing 50 feet, we just put everything in real-dimensions. So the size of the car was the actual size of the car, which was about a grid long, so technically a grid is... the length of a car. So we focused on that, and the sequence was much better then. Much more personal, and much more detailed, so you can see where the car is in position with everyone else.
Let's back up a bit. First, I'd like to thank Alan for helping me GM the game. Well... because I can't do it by myself. There's just no way (Trivia: quick, Duy! When you read the words "There's just no way", what did you think about?) :P. It's a bit obscure, so i dunno, but I was definately reminded of something. Anyway, there's just no way I can do it by myself... too many rules, can't handle combat too well... so I'm in charge of story, and character.. development kinda... etc..
Also, a few days before the game, Wen asked me to put more work into describing characters and everything.. so I should give my own descriptions of characters, instead of "he looks like the guy from ghost in the shell." Everyone paints their own picture from a description - that's what makes it fun. It's kinda like solving a mystery, but really it's just an interpretation from a given piece of information. When I say "he looks like Neo from the Matrix", I paint the picture for them, and thus they have to conform to my image - which isn't as fun as creating your own character. So I guess that's why Wen wanted that..
Anyway, so I did have better descriptions this time, especially the coffee shop, Cafe L'Orange. It does make the GMing experience more fun too. I also made descriptions for the other people, even the ones I wanted to say "he looks like the guy from that movie.."
Anyway, gotta go get ready for lunch. 11:12. I'll be back. *time passes* - Okay, it's 11:39 now. I have suit, pants, shirt, and tie - shoes, and thin socks. And Belt. I don't like belt. I never wear belt. I don't see the point of wearing a belt... I see it as a fashion accessory, like a bracelet, that I don't need to wear. So why am I wearing one? It doesn't even match! And then there's thin socks, which are conceptually weird to me... cuz a thin sock is just a sock that is thinner... how much thinner can you get? Anyway, that's my rant on thin socks and belts.
11:40. time for lunch. I'll be back. See ya.
Okay. 3:48 pm, back on the computer. Left the restaurant around 3:00, then went to the old house, went to get gas, etc, got changed, etc, and now I'm back on the computer at 3:49. So, taking a break from writing about d20, it's time to write about today's lunch time.
On the way there, my dad explained the situation. It wasn't really a wedding-like lunch... well, a bit. There was a couple, engaged - a 25 yr old guy and 22 yr old girl, both Vietnamese. They look pretty good. We took pictures, but I don't think I'll be posting them on the blog. Anyway, apparently there's a (perhaps Vietnamese) tradition that it's impolite or disrespectful to get married with 2 years of one of your parent's deaths. So in this case, the groom's mom died a year ago, so apparently this wasn't a wedding lunch, but it kinda is.
Then my dad continued to tell of another story about two brothers who were studying mechanical engineering, but then their mom went to Vietnam and came back and she had lung cancer, and then she died 6 months later. So then both the brothers stopped studying mech-eng and started medical studies. So that was another sorta sad story, so I'm not sure why my dad was telling us all these... is this a sad occasion lunch? Anyway, after that he told a happy story, so now I'm all mixed with emotions. Not really.
Let's go back a bit. My suit. It's beige, and it's not pretty. Duy got a nice blackish suit and a maroon shirt and blue tie, and his shoes are red, which don't match. My shoes are also kinda red, so they don't match either. I'm camouflage with everything, like the van, and some brick walls, and our house, and everything.
Anyway, so this lunch probably would've been good. Anyway, we're at the restaurant now. So we enter our reserved rooms, and there were only a few seats available at each of the 4 tables. Great, us kids (Duy, Mai, and myself) will be split up, and it's gonna be a pretty boring lunch. But then somehow we ninjaed some kids out of their seats so us 3 can sit together. And then I get the honour of sitting next to the groom, and the bride beside him. Later on, the bride and the groom switched seats, and waay later they left the table and migrated to another one. On our table there were also 3 of my dad's highschool/kindergarten friends, a wife of one of them, and 2 kids, who really liked ice. They kept putting ice from the ice... container thing and putting it in their drink. It was fun to watch.
Lots of food. Well, it started with very little food, and gradually and SLOWLY more food came out. This however, isn't so good, because the way the body works, near the middle, I was already full. Well, not too full, but my sister was full, but I still continued eating. Anyway, now we're at a half-formal event, I had to... well, be more mature :P And probably elegant too. Although, if I can't use chopsticks, I should probably just use hands, rather than try and fail and then use hands.
Anyway, having to be more formal, I couldn't grab the chicken head. Well, I would've, eventually, but the little kid got it first. But when the lobster came around, there were 2 heads, so I got the first one, they got the 2nd one. Which reminds me, the groom cannot eat seafood (although he did eat fish??) - so most of the meal sucked for him.
I took pictures of the lobsterhead and the fish and some chicken wings. I'll post them later... and make them a random-pic kinda thing. Continuing on... my dad and those 3 or 4 friends haven't seen each other for years, so they celebrated a lot, and it seemed like my dad got drunk. Or he was drinking a lot, so he probably was at least a little tipsy. Never seen that before, it was fun to watch. I myself had about half a heineken. I didn't like it as much as Kokane. Gotta get myself some kokane..
Then we left, and... yeah, that's about it for lunch. Perhaps I'll post pictures later, maybe some of the bride and groom too. Sorry, they're not really bride and groom, just two people engaged to each other, one male, one female. But yeah, I can call them the bride and groom.
------
Anyway, back to the d20 game. It was a fun GMing experience, and that day I also had fun improvising and changing the scenario as it went along. For example - this a bit of a past spoiler - nothing to spoil for the future - so for example, during the vehicle chase scene, all of them were supposed to die. But I let "Cindy" live, to throw in a twist; Give the players more choice, rather than having the sniper kill her off. Plus, it was nice in the other campaign how we had some semi-allies like ... useless Desmond... but anyway, since Cindy is still alive now, maybe I can involve her into the plot. Just because she was supposed to die, doesn't mean in the future I would assume she was dead.
Also, the Lederer scene was much more complicated than I thought it would've been. In my scenario, you were supposed to meet him, give him the briefcase, and then he would walk away and drop the note. That's it. So now it got much more complicated, what with Ray trying to offer him and taxi driver duff beer, and then tasering the driver thus causing a collision.. So the scene became much longer than it should've, but that's okay. Makes it more interesting. Nowadays, I just have to put in contingency plans for all scenarios, in case someone gets tasered, and thus paralyzed.
The 2:00 pm thing was kinda coincidental. But it's cool how that worked out. It got you to 'research' Cafe L'Orange, and I was able to have more fun with it. And with Alan on my side, it feels much easier now.
So, the d20 game took almost 4 hours. Well, about 4:40 - dinner, so maybe 3:40. I have a bad estimation time - I was thinking the vehicle chase would take an hour (although we didn't cover as much of the map as I thought I would've), and I didn't know how long the non-combat-ish sections would take. But I'm glad it took a long time, which makes it more enjoyable. Too bad the least-non-combat person wasn't there. Next mission should be interesting for him, although without a background story of what just happened, it might seem insignificant. So we'll see. Someone make sure he levels properly... although... not sure if he should level up.
Anyway, everyone was supposed to leave at 10, but we asked mom if we could just stay unti.. did I already write this? Man, I wrote so much, and in such incoherent order, gotta go back up and check it out... ... can't find it. So, everyone was supposed to leave at 10, but so we asked mom if they could stay until our settlers game was over, and she allowed it, and thus people left after 11:30. Settlers usually takes a long to play...
Hmm... that almost ends this journal entry. But not just yet. In the world of speed-runs, I started downloading various parts of a Yoshi's Island 2... or Mario World 2... the one with baby mario and yoshi and cartoony drawing world... anyway, of that speed run. It's cool. And there's a Majora's mask speed run now, I'm downloading some of that too. I'm curiously waiting for an improved speed run of megaman2, since they say that morimoto (the original supermario 3 11:00 run, and some other megaman runs) has found a new technique/glitch so he'll make a significant improvement on his megaman 2 run.
I wanna go to Futureshop now... to look at stuff. I asked my friend Toan about TV capturing and video capturing. I can do that too, except my capture card sucks. I can't capture more than 8 minutes at a time, compression is horrible, and resolution isn't all that great. Plus, Premiere has some problems with it now. Anyway, I asked him, and he has an ATI All in wonder, but of course I'm not gonna buy another videocard.
So from Futureshop, the two products that I'm looking at are an ATI TV Wonder VE Remote Control Edition TV Tuner for $99.99, and an AVerMedia UltraTV USB 300 TV Tuner for $179.99. My current capture card is probably like a 1997ish AverMedia card, which was around $150 at the time, minus some rebates so about $100. So I want a new capture card, so I can capture straight from tv, capture easily stuff from vcrs, and, if possible, output to tv or vcr. I can currently output s-video, which is a bit of a hassle compared to the ... red..white... yellow... whatever they're called cables.
So, the ATI is a card that can capture pretty nicely. With the name ATI, I would expect really good quality. However, the AverMedia shouldn't be too bad either, although it's twice as expensive. The AverMedia is a usb device, and it looks smaller than a harddrive so it's pretty damn portable. And lastly, it has video out with the red white yellow, I think - the ATI does not have video out. Portability, and video out, seem like really nice important features for me. At least, video out is. I've been looking for a yellow/white/red output device, since my s-video isn't really compatible with so many things, especially vcrs.
So now i'll have to decide. It's Sunday, 4:27 pm, so I don't think I'm going to futureshop today, but it can wait for sure. You guys got suggestions? Anyway, the last thing I want, which goes with this video out, is a laptop. I do not have a laptop. I prefer desktops, I guess it's just partially aesthetics and the feeling. I don't know. What I need, or want, is a cheap laptop. I do not want to play state of the art games on it, I don't want it to replace my current desktop. I just need something that plays sound and plays video, and runs microsoft word and etc. So pentium something, 32mb videocard maybe, cd-rom (preferably dvd), good enough sound, 128ram, a lot of gigs... I can probably ask my dad to get me something from the office. I hope they have some old cheap laptops left... Then I need laptop accessories, like some usb storage device... that'd be nice.
Anyway, now that was a good entry. Well, it was long, and covered a lot of stuff. Hope you enjoyed reading, and I hope you have something to say. D20 game went well, Settlers went well, Smashie went well. Umm... I don't have anything to say about E3, or I don't have anything to say about what others said about E3, or videos I've seen of E3...
Anyway, it's 4:32 now. It's 4:35 now. I'm just changing the colours of the fonts for a more... interesting read? Maybe it's easier to distinguish paragraphs if I change colours like that. So that's that. Too many topics to post comments about, eh? Well, we'll see. Enjoy commenting. Feel free to spend 5 full-comments each commenting on everything that happened here.. :)
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Haven't updated since Thursday afternoon, so it's a good time to update. And then I'll probably let this update be the most recent for a while, so it accumulates enough comments of an update this size :P
Anyways, it's been a long time since Thursday afternoon. So what happened Thursday? As far as I remember, important points of notice are CSI and iSketch. Then comes friday, where we had our fitness assessment test, and the ambrose/david get-together, and a bit more iSketch. Then came Saturday, which was the d20 game. And elsewhere, I'll have some offtopic remarks.
CSI:LV on Thursday - well, at 8 was a re-run, and at 9 was a new episode. They were both pretty good episodes... the 2nd episode had a... weird ending. But it was interesting. I also liked the case, because unlike most other cases, the victim was still alive in this scenario. And the victim was very co-operative - it's nice to see a change of pace, where people are co-operative and not so hostile. It felt like the case could've ended in the first 20 minutes, but of course, there had to be a twist. And then the rest of the episode proceeded and *something* happens and so Catherine Willows (a CSI) feels bad.. So I like the little parts of quasi-character-development here and there, but I'd rather not have too much of that in CSI.
CSI is like on, season 4 now. Season 1 feels probably the best - well, in season 1, the cases made sense, everything seemed quick to the point; but then, for the show to keep continuing on, things had to change. Cases seem more obscure, more twists so the viewers won't get bored, make them keep on guessing, etc. etc. - So the show has changed a bit, but it's still great. You should just expect weirder endings and stuff. And yesterday's ending was pretty weird. It's a good ending - and it's actually pretty damn cool. Alan probably liked the ending too, or at least the concept of it.
** Ack! I'm current wearing a suit. Well, not a shirt, but a t-shirt, and a suit. Ya know that uncle from Vietnam that came yesterday? Well, we're going out for lunch at a nice sit down restaurant... maybe Arby's... :P - nah, some "wedding-style" restaurant my mom said - so a Chinese restaurant where they bring you a pretty big meal with different courses... **
Okay, it's about 10:15 now, and I'm not wearing the suit anymore, cuz it's not time to go yet. And I'm eating a pop-tart. Lunch is at 12. If this entry takes too long to write, I'll just leave it and I'll continue it after lunch. So it might say "10:00" on the time, but you won't see it till 3:00.
Anyway, after CSI, came the iSketch game. Wen couldn't make it, so it was... umm... a bunch of us. It's been a few days, so I don't remember too much, but we still talk about it sometimes. Duy and I, Jason, Alan.. steward, copilot, communist, a bunch of other cool words. I took a few pictures of the game, and some of the other games. I take pictures of a lot of games nowadays... ^_^ Maybe you can try to guess some of those. Some of them are pretty easy. Anyway, there were better pictures, but I didn't copy them of course.
iSketch-1
iSketch-2
iSketch-3
iSketch-4
Throughout the past few days, we played a lot of Settlers of Catan. A lot. So, we have some pictures here and there, but I also don't feel like analyzing them right now. Yesterday's 4-player game on the 6-player board was... interesting. Strangely enough, my none-useful starting position (although I made a ton of sheep and ore) gave me the win. Well, I decided to extend the game by showing them my cards (I was gonna win the next round) so they all plotted against me and stole my longest road. But, technically I won that game, Duy won 2nd place. So... there's been a lot of Catanage, but I won't analyze it yet, nor post pictures.
Now it's Friday. 11:30 am, had our fitness assessment (FA) test at the fitness center. The assessment should've been taken before we started training, but unfortunately they couldn't book us in at an earlier time slot. So that day we told Anthony, our FA person, all about ourselves... our goals, our eating habits, etc - got measured, body fat measurement, some training exercises, etc - more training exercises on Wednesday. So that's the end of that chapter.
Later that day, we were supposed to go to Ambrose's house because he couldn't make Saturday's D20 game, so we could have fun on Friday. But we didn't have the car, so we couldn't get out of the house, so Ambrose came over instead, and later David joined us as well. Highlights of the day include Ambrose microwaving frozen fish - which caused the fish to turn black and smell really badly, and the plate to break in two.
Played Catan, played Mao, played Indian blackjack/poker/etc. Indian stuff is kinda funny. Hehe. Went to Wendy's for dinner. Vinh had a kid's meal that came with jokes that amused us for a few minutes... well... kinda.... I had a spicy chicken sandwich rather than a non-spicy this time... spicy is pretty spicy. Well, no, but it was spicy for me. I'd rather have a regular, and take the spicy beast sandwich at KFC.
Waay later, it was late at night, so David asked us if he could sleep over, so I let Duy decide. Mom before told us that nobody can sleep over, but since David was coming back the next day, we decided it shouldn't hurt. Anyway, the next morning we got in a bit of trouble for a minute, but then it passed. David was sent home because we had to do some house chores, so David would come back later, start the d20 game, leave in the middle for an optomotorist oppointmont, come back and enjoy the rest of the day.
Then came Saturday afternoon. Jason was the first to arrive, and then Alan. Ray said he was coming at around 2:00-2:30, but he didn't show up until 3:15, so we decided to wait for him before the game started... and David wasn't here either, so waiting a little longer shouldn't hurt too much.
Anyway, David didn't show up for the game. We shouldn't've let him go. With the 6 hours of sleep or so we got, I wouldn't be surprised if he went home and just slept. Plus, in the evening was a thunder-rainstorm, which could discourage anyone from going outside, so I wouldn't be surprised if just decided to stay home the entire time. Anyway, David did come later, at around 9 pm.
Anyway, back to the d20 game. David would've liked it. At least the mission. What I mean by that is, well... in the first mission, everyone was hostile, and it was a bit dumb. In this mission, it was the players that started the hostility. Anyway, the game started with a vehicle chase sequence. The lingerie shop blew up as the players were walking pass it, wounding Ricky (who was drunk and unconscious) and Wen as it exploded. Then car engine sounds and tires squealing were heard in the distance, and a few seconds later a couple of headlights started heading to the party's direction.
Anyway, before the game started, it was suggested we use that grid-looking tablecloth instead of a map. To use the tablecloth, we needed figures. So I grab a few toy-cars from my desk, and the group spent about 20 minutes playing with lego characters, making themselves or weird constructions, finding vehicles, etc. etc. So after about 20 minutes of lego fun, the mission was ready to start.
So far so good. Unfortunately, in d20, vehicle combat rules are strange and difficult, and the cars were too big to fit in the grid. So, we screwed some of the formalities and decided to focus on the action, up close and personal. So instead of a grid square representing 50 feet, we just put everything in real-dimensions. So the size of the car was the actual size of the car, which was about a grid long, so technically a grid is... the length of a car. So we focused on that, and the sequence was much better then. Much more personal, and much more detailed, so you can see where the car is in position with everyone else.
Let's back up a bit. First, I'd like to thank Alan for helping me GM the game. Well... because I can't do it by myself. There's just no way (Trivia: quick, Duy! When you read the words "There's just no way", what did you think about?) :P. It's a bit obscure, so i dunno, but I was definately reminded of something. Anyway, there's just no way I can do it by myself... too many rules, can't handle combat too well... so I'm in charge of story, and character.. development kinda... etc..
Also, a few days before the game, Wen asked me to put more work into describing characters and everything.. so I should give my own descriptions of characters, instead of "he looks like the guy from ghost in the shell." Everyone paints their own picture from a description - that's what makes it fun. It's kinda like solving a mystery, but really it's just an interpretation from a given piece of information. When I say "he looks like Neo from the Matrix", I paint the picture for them, and thus they have to conform to my image - which isn't as fun as creating your own character. So I guess that's why Wen wanted that..
Anyway, so I did have better descriptions this time, especially the coffee shop, Cafe L'Orange. It does make the GMing experience more fun too. I also made descriptions for the other people, even the ones I wanted to say "he looks like the guy from that movie.."
Anyway, gotta go get ready for lunch. 11:12. I'll be back. *time passes* - Okay, it's 11:39 now. I have suit, pants, shirt, and tie - shoes, and thin socks. And Belt. I don't like belt. I never wear belt. I don't see the point of wearing a belt... I see it as a fashion accessory, like a bracelet, that I don't need to wear. So why am I wearing one? It doesn't even match! And then there's thin socks, which are conceptually weird to me... cuz a thin sock is just a sock that is thinner... how much thinner can you get? Anyway, that's my rant on thin socks and belts.
11:40. time for lunch. I'll be back. See ya.
Okay. 3:48 pm, back on the computer. Left the restaurant around 3:00, then went to the old house, went to get gas, etc, got changed, etc, and now I'm back on the computer at 3:49. So, taking a break from writing about d20, it's time to write about today's lunch time.
On the way there, my dad explained the situation. It wasn't really a wedding-like lunch... well, a bit. There was a couple, engaged - a 25 yr old guy and 22 yr old girl, both Vietnamese. They look pretty good. We took pictures, but I don't think I'll be posting them on the blog. Anyway, apparently there's a (perhaps Vietnamese) tradition that it's impolite or disrespectful to get married with 2 years of one of your parent's deaths. So in this case, the groom's mom died a year ago, so apparently this wasn't a wedding lunch, but it kinda is.
Then my dad continued to tell of another story about two brothers who were studying mechanical engineering, but then their mom went to Vietnam and came back and she had lung cancer, and then she died 6 months later. So then both the brothers stopped studying mech-eng and started medical studies. So that was another sorta sad story, so I'm not sure why my dad was telling us all these... is this a sad occasion lunch? Anyway, after that he told a happy story, so now I'm all mixed with emotions. Not really.
Let's go back a bit. My suit. It's beige, and it's not pretty. Duy got a nice blackish suit and a maroon shirt and blue tie, and his shoes are red, which don't match. My shoes are also kinda red, so they don't match either. I'm camouflage with everything, like the van, and some brick walls, and our house, and everything.
Anyway, so this lunch probably would've been good. Anyway, we're at the restaurant now. So we enter our reserved rooms, and there were only a few seats available at each of the 4 tables. Great, us kids (Duy, Mai, and myself) will be split up, and it's gonna be a pretty boring lunch. But then somehow we ninjaed some kids out of their seats so us 3 can sit together. And then I get the honour of sitting next to the groom, and the bride beside him. Later on, the bride and the groom switched seats, and waay later they left the table and migrated to another one. On our table there were also 3 of my dad's highschool/kindergarten friends, a wife of one of them, and 2 kids, who really liked ice. They kept putting ice from the ice... container thing and putting it in their drink. It was fun to watch.
Lots of food. Well, it started with very little food, and gradually and SLOWLY more food came out. This however, isn't so good, because the way the body works, near the middle, I was already full. Well, not too full, but my sister was full, but I still continued eating. Anyway, now we're at a half-formal event, I had to... well, be more mature :P And probably elegant too. Although, if I can't use chopsticks, I should probably just use hands, rather than try and fail and then use hands.
Anyway, having to be more formal, I couldn't grab the chicken head. Well, I would've, eventually, but the little kid got it first. But when the lobster came around, there were 2 heads, so I got the first one, they got the 2nd one. Which reminds me, the groom cannot eat seafood (although he did eat fish??) - so most of the meal sucked for him.
I took pictures of the lobsterhead and the fish and some chicken wings. I'll post them later... and make them a random-pic kinda thing. Continuing on... my dad and those 3 or 4 friends haven't seen each other for years, so they celebrated a lot, and it seemed like my dad got drunk. Or he was drinking a lot, so he probably was at least a little tipsy. Never seen that before, it was fun to watch. I myself had about half a heineken. I didn't like it as much as Kokane. Gotta get myself some kokane..
Then we left, and... yeah, that's about it for lunch. Perhaps I'll post pictures later, maybe some of the bride and groom too. Sorry, they're not really bride and groom, just two people engaged to each other, one male, one female. But yeah, I can call them the bride and groom.
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Anyway, back to the d20 game. It was a fun GMing experience, and that day I also had fun improvising and changing the scenario as it went along. For example - this a bit of a past spoiler - nothing to spoil for the future - so for example, during the vehicle chase scene, all of them were supposed to die. But I let "Cindy" live, to throw in a twist; Give the players more choice, rather than having the sniper kill her off. Plus, it was nice in the other campaign how we had some semi-allies like ... useless Desmond... but anyway, since Cindy is still alive now, maybe I can involve her into the plot. Just because she was supposed to die, doesn't mean in the future I would assume she was dead.
Also, the Lederer scene was much more complicated than I thought it would've been. In my scenario, you were supposed to meet him, give him the briefcase, and then he would walk away and drop the note. That's it. So now it got much more complicated, what with Ray trying to offer him and taxi driver duff beer, and then tasering the driver thus causing a collision.. So the scene became much longer than it should've, but that's okay. Makes it more interesting. Nowadays, I just have to put in contingency plans for all scenarios, in case someone gets tasered, and thus paralyzed.
The 2:00 pm thing was kinda coincidental. But it's cool how that worked out. It got you to 'research' Cafe L'Orange, and I was able to have more fun with it. And with Alan on my side, it feels much easier now.
So, the d20 game took almost 4 hours. Well, about 4:40 - dinner, so maybe 3:40. I have a bad estimation time - I was thinking the vehicle chase would take an hour (although we didn't cover as much of the map as I thought I would've), and I didn't know how long the non-combat-ish sections would take. But I'm glad it took a long time, which makes it more enjoyable. Too bad the least-non-combat person wasn't there. Next mission should be interesting for him, although without a background story of what just happened, it might seem insignificant. So we'll see. Someone make sure he levels properly... although... not sure if he should level up.
Anyway, everyone was supposed to leave at 10, but we asked mom if we could just stay unti.. did I already write this? Man, I wrote so much, and in such incoherent order, gotta go back up and check it out... ... can't find it. So, everyone was supposed to leave at 10, but so we asked mom if they could stay until our settlers game was over, and she allowed it, and thus people left after 11:30. Settlers usually takes a long to play...
Hmm... that almost ends this journal entry. But not just yet. In the world of speed-runs, I started downloading various parts of a Yoshi's Island 2... or Mario World 2... the one with baby mario and yoshi and cartoony drawing world... anyway, of that speed run. It's cool. And there's a Majora's mask speed run now, I'm downloading some of that too. I'm curiously waiting for an improved speed run of megaman2, since they say that morimoto (the original supermario 3 11:00 run, and some other megaman runs) has found a new technique/glitch so he'll make a significant improvement on his megaman 2 run.
I wanna go to Futureshop now... to look at stuff. I asked my friend Toan about TV capturing and video capturing. I can do that too, except my capture card sucks. I can't capture more than 8 minutes at a time, compression is horrible, and resolution isn't all that great. Plus, Premiere has some problems with it now. Anyway, I asked him, and he has an ATI All in wonder, but of course I'm not gonna buy another videocard.
So from Futureshop, the two products that I'm looking at are an ATI TV Wonder VE Remote Control Edition TV Tuner for $99.99, and an AVerMedia UltraTV USB 300 TV Tuner for $179.99. My current capture card is probably like a 1997ish AverMedia card, which was around $150 at the time, minus some rebates so about $100. So I want a new capture card, so I can capture straight from tv, capture easily stuff from vcrs, and, if possible, output to tv or vcr. I can currently output s-video, which is a bit of a hassle compared to the ... red..white... yellow... whatever they're called cables.
So, the ATI is a card that can capture pretty nicely. With the name ATI, I would expect really good quality. However, the AverMedia shouldn't be too bad either, although it's twice as expensive. The AverMedia is a usb device, and it looks smaller than a harddrive so it's pretty damn portable. And lastly, it has video out with the red white yellow, I think - the ATI does not have video out. Portability, and video out, seem like really nice important features for me. At least, video out is. I've been looking for a yellow/white/red output device, since my s-video isn't really compatible with so many things, especially vcrs.
So now i'll have to decide. It's Sunday, 4:27 pm, so I don't think I'm going to futureshop today, but it can wait for sure. You guys got suggestions? Anyway, the last thing I want, which goes with this video out, is a laptop. I do not have a laptop. I prefer desktops, I guess it's just partially aesthetics and the feeling. I don't know. What I need, or want, is a cheap laptop. I do not want to play state of the art games on it, I don't want it to replace my current desktop. I just need something that plays sound and plays video, and runs microsoft word and etc. So pentium something, 32mb videocard maybe, cd-rom (preferably dvd), good enough sound, 128ram, a lot of gigs... I can probably ask my dad to get me something from the office. I hope they have some old cheap laptops left... Then I need laptop accessories, like some usb storage device... that'd be nice.
Anyway, now that was a good entry. Well, it was long, and covered a lot of stuff. Hope you enjoyed reading, and I hope you have something to say. D20 game went well, Settlers went well, Smashie went well. Umm... I don't have anything to say about E3, or I don't have anything to say about what others said about E3, or videos I've seen of E3...
Anyway, it's 4:32 now. It's 4:35 now. I'm just changing the colours of the fonts for a more... interesting read? Maybe it's easier to distinguish paragraphs if I change colours like that. So that's that. Too many topics to post comments about, eh? Well, we'll see. Enjoy commenting. Feel free to spend 5 full-comments each commenting on everything that happened here.. :)