Bao's BLOG!!

Alright, this the 2nd of 2 updates. If you’ve come back to my blog at the odd time between 3:25 and 3:35 pm, then you’ll read this one first. Other than that, never mind. Read the one before this (above), and you’ll understand what this is here for. ---- Food Here’s a few food reviews. Molly Bloom’s, Suicide Wings – last term, we had a few plates of these. This term, we went there once so far, with the usual group and Andy (Amy was supposed to come, so we waited for her until 10:05, but her class ended late and she came to SLC at 10:08 but alas, we were already gone), and so we ordered 5 plates of wings. One of the plates was Suicide wings, cuz I remember being able to tank it last term… well, not this time. I don’t think they’ve gotten hotter, or maybe they have, but ahhh!!! IT BURNS!! So I don’t think we’ll be having more suicide wings anytime soon. I’m a sucker for trying new things, like new burgers at restaurants; so, I went to Harveys to try the new Black Angus Burger. I heard that Wen and the others tried the Sirloin Burgers a few weeks back, and neither of us found a significant difference between these burgers and the regular hamburgers. I think the Black Angus was a bit thicker, and maybe they grill in more taste, but other than that, not much difference, and thus, not worth the price increase. The other day, went to Fiasco’s for lunch (as Fiasco’s so not worh it for dinner), because it’s cheaper for lunch; a meal gets you free softdrink (or softdrink price is included), and depending what you get, you might get a free Caesar salad. Anyway, in an effort to try new, cheaper things, I decide to order the Perogies and Salad combo. Now, I’m not a big fan of perogies, primarily because I haven’t eaten them too much. So, the meal came, and it was okay. They give you lots of sourcream for dipping, so that’s good. On top of the Perogies were crispy bacon bits and sautéed onions. The meal was $4.99, compared to the $6.79 pasta meals, so it’s cheaper, but they give you less. They give you 4 pretty big perogies, but as I said, I’m not a fan of perogies; and they only give you 4. The meal is still pretty filling, with the Caesar salad and softdrink, but I didn’t really care much for perogies. I think the pastas are still a better deal, if not the breakfast. Today (Wednesday), we went to Bubble Tease for dinner. Formally known as Timeless, dinner was okay, but bubble tea was the main attraction. Duy and I had the Grouper fish, Alan and Jason had the baked Spaghetti Bolognese. I had a large Mango bubble tea too, so my meal after tip and tax was $14.00. Ewww. But the fish was pretty good, but the bubble tea wasn’t worth it. It tasted less like mango and more like tea… and they didn’t have Cantaloupe or Honey Melon regular bubble tea… Lastly, we went to Mel’s Diner. I started the meal with an expensive chocolate milkshake, which was pretty good, but an expensive $3.49. I followed up with a relatively cheaper entrée, a full BLT sandwich, and it was pretty good, for $3.99. So I think it was pretty good, with crispy bacon and stuff. Duy had the chicken salad sandwich, and a side order of fries. The fries are pretty regular now, not as good as before; they’re like storebought home-made McCain fries. Anyway, usually when we go to Mel’s and order softdrinks, for some reason they void them and you don’t have to pay for them. This one was no exception; They voided my milkshake, so I only had to pay $3.99, rather than $7.49. I wonder if next time we can pay separately and avoid PST too… ----- Anime So, the Friday after my last post, came CTRL-A’s first showing, that is, “The Club that really likes anime”’s first free showing of the term. Amy really wanted me to go, so I did, and I dragged the group (including Wen) along with me. I used to go to CTRL-A and be an active member, but I haven’t done so for the past 2 years. First, there was the time issue, and secondly… well, anime is more obtainable now than it ever was, so I think I’d rather watch my own stuff than other stuff. Back in Fall 2000, when I joined it, they were showing really, really classic stuff. The first thing I saw was Jubei Chan, and I fell in love with it. By classic things, I mean Initial D, Trigun, and Love Hina – now these were popular classics, so I’ve gotten to know a lot of anime from CTRL-A. Nowadays, it’s a bunch of new or old shows, and the anime market is getting a bit over-saturated, so it’s hard to tell what’s good and not. Anyway, we went, and had a pretty good time. First they showed Dai-Guard, some mech anime. It wasn’t all too interesting, something we wouldn’t usually watch. Some of it was funny, in the sense it was so cliché or so awkward. Well, there is a different atmosphere when watching with 200 other people on a big screen, all laughing at some points with random comments here and there. Secondly was Rahxephon 1-3. It was pretty interesting and odd. I remember seeing episode 1 before. Anyway, it was interesting and weird, and thus intriguing. I’m joining CTRL-A this term, so I can watch more anime (Although I can get Rahxephon from Hawk), but to also watch CTRL-A do their crazy stuff, such as Karaoke contests. Those are always good, and Amy will be there. Amy’s the crazy cosplay person, and she wants me to be there, so I’ll be there. After Rahxephon, we went to dinner at Mikey’s, and then Wen went home, Alan went to CCF, and Jason went back to Duy’s place and they played games. I went back to CTRL-A, where I missed X TV 17-18, but then I caught Kiddy Grade 9-10. I remember watching Kiddy Grade 1-2 a while ago, but I didn’t like it. Then when it came out on DVD, there were rave reviews about it, so it got me curious, so I stayed for this showing. So the show was pretty good, and entertaining. It was probably pretty deep too, with an overall story line. For some reason, I don’t remember the brunette at all… anyway, in episode 10, she had a nervous breakdown and went a bit crazy, so that was interesting. So… yeah, there is a big storyline with character involvement… so I guess I’ll watch that too. Lastly, I saw Kino’s Journey, episode 8. From the first minute, I could feel that this anime would be special, like a hidden gem. Anyway, after watching it, well, it was pretty good. It’s not really story oriented… it’s more like one of those animes about Human discovery, human inspiration, the human aspect, what it means to be human… well, not really, but each episode Kino visits a town where some person does something, so we feel with the person and stuff. So I liked the anime, but it’s not something I’d buy. After that, I went home, because I didn’t need to watch Read or Die OAVs again. Amy was busy with her friends (she seems to be in her own little world when she’s with them), so I just left quietly and went home. As for Saturday’s show, there wasn’t much of interest, and instead I stayed home and instead of working or blogging, I just wasted away the day with PLAYING! ------- DVDS Now, I haven’t seen a lot of Seinfeld episodes, but every now and then I catch one on TV and it’s pretty funny. I’m not sure why I never tuned into it regularly… maybe because it’s on too often, or there is no flow between the shows, or I don’t know why. Maybe I think I like it, but really not. Anyway, the Seinfeld DVDs are coming out. Should I get them? They’re not too expensive, but I don’t know if I should get them. Ya know? On that subject, there are the Simpsons DVDs too. I’m not sure what the best seasons are, there are so many now so I’m not sure what to get, and if it’ll be a worthy purchase. Like, the Family Guy DVDs were worthwhile. Every now and then, by myself or with a group of friends, we can pop in the dvd and watch some episode, and everyone has a good time. I’m not sure if it’ll work with the oversaturated simpsons. Lastly, the Transformers DVDs keep taunting me. I really like transformers, but is it worth it? It’s SOO expensive, even more than CSI, and for the same price you’d get maybe half of the viewing time as you do with CSI. And I remember the first few episodes, as they are on my computer, and they’re not really that great… do you really want to watch Transformers over and over again, with its old-fashioned dubbing and animation? I don’t know… so I won’t buy them, until they drop to half-price or so… ------ SCHool So, it’s been a few weeks, so here’s another update on my courses; how they’re going, a better impression on subject matter and teachers and whatever. CO 342, Graph Theory – So far so good. Teacher is okay, not bad, gives okay examples, and is pretty good overall. Not amazingly special, not really funny, but not the boringest. Waking up for it is easy enough. The course can get theoretically difficult, but for now, it’s not too bad. The two assignments that I did were, for the most part, pretty straight forward after a bit of thinking. It’s not too mathematical, since it’s about graphs, so the proofs can be somewhat visual and use English language with graph-theory-terms. Content is manageable, not too hard yet, and math 239 graph theory is definitely applicable to it. ECON 202, Macroeconomics 2 – Bahh… for the most part, pretty easy. However, it’s very boring. The prof tries to be funny, and people laugh about every 1/10 of his jokes, and the rest is just awkward silence and a chuckle from him. 90% of what he says comes from the course notes, so I don’t write much down, except for clarification or for emphasis. Overall, the course is pretty easy, basic, stuff like in econ 101, just a bit more difficult. I’ll have to study and remember stuff later on though. But it’s boring as hell, I dislike coming to class but I do it anyway. Haven’t skipped any classes yet. ECON 101 and 102 with Larry Smith (which I had a dream about) were much, much better. STAT 332, Sampling and Experimental Design – Hmmm… I like the teacher. I’m not sure if he’s Chinese or Vietnamese or Japanese, because I’m not good at figuring it out. But I’m sure it’s not Japanese :P Anyway, so he explains things very clearly, I think, as clear as possible without sounding like he’s talking to little kids. The course itself… can get very hard, if you don’t get a grasp of the concepts at the beginning. I still don’t know what E[V(y)] is, and why it equals this or that. So… it’ll get difficult. Assignment wasn’t too hard. But they’ll get difficult too. PSYCH 101, Intro to psychology – Still sooo good. Teacher is still funny and great and good at explaining things. Not as funny as Larry Smith though, I think, even though Psych could be a better ‘funnier’ subject than Economics, but Smith is really, really good. It’s hard to live up to Smith. But Ennis is still great. Old teachers don’t have to be dull. Other than reading, this course should be pretty easy and relaxing, since it is just comprised of 2 examinations. Enrolment appointments are in 2 weeks, not sure what courses I’ll take yet. ----- D O O M 3 ----------- I think recently with Wen, we were talking about scary games, so then afterwards I went home and played Doom 3 for 40 minutes, and then later at night, I played from 2:34 until 3:44 without knowing it. Of course, lights off, no audience, and either with or without headphones (without first, and then at night, with, of course). Doom 3 IS Scary. Wish I had a better videocard and computer, so that it’ll run a bit smoother. Apparently Duy’s videocard is considered “midrange” now, but it should still run it better than mine. Why is it so scary? Okay, some of it is a cheap kind of scary; it’s a cheap tactic, but it’s scary nonetheless. So, it has lots of stuff that makes the game scary; it’s dark, so it’s hard to see, and that’s already a bit scary. Not being able to see monsters is scary. Secondly, there’s the lighting… Doom 3 has good lighting effects, from moving lights to shaking lights, which… well, yeah, it’s scary. Sounds are scary too… sometimes you hear weird whispering, and sometimes you hear footsteps, so you know there’s a bad guy, but you can’t see him. You don’t know exactly where it’s coming from, so that’s scary. And of course, you’re not invicible, and you have limited ammo, and that itself could cause some disturbance. Also, it’s quite scary when you’re walking near a door and you don’t know it, and then the door opens and you wonder what the hell that sound was… Lastly, if you read about Doom 3 on Penny Arcade or some other gaming sites, it talks about how sometimes in an empty room, if you go pick up a piece of armor, it will spawn an enemy somewhere, or a door will open somewhere and enemies will come flooding out. So that’s kinda weird, but yeah, that happens. Likewise, events cause these things too. One of my strategies in some games is to barge into the room, so that all events based on you reaching a certain area of the room will trigger, so that I won’t be surprised later. But, another safe strategy for (I would assume) a lot of FPS players would be to have your back facing a corner or a wall; that way, you can see the entire room, and you know nothing can hit you in the back, because there’s… the wall. Or if you see some armor near the wall, you’d turn around and walk backwards into the wall, so that if an enemy comes, you’ll be facing it. Not in Doom 3. It’s cheap that way. Enemies can spawn in the corner, and just attack you there, or a door can open up behind you, and enemies will kick your ass. So, walls and corners are no longer safe little areas which you can depend on. That’s really, really something. As for the game itself, it’s fun. Not much for story, but the exploring elements and finding secret codes and watching optional videos and reading stuff is fun, like Metroid Prime kinda fun. You can also access the internet in real life to get codes for stuff, for example, in the game it refers to martianbuddy.com, and you can go there and find the access codes to a package, filled with the chaingun (which is OH SO GOOD) and ammo and other useful things. ------- Games November seems to be a good month for games… budget may be warped in Nomvember. Viewtiful Joe 2, Metroid Prime Echoes, and Need for Speed Underground 2 are all coming out in November. So is Halo 2, but alas, no xbox. I looked on gamefaqs, and other games will be coming out soon, such as Mario Tennis, or Mario Party 6, or Leisure Suit Larry ^^, or CSI Miami for PC. They sound interesting too, but they’re not on my –to-buy-list- , yet. And Donkey Konga is out! Came out on Monday, and I’ve read… one review about it, it sounds fun. Maybe it’s gimmicky, or novelty for a bit, and not as interesting as DDR, and not as difficult as DDR, so I’m not sure how long its lifespan is. It might turn out to be a Chu Chu Rocket, which is fun, for 3 minutes a day. Well, I’d imagine Donkey Konga will be fun forever for the first week, and then slowly die to 20 minutes a day, 3 days a week, and then much less and less. So maybe we’ll rent it, cuz it’ll be fun. So many months ago, I bought a GBA, mostly for use with Zelda 4 Swords. Now, Duy’s GBA is at home with Vinks, who uses it to E-read Pokemon cards and play games with those, and mine is downstairs, somewhat collecting dust. Has the GBA outlived its usefulness? Well, not really, but I’m not really buying games for it. I don’t think I have a big need for mobile games. I don’t even have a mobile phone or mobile CD player. If I’m outside, I think I’d rather do something more social, than be buried in a videogame. Sure, there are a few games I could get, like megaman battle network 4 (and 5 is coming out), and maybe the new legend of Zelda game, and other fun older and newer games. But I don’t see myself spending $40 on a portable single player game, with lesser graphics than cube games or computer games. I hear there’s a new WarioWare game coming out in Japan… WarioWareTwist or something, and I’ve been reading about it on message boards, and apparently it comes with a tilt sensor; so you’d have to tilt your GBA for some games, which seems pretty interesting. I just saw an ad for Gamespot Complete, that if you get an annual subscription for $30 US, you’ll get 10% off all games you buy from EBGames Online. So I thought, that would be pretty cool, eh? Unfortunately, it’s not thaaat cool. Shipping is a beastly $20 US, and then there’s taxes and stuff, and DUTY. EWWWW… such failage. So to make it worthwhile, I need to spend $500US to save $50US, which would take care of the beastly $20US shipping and $30US subscription fee… that’s not really worth it. And Amazon.ca and Futureshop.ca both have free shipping… so unless I like the other GameSpot Complete benefits… it’s just not worth it. ----------------- California Dreamin -------- So, over the past little while I had some dreams, and for the first time in a long time, I’ll post some of them. I also had a dream this morning, and it was of the… sexy kind, so I won’t post about it here. But it was a great dream. And some of it was weird. But I digress. So, in almost chronological order (this all happened in one night): The first dream this night involved ECON class (not 202), and Larry Smith. There was a weird assignment or something, and he had written something on the blackboard but all the people were covering it up so I couldn’t see it and it was really annoying. Anyway, class ended early, and then he sat down and I sat down beside him and starting talking to him as if he was a friend. Well, I only said “how are you” and he said “fine” and that’s it. Secondly, we were in a new house, Duy and I, and it was a weird house with ninjalicious holes. It’s like we were returning from university, and I heard a prophecy that I was gonna be sacrificed in the afternoon. So I thought, wow, that’s weird, but I guess it’s fate. Anyway, we come home, and we look around for people. I see mom, and she’s on the phone, distant on the phone, she raises a hand and signals hi, and we see it and continue around the house. Beside mom though, was what I thought was my sister, but it was really Amy. … o_O So she looked up for a bit, then looked down again and continue working on documents for mom, as my sister does. So went around, and I heard my dad’s footsteps and voices around, and didn’t know where he was coming from. So he comes in, and he wants me to be close to him; and he’s starting at me weird, and then I realize he can’t see anymore; he’s lost his vision. So that was weird. Eventually I come to a spot which I’ve seen before in a prophecy, and I realize I was gonna sacrifice myself soon. I had bottled water in the vision, so I think Duy got me a bottled water bottle… or a big case of it, cuz that was in the prophecy too. I think there was a jump from a wooden ledge to another, and a big chandelier in the middle. It was pre-noon, and the prophecy was for the afternoon, so I saw the place where I was gonna be sacrificed, and now I had to figure out what to do before noon comes, and then when in the afternoon it will happen. Maybe I’ll just stay away from the room? But then again, it’s a prophecy, so I dunno… So that ends that dream. Thirdly, I think I was at the entrance of 256 phillips street, on the left corner (closer to plaza). Apparently, I was sitting by a desk. Wen comes by, walking from Univ and Phillip. So he sees me, and I type (on my computer, on the desk) that I hope he comes over. Maybe I should direct him in the right direction. He doesn’t go in, but he walks towards Columbia, but then he sees a friend, and they turn right into our complex on that sidewalk. So he’s walking, and then I see Jason, Alan, And Duy, either raking leaves or taking out the garbage. Apparently Wen didn’t see them, so Wen was already walking to our place and none of us were home, so I was typing out How Wen was gonna be ninjaed, and then he would walk back home (toward home, or toward me) and see Alan Duy and Jason going back, and then it’ll be okay. So Alan, Jason, and Duy start walking back. So then I mind my business for a minute, and then I turn around, and now the whole street is crowded, and it’s like a different place. It’s like an old sea port, everything was cream-peach-yellow coloured. Alan was on his cell phone, talking, and not going back home, and Duy and Jason were walking slowly with that… Kevin Yip? And maybe some other d20/magic people, but they were walking too slow. Wen’s gonna be pissed or something. So I start pushing Alan really hard towards our house. So I give him a shove, and I return to my blogging. So I start typing about this too, about the ninjaness, and I think I started rambling and I noticed I was rambling, so then the dream ended. And I heard noises below (real life) so I woke up. On another night, I had another 2.5 dreams! First, there was the driving dream. I think the next day I had a math 135 exam, so I took my car and I wanted to park it in the math parking lot. While I could’ve just walked to the exam room (which would take a couple minutes), I decided to drive instead. So I got out of the first parking lot, and I turned into some highway kinda thing. It was a 10 lane road, and I was following a Mercedes. So the Mercedes makes a right turn, and I follow it, and it turns into the wrong lane! And now I’m traveling really fast into oncoming traffic on 5 lanes, and it’s freaky as hell. So I’m mostly staying on the right side, avoiding cars, and eventually comes some turn where I think my rear started sliding (drifting) and I sideswiped 4 cars. So I stopped, and I get out of my car and there’s this guy standing next to me. I ask him for a cellphone, and then I call my parents. So they arrive in a few seconds, and I tell them what happens, with the cool sideswiping and everything. So eventually we were in a lobby/bar, and I was looking at a TV screen and it had a picture of me, and beside it it says that I’m 22, and I can’t get my license until I’m at least 32. Then it shows a picture of my friend Lee-Anne, and it also says that she’s like 20, and she can’t have her license until she’s 30, so I’m wondering what she did. Secondly, there was a poker dream. Duy was driving, and Jason suggested this poker place we can go to. So we kinda got lost on the way, but Jason showed us where it was. We also took the same highway I did, but I think we didn’t drive on the wrong side. Anyway, we got there, but Vinks somehow was with us. It was an interesting place, with a rotating floor… well, not the whole floor, just part of it, near the stairs. Anyway, somehow my mom appeared and told us we couldn’t go. And then I started riding on the rotating floor. Lastly, there was some dream involving videogames, and a speedrun that we had to try using Ness, in some 3d 3rd person game. And there was another game with relatives, and we were in portables, and it was snowy outside and stuff. I don’t remember what happens, but I know I had the decision (along with Jason and stuff) to build either fighters (with different weapons) or cooks, for some mission…

And that finishes the 2nd update. So both updates combined were 11 msword pages, while the ‘shorter’ update last Thursday was 2. So… yeah.