Wednesday, August 13, 2008
"Now we are all sons of bitches."
Hi! Once again, I'll start with "Long time no blog". So anyway, the other day David e-mailed me because I haven't blogged in a while, so now I'm blogging... not like, that he reminded me that I had a blog... just... something... something... anyway, main reason I didn't blog for a while is because my last few entries weren't getting any replies, so if you have no audience, then why blog? Well, there are a bunch of reasons, but whatever. Phew, now that I'm done with the mandatory explaining paragraph, I can finally go on to the rest of my entry...
How are you guys? Long time no see for some of you. Ahem... blog entry... yes yes...
So, I went to Hawaii, and L.A., and came back. I don't have a full Hawaii entry ready yet, and I'll be posting some odd 200-300 pics onto facebook in a few days, but I'll try to give you a brief recap of my days away from home...
Day 1: Flew, like, 10 hours or so, and went 6 hours into the past, and had a 3-hour stopover in L.A., just stayed in the airport. Um, got to Hawaii, specifically, Honolulu on the island of Oahu, around 10pm, tour bus (just our family of 11) picked us up and drove us to our hotel, the Pacific Beach hotel, in Waikiki, near the Waikiki beach area.
Day 2: Day 2 was Fourth of July, but the tour people booked us on an all-day (like, 1pm to 11pm) tour to the Polynesian Cultural Center, where we learned about.. um... Polynesian Culture. But yeah, it's one of the biggest attractions, and it was very good. Had visits to similar cultural sites in China, so went around, learned about the different islands and their cultures, saw some luau dancing and drum playings and different crafts, and a big nightshow at the end with dancing and acrobatics and fire and stuff. Overall good day. Also a few of us went surfing in the morning.
Day 3: Relaxing and shopping. Had a little bit of an argument with mom today, that, if we didn't have, then Day 4 will also be "relaxing and shopping", which as far as vacationing goes, it's a "bad thing" according to me. KINDA. Relaxing and stuff on the cruise was PERFECT, but I'd like to see more cultural/sights stuff. So, if we didn't have this argument, Day 4 would be nothing. But we did, so that's good... oh yeah, Day 3 was Chinatown and stuff like that.
Day 4: Bao goes by himself on the Grand Circle Island Tour; so typical tour bus, about 20 people, nice funny tour guide, through the island of Oahu. Saw nice beaches, good surfing sites, interesting land marks. Went to a macadamian nut farm and the Dole plantation. Every few minutes he'll be like "oh, Michelle Pfeiffer lives here" or "This is where they filmed Magnum P.I." or "This is where they filmed LOST". I'll post pictures later.
Meanwhile, most of the rest of the family went Jetskiing and a few went Parasailing. I went Jetskiing on the cruise vacation, it was a lot of fun, but this time I decided to go on the sightseeing adventure instead.
Ack! Now for the obligatory "this is getting too long" comment... cuz it is! So, I will continue my Hawaii post later. On to other stuff!
Went camping the other day with Songviet, check facebook videos and pictures for that... not that anyone cares. A lot of rain though. But still fun. Actually, check the second facebook video I made, 'tis good fun. On second thought, you probably won't care. So never mind. Darn, I just wasted another paragraph... but it was on my mind, and it was an event, so I had to get it out. I wonder if this will translate well when I //import// it into facebook...
BATMAN was awesome. Saw it twice. Best movie of the summer. Heath Ledger is teh totally awesome. He should definitely win that oscar even though he's gone. Shouldn't say much more... when I get the movie on dvd I'll make a video with just the joker parts and watch those.
So, as summer comes to a close (not yet; still got Tropic Thunder and a few more movies), my top 3 are Batman, Kung Fu Panda, and Ironman.
What else is new? Oh yeah, of course... when David e-mailed me he said "work must be busy! haven't seen you blog in a while. How's work going, btw?"
Well... work is dead. Influenza Media died while I was in Hawaii... not my fault of course, but it did die. It was falling apart a few days before I left, but it cracked while I was gone and just died. Jerry left because he needed money, and a startup company that wasn't getting clients isn't very good for that. Plus, he wanted to know what it was like to work for an established company (since he always worked with startups in the past). And then Isaque and Peter keep having art disagreements and decision disagreements so that broke apart soon, and now the company is no more.
I'm in the sorta-process of looking for another job, so... yeah. I'm right now half chillaxing and half working on a video project for one of my friends, for the Canadian Vietnamese Federation something something, some fundraiser about building a museum, so I'm making a video for that. Not getting paid, but still, work is work.
Kinda?
LAST, but not Least...
BRAID.
If you've been following videogames and xbox360 in general, you probably already know about Braid, at least a little bit. There's been a bunch of stuff about its pricing, and whether or not it's worth it, but I'm not going to talk about that. I'll talk about the game itself and why it's so good.
Braid is a very beautiful puzzle/platformer game, with great music and wonderful art. It's probably the most beautiful game in a while, or ever. Then again it's just hand-drawn 2-d sprites, but its presentation and music are just wonderful. Anyway, Braid is a puzzle game with some pretty hard puzzles, and it deals a lot with time manipulation, which is pretty refreshing and fun to play.
Last but not least, it has a story, and boy, it's a twisty one (like a braid, get it?). A lot of people would say the story is amazing, best ever... I think it's pretty good, but not as amazing as some people are saying it is... although yesterday I read...
Actually, let's rewind a bit (another time pun? sorry, heh). Sometimes, when a game first comes out, there's this time, this small window of time, where the game is totally new and nobody knows anything about it. The game has a story which is open to interpretation, and nobody really knows anything about the story yet. It's rare this day in age, where Japan gets games before we do, and the Internet is there and information is leaked and nothing is pure anymore. But not this game. The game came out last Wednesday, and at that time, not much was known about the game, so THAT was the window of time.
If you got the game a week ago, and you solve it pretty quickly, and you are interested in the story, then there's this awesome feeling... you check the message boards, and everyone has questions, nobody has answers. Additionally, in this game specifically, there are these "secret" additional things you can get, and while I did ask the message boards for help on these, nobody really knew what they did, except the game creator of course...
So that time when the Internet is clueless about the game, when everyone in the world is together trying to find answers that nobody knows... it's a neat little phase. Anyhoo... that time is just 'about over now, there are still some lingering questions but most of them point to "doesn't matter" or "doesn't do anything". The story is still open to interpretation but there are some pretty good threads about some good theories here and there.
Anyway, so as I was saying, yesterday I read a couple threads that really shed some light on the story, and it's very interesting, all the detail that went into the story and all the little references. The game has a bunch of 'books' you can read, which say that Tim is on his search to find the princess, but these things I've read... wow.
Once again, I aim toward the beauty/interested, and, without spoiling too much, the science/thingy... so... David - come play this game, see the beauty. Wen, you're a story/engineering guy, come play this game too. Alan, you're a spoiler guy - read this thread, watch the videos on how to solve all the puzzles, and then come and play it :P
Here's the thread, but I highly recommend playing the game before reading it:
http://www.rllmukforum.com/index.php?showtopic=190136%C2%A0
And... that's it! BRAID, really great experience. Especially conjoined with interacting with the internet during the state of unknowing. Bonus points to those who get the reference to my blog title, which is Braid related (I didn't know, but I do now).
Once again, the obligatory: Who wants to see Tropic Thunder? And Saturday I'm going to a wedding. I think I'm free Sunday, Alan has interest of coming over then. David, wanna come too?
And... that's it. Time to go play a game for attractive people...Labels: braid
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How are you guys? Long time no see for some of you. Ahem... blog entry... yes yes...
So, I went to Hawaii, and L.A., and came back. I don't have a full Hawaii entry ready yet, and I'll be posting some odd 200-300 pics onto facebook in a few days, but I'll try to give you a brief recap of my days away from home...
Day 1: Flew, like, 10 hours or so, and went 6 hours into the past, and had a 3-hour stopover in L.A., just stayed in the airport. Um, got to Hawaii, specifically, Honolulu on the island of Oahu, around 10pm, tour bus (just our family of 11) picked us up and drove us to our hotel, the Pacific Beach hotel, in Waikiki, near the Waikiki beach area.
Day 2: Day 2 was Fourth of July, but the tour people booked us on an all-day (like, 1pm to 11pm) tour to the Polynesian Cultural Center, where we learned about.. um... Polynesian Culture. But yeah, it's one of the biggest attractions, and it was very good. Had visits to similar cultural sites in China, so went around, learned about the different islands and their cultures, saw some luau dancing and drum playings and different crafts, and a big nightshow at the end with dancing and acrobatics and fire and stuff. Overall good day. Also a few of us went surfing in the morning.
Day 3: Relaxing and shopping. Had a little bit of an argument with mom today, that, if we didn't have, then Day 4 will also be "relaxing and shopping", which as far as vacationing goes, it's a "bad thing" according to me. KINDA. Relaxing and stuff on the cruise was PERFECT, but I'd like to see more cultural/sights stuff. So, if we didn't have this argument, Day 4 would be nothing. But we did, so that's good... oh yeah, Day 3 was Chinatown and stuff like that.
Day 4: Bao goes by himself on the Grand Circle Island Tour; so typical tour bus, about 20 people, nice funny tour guide, through the island of Oahu. Saw nice beaches, good surfing sites, interesting land marks. Went to a macadamian nut farm and the Dole plantation. Every few minutes he'll be like "oh, Michelle Pfeiffer lives here" or "This is where they filmed Magnum P.I." or "This is where they filmed LOST". I'll post pictures later.
Meanwhile, most of the rest of the family went Jetskiing and a few went Parasailing. I went Jetskiing on the cruise vacation, it was a lot of fun, but this time I decided to go on the sightseeing adventure instead.
Ack! Now for the obligatory "this is getting too long" comment... cuz it is! So, I will continue my Hawaii post later. On to other stuff!
Went camping the other day with Songviet, check facebook videos and pictures for that... not that anyone cares. A lot of rain though. But still fun. Actually, check the second facebook video I made, 'tis good fun. On second thought, you probably won't care. So never mind. Darn, I just wasted another paragraph... but it was on my mind, and it was an event, so I had to get it out. I wonder if this will translate well when I //import// it into facebook...
BATMAN was awesome. Saw it twice. Best movie of the summer. Heath Ledger is teh totally awesome. He should definitely win that oscar even though he's gone. Shouldn't say much more... when I get the movie on dvd I'll make a video with just the joker parts and watch those.
So, as summer comes to a close (not yet; still got Tropic Thunder and a few more movies), my top 3 are Batman, Kung Fu Panda, and Ironman.
What else is new? Oh yeah, of course... when David e-mailed me he said "work must be busy! haven't seen you blog in a while. How's work going, btw?"
Well... work is dead. Influenza Media died while I was in Hawaii... not my fault of course, but it did die. It was falling apart a few days before I left, but it cracked while I was gone and just died. Jerry left because he needed money, and a startup company that wasn't getting clients isn't very good for that. Plus, he wanted to know what it was like to work for an established company (since he always worked with startups in the past). And then Isaque and Peter keep having art disagreements and decision disagreements so that broke apart soon, and now the company is no more.
I'm in the sorta-process of looking for another job, so... yeah. I'm right now half chillaxing and half working on a video project for one of my friends, for the Canadian Vietnamese Federation something something, some fundraiser about building a museum, so I'm making a video for that. Not getting paid, but still, work is work.
Kinda?
LAST, but not Least...
BRAID.
If you've been following videogames and xbox360 in general, you probably already know about Braid, at least a little bit. There's been a bunch of stuff about its pricing, and whether or not it's worth it, but I'm not going to talk about that. I'll talk about the game itself and why it's so good.
Braid is a very beautiful puzzle/platformer game, with great music and wonderful art. It's probably the most beautiful game in a while, or ever. Then again it's just hand-drawn 2-d sprites, but its presentation and music are just wonderful. Anyway, Braid is a puzzle game with some pretty hard puzzles, and it deals a lot with time manipulation, which is pretty refreshing and fun to play.
Last but not least, it has a story, and boy, it's a twisty one (like a braid, get it?). A lot of people would say the story is amazing, best ever... I think it's pretty good, but not as amazing as some people are saying it is... although yesterday I read...
Actually, let's rewind a bit (another time pun? sorry, heh). Sometimes, when a game first comes out, there's this time, this small window of time, where the game is totally new and nobody knows anything about it. The game has a story which is open to interpretation, and nobody really knows anything about the story yet. It's rare this day in age, where Japan gets games before we do, and the Internet is there and information is leaked and nothing is pure anymore. But not this game. The game came out last Wednesday, and at that time, not much was known about the game, so THAT was the window of time.
If you got the game a week ago, and you solve it pretty quickly, and you are interested in the story, then there's this awesome feeling... you check the message boards, and everyone has questions, nobody has answers. Additionally, in this game specifically, there are these "secret" additional things you can get, and while I did ask the message boards for help on these, nobody really knew what they did, except the game creator of course...
So that time when the Internet is clueless about the game, when everyone in the world is together trying to find answers that nobody knows... it's a neat little phase. Anyhoo... that time is just 'about over now, there are still some lingering questions but most of them point to "doesn't matter" or "doesn't do anything". The story is still open to interpretation but there are some pretty good threads about some good theories here and there.
Anyway, so as I was saying, yesterday I read a couple threads that really shed some light on the story, and it's very interesting, all the detail that went into the story and all the little references. The game has a bunch of 'books' you can read, which say that Tim is on his search to find the princess, but these things I've read... wow.
Once again, I aim toward the beauty/interested, and, without spoiling too much, the science/thingy... so... David - come play this game, see the beauty. Wen, you're a story/engineering guy, come play this game too. Alan, you're a spoiler guy - read this thread, watch the videos on how to solve all the puzzles, and then come and play it :P
Here's the thread, but I highly recommend playing the game before reading it:
http://www.rllmukforum.com/index.php?showtopic=190136%C2%A0
And... that's it! BRAID, really great experience. Especially conjoined with interacting with the internet during the state of unknowing. Bonus points to those who get the reference to my blog title, which is Braid related (I didn't know, but I do now).
Once again, the obligatory: Who wants to see Tropic Thunder? And Saturday I'm going to a wedding. I think I'm free Sunday, Alan has interest of coming over then. David, wanna come too?
And... that's it. Time to go play a game for attractive people...
Labels: braid