Day 10: A Taste of History

Today, I went to the historic Qian Men/Tiananmen area to do the usual touristy things. The main goal going to Qian Men was to pick up some souvenirs. We took public transportation to stay away from the choking Beijing traffic and it was the usual massive barbarian hoards of people everywhere. The subway was basically one big lovefest with everyone pressed against everyone else.

First cool thing I saw was Tang Hu Lu!! These things are basically shiskabobed haw fruit in a sugar coating. When I came to Beijing, there were three things that I HAD to eat, Peking Duck, Lambkabobs, and these sugar coated haw fruits.


I wandered around for quite a while picking up some small gifts from the various stores that were strew about the place. The main attraction was that these stores were all remodeled to look like what the street would have looked like in ancient times.


I had lunch at a famous place called Gou Bu Li. The main attraction was the Baozi there. The story goes that there was a guy named Gou Zi who was totally awesome at making these steamed buns. His place was so popular that he was too busy to chat with any of this customers, hence they called the buns Gou Bu Li (Gou doesn't notice us). Sadly I was too busy eating these awesome buns to actually take a picture, but here's one with ole Tommy on a golden throne inside!


After Qian Men, I headed to the nearby Tiananmen Square to look for the remaining souvenirs. I have been to the square multiple times, but no matter how many times I go, the size of the square always impresses me. It's so huge that no matter how many times you see it in pictures, you have to go there to truly appreciate it's grandour.

There were various decorations in place such as a giant lantern,


the olympic mascots, and various other unique floral arrangements.



After finishing up the gift buying, I passed through Tiananmen one last time on the way back. See you next time!


Can't have a day end in China without a banquet, so dinner was a banquet with many of my Grandfather's past students and coworkers. Felt just a bit intimidated sitting in a room filled with professors and PhDs.

Day 9: Beijing Welcomes Us...Again

Even though today was supposed to be a travel day, my mom still decided it was best to visit even more relatives. This time, it was my great aunt. We took the subway this time round to get a taste of public transportation and besides the barbarian hoards of people everywhere you go, it was very smooth.

We only had about 2 hours of time to visit before having to head back, but of course, they had the usual banquet waiting for us. Now, these crabs are really good and all...but after having them day after day after day, it gets a bit routine. We chatted about the usual family things and were about to leave. We had already gotten on the bus when my mom realized she had left her cell phone at the great aunt's place. We hurriedly headed back and to welcome us back for the second time, we had another banquet (okay, not really, but it totally could have happened).

We still had some errands to run so we headed to the shopping district to buy some snacks and withdraw some cash. This is where I learned that the chinese banking system is retarded. According to my mom, if you deposit money in Shanghai, you can't actually withdraw it in Beijing. The only way to transfer was to manually withdraw all the money and then redeposit it all. This made no sense to me at all, but my mom insisted this needed to be done.

After errands, we headed home, packed it all up and went to the airport. We flew Hainan Airlines this time and the experience was pretty pleasant again. The only annoying thing was after landing in Beijing, the plane taxied for almost 20 minutes before arriving at a gate.

Day 8: More Feasting

Today, my mom and I went to vist my Grandfather again. As usual, we were greeted by a feast for the ages. This time however, only 2 of us came while the feast was prepared for 12. Following a session of gorging, we talked some more and left grandfather's house at around 5 in order to make it to...what else, another banquet.

One small problem we encountered was that it was actually two banquets. Some my mom's friends in Shanghai had been trying to get a hold of her the entire day to let her know of this banquet, but we had already agreed ahead of time to go to another banquet at my aunt's place. So, for the best of both worlds, my mom's friends decided to have their banquet at the same place where my aunt was having hers. This lead to our room-hopping to entertain both parties.

The highlight dish was the "drunken shrimp." The dish consisted of live shrimp, that were soaked into some kinda wine. The shrimp were then consumed raw while still alive. It was a bit disturbing to see the shrimp still moving their tails as you bit into them, but they actually tasted pretty good...if you can stand the weird factor.



It was also my cousin's 30th birthday so we had this awesome cake. It was super tasty with delicious frosting. Usually, the frosting is way too thick and tastes terrible, but this cake had light, fluffy frosting that tasted awesome!

Day 8: The Ancient Capital

Today is the big day! The day that I am travelling to Nanjing to visit Princess Pineapple's parents.

The day started very early as the train ride was at 6:07 am. I woke up at 4:00 am and got dressed for the occasion. I also tried on the previously purchased anti-perspirant. I had a nice black striped CK dress shirt, some Ralph Lauren Khakis, and black dress shoes. Unfortunately, it was raining outside but my uncle managed to hail a taxi for my cousin and I and we got to the train station about an hour before the scheduled departure. The train we rode was the super fast magnetic rail train that runs between Nanjing and Shanghai. A one-way trip only took about 2 hours and 30 minutes. Pineapple's parents greeted us at the train station and we were off!

We first went to get some breakfast at the company recreation center. This place was awesome with courts for just about any racket sport, pool, hotel, etc. We had some light conversation during breakfast and I learned of the day's plans: A visit to the Sun Yat-sen Memorial followed by lunch on Hunan Street, then freeform.

I had visited the Sun Yat-sen Memorial before in 2001 as part of a tourist group and remembered lots of stairs. This time, the visit rekindled the fondness I had for those 294 stairs. The weather was super awesome and the temperature was cool, but climbing the stairs briskly while wearing dress shoes and a dress shirt still caused me to sweat like crazy. But Velius, didn't you wear that fancy Chinese anti-perspirant? Yes, but it doesn't work at all, even though I had a triple application. However, the scenery more than made up for the loss of electrolytes as it was absolutely stunning. From atop the Mausoleum, you could almost see the entire city of Nanjing. There was also this awesome floral placement with individual potted flowers that shaped into the logo for the 2008 Olympics.


We also visited an amphitheater designed with spectacular natural acoustics.


There was a live concert going on and there were hundreds of doves on the grounds as well as various people that were being eaten by the doves. These doves were super aggressive and flocked to anyone with food. They even flew on top of people's head and arms for better shots at the food from above.


The entire time, Pineapple's parents and I were discussing many different topics like my job, my family, the hurricane in Houston, and many inquiries about how Princess Pineapple was doing.

After the Sun Yat-sen Memorial, we went to Hunan road and had lunch at Shi Zi Tou (Lion's head). This restaurant chain purportedly has been around since the Song Dynasty which is roughly about 1000 years. At the restaurant, I met Pineapple's uncle and aunt. The food was excellent with the best food being the signature Lion's Head dish. We talked a lot more in detail during lunch and the conversation was good. I had some difficulties expressing myself in Chinese as sometimes, I just couldn't think of the proper phrases fast enough. I have to definitely work on that in the future.

After lunch, Pineapple's parents really wanted to show us around some more, but the morning's activites were pretty tiring so we suggested they take a rest and meet up with us at the train station later on. My cousin and I decided to spent the remaining time touring Xuanwu Lake. The lake was huge with many things to see so my cousin suggested that we should ride one of those two-person bikes that were available for rent. This turned out to be a horrible mistake as the bike we got sucked.


It was totally rusted over and besides the bell, everything else on the bike made sounds. Luckily this benefited in that it was very hard to hit any pedestrians because they could hear our coming from a mile away and make preparations to avoid us. This was a good thing because the steering was also crooked on the bike and the best we could do was the zigzag the bike around. After 15 minutes of pedaling, my legs were about to fall off because the chain and pedals were so rusted that it felt like we were pedaling in quicksand. We finally stopped at a bird sanctuary to watch more birds attacking humans for food.


Coming out of the bird sanctuary, we decided to just ditch the bike and walk on foot.

After the tour of the lake, we headed back to the train station to meet Pineapple's parents again. They gave me stuff to take back to Pineapple and gifts to give to my relatives in Shanghai. Overall, Pineapple's parents were super nice and often times went out of their way to make sure my visit was enjoyable. I sincerely hope that I was able to put forth a good first impression.

The train ride back was uneventful and Pineapple's friend's brother picked us up at the train station. He also gave me some stuff to take back to his sister. The day was tiring as we got back home at around 10 pm. It was just in time to watch Walden defeat O'Sullivan 10-8 in the Shanghai Masters snooker tournament.

Day 7: The Calm before the Storm

Today was another pretty restful day. The only line of duty was a bit of shopping in the morning. The objective was to find a store that carried shot glasses with some kind of Shanghai or Chinese insignia. It's hard to imagine how hard it was to look for these. We looked all over Xu Jia Hui which is one of the largest shopping districts in Shanghai and none of the stores carried any decorated shot glasses. The closest were plain clear glass ones. We finally found some shot glasses with the olympics logo but decided that it would probably be best to look for them in Beijing instead.

I also picked up some deodorant/anti-perspirant for the trip tomorrow. Apparently, Chinese people don't really use the stuff because I almost couldn't find it in the store. It took a bunch of searching and doubling back over the same aisle to finally find 1 kind of deodorant. It's also the weirdest thing ever as it looks nothing like the kind you find in the US.


The rest of the day was spent basically in leisure. Dinner was hand-made dumplings which tasted fantastic!


Tomorrow is the big day!

Day 6: Remembrance

Today, I went to visit both my dad and grandmother. The cemetary provides it's own transport and usually it's very hard to get a seat on the bus. However, because of the National Day celebrations, there was not the usual number of people riding so getting seats was relatively easy. The trip there winds through many of the outlying areas of Shanghai so I got to really see what life in a rural (Xiang(1) Xia(4)) setting was like. The houses were small, mostly rundown, and there was trash just lying everywhere in sharp contrast to the image Beijing tried to paint of China as a super modern nation.

After paying my respects, I started walking back to the bus, but noticed on the way that for some reason, this cemetary has live peacocks. Upon closer inspection, they had almost 20 peacocks in this small enclosure, mostly adults, but one mommy peacock had 4 little chicks.


None of us was really wearing anything vibrant or colorful so none of the male peacocks fanned out his feathers.


Getting back, my cousin and I went to purchase some random stuff just to stretch out our legs. Shopping in China is definitely another experience. There are just massive hoards of people in the streets and most stores are jam packed with people. I saw an IKEA, Best Buy, and even a Dairy Queen! The first order of business was to upgrade my cousin's computer. Her computer only has 256 MB of RAM. As such, trying to blog everyday took quite a long time. We upgraded her computer to 2 Gigs of memory which sped up the performance considerably. We also needed to buy a couple of 2 gig USB drives. I ended up getting a 8 gig one for myself.

We had lunch at this Korean restaurant. While seated at the table, you see these nicely wrapped wet towels sitting on the table. You would think that these are complimentary, but no, they actually cost about 5 RMB each which is a ludicrously high price as 5 RMB can easily get about 5 of the same towels at a store. The most under-handed thing is they wait until you USE the towel to let you know there is an extra charge for it! Overall though, things are comparatively a lot cheaper in China. The entire meal probably would have been at least $40 or so, but only cost about 110 RMB (17 bucks or so).

After the shopping, we headed back and basically spent the rest of the night watching the televised Shanghai Snooker Championships. Snooker is wildly popular in China and televised snooker events often gain exceptionally high ratings. I was never really a snooker watcher, but I gotta admit, those people have some amazing skills.

Day 5: Leisurely activities

Today was basically a rest day. Stayed home the entire time and had lunch and dinner with various family members. The food was spectacular as usual, with my aunt cooking a double whammy of fried chicken wings AND sweet and sour ribs. My cousin also brought over the baby and outside of one small milk regurgitation episode, he acted really well.


The night was spent watching the world snooker championships and this awesome obstacle course show where contestants humiliate themselves for a cell phone. It's always great watching the types of people that compete in these.

Day 4: The Shanghai Connection

Today, I went over to my grandfather's house for a Xu family gathering. Everytime I come back to China, my grandfather always hosts a large party consisting of many many delectable foodstuffs. This time was no exception.


The food was awesome and we all talked about various Xu family topics (75% about Princess Pineapple of course..) and I got to play around with my nephew. He's about 8 months old and super playful. He really really likes heights, as everytime I hold him up above my head, he laughs and giggles like crazy. He also cannot seem to hold his body still as he's always moving. He can't quite crawl yet since his legs aren't strong enough, but he sorta uses his arms to pull himself along. It kind of looks like he's swimming, but on the floor. Phelps better watch out, this kid's doing the breast stroke at 8 months!

We stayed at my grandfather's house all the way until about 6:30 pm when we all called a couple of taxis home. I was totally exhausted afterwards because of last night's tea mishap and basically slept like a log from 7 pm until about 4 am. While definitely not helping my jetlag, the good night's sleep hit the spot.

Day 3: Relax?

A very light half day today as it was mostly reserved as a travel day. Had lunch at Uncle's house consisting of noodles and some delicious homemade sweet and sour ribs. Soo tasty.

Aunt came over later on and there was much inquiring about Princess Pineapple, complete with pictures and stories of origin. Afterwards, we had a light dinner of more crabs. Shanghai is known for these amazing crabs that come in multiple sizes and come into season just around National Day.



The gruesome aftermath...



After dinner, my cousin and I delivered some stuff to Pineapple's friend. The entire ordeal seemed more like a drug deal. We got there, I exchanged goods with one hand, received cash with the other. Got some goods to take back to Pineapple, and left. The entire transaction took less than a minute.

Watched Iron Man...again, with Chinese subtitles this time and went to bed. I must not be over the jetlag yet (or maybe it was all the ice green tea I had...) as I woke up at 4:30 am.

Day 2: Duck Hunt

Didn't really do too much today, the event of most significance was giant Peking Duck Feast. We went to this restaurant that specializes in Peking Duck of course and my aunt ordered 2 whole ducks. The ducks were brought in and sliced up right in front of us. We only had 4 people, but somehow we managed to eat almost all the food. The duck was so awesome, with just the right degree of oilyness (Artery thickening, but just below Heart Clogging) and the meat was super tender.



Because it is the National Day celebration week in China, we were not able to get the usual train tickets to Shanghai. Instead, we had to go by plane. Of course, going by plane is much faster, but you tend to waste half a day traveling whereas by train, you travel during the night, and upon waking up in the morning, you arrive at the destination. My flight was at 9 am in the morning so I called a taxi for 6:30 am. While the military vehicle mostly obeyed traffic laws, the taxi driver most definitely played too much GTA. He drove super fast and weaved in and out of traffic like Niko (Well, maybe not Niko controlled by me since I tend to just crash into everything). We got to the airport almost 20 minutes earlier than expected as a result.

The airline I was traveling with was China Eastern Airlines. My previous trip with them was not particularly good as smoking was allowed on the plane and the trip ended up with the left engine being on fire and blowing out while we had to make an emergency landing in Tokyo. As a result, my expectations were rather gloom for this trip. However, I was pleasantly surprised as the jet seemed new this time, with friendly flight attendants, no smoking, and best of all, no explosions. They even served drinks and food during the two hour flight.

I arrived in Shanghai on-time and met my uncle in the airport. Shanghai's weather is warmer than Beijing's and the air seemed much cleaner! What gastric adventures lie ahead? Only time will tell!

Day 1: Rock and Roll in my HEAD!!

Watched China's first spacewalk yesterday. It was a pretty amazing experience and you could totally sense the Nationalism in the air as the astronaut hoisted the Chinese Flag.

The major plan for today was to visit my great uncle?? (brother of my grandfather). He happens to be a retired general in the Chinese PLA so we usually get some forms of preferential treatment when we visit him. As usual, he sent a military vehicle to pick us up in the morning. The good thing about a military vehicle is that they are typically above the law. If the driver wanted to, he could have driven however way he wanted! Luckily, he has never played GTA before so we generally followed traffic laws.

After some moments of conversation which involved many questions about a particular Princess, and the showing of the General's latest book (Basically poetric description of famous battles in 5000 years of Chinese history), we headed off to lunch. Typically, trips to China devolve into a series of massive feasts with people encouraging me to keep eating until I inevitably explode. This meal was no different.

We went to this really upscale restaurant that specializes in serving military personnel. Initially, they put us in this massive dining hall complete with TVs, elaborately decorated sofas, and enough space to sit about 30+ people. Unfortunately, our lunch party only consisted of 6 people. They switched us to a smaller and slightly less elaborate room shortly afterwards. The food was pretty amazing, they had some kinda strange sea cucumber appetizer dish, peking duck, various types of chicken, shrimp, fish, and even steak (was actually pretty good). To top the meal off, they ordered 2 batches of egg tarts. These egg tarts were super awesome, way better than most of the tarts offered in US. The most unique thing that I tasted though, was the drink. I had never had Apple Vinegar drink before. This thing tasted kinda sour going down, but left a really really awesome aftertaste that was amazing. My grand uncle quickly caught on to how much I liked this apple vinegar and proceeded to order 5 bottles of the stuff for me to take home!

On the way back from lunch, we stopped by Tiananmen Square to check out the floral preparations for National Day. It was pretty spectacular and the news even reported that it was a world record for most amount of fresh flowers ever in one display. One small damper on things was the traffic. It was absolutely terrible. Beijing has a series of 6 "ring" roads (basically loops) that go around the city. None of these loops have any form of traffic signals so you would think that traffic would be relatively fast moving on these roadways. However, the sheer volume of cars caused bumper to bumper traffic and it took us a good 1.5 hours to travel about 20 miles.

I am living with my grandparents who live in these housing projects off the main campus of Chinese Agricultural University. As such, we basically drive right through campus any time we leave to go somewhere. This time coming back, I noticed this awesome dude wearing a felt black jacket that was designed to look like leather with huge letters written in glitter that was designed to look like rhinestones. The letters read "Red Panda, Rock and Roll in my Head!!" Soo awesome, even better than the "Bimbo" brand ice cream I saw earlier.

Dinner was "relatively" light to compensate for El Feasto Gigante and consisted of...2 giant grabs. I love eating crabs, my particular technique involves separating all the meat from the carcass before consumption.Mmmm. My lost baggage finally arrived in the evening and everything was intact. Operation: Nanjing is still on schedule!

Day 0: Travel Day

Had to wake up at 4 am to drive to the airport for my 6:30 am flight so after much thought, I decided to just stay awake the entire night grinding in Vesperia. It worked out pretty well and I was pretty exhausted and ready to just sleep the entire flight away. Unfortunately, my plans did not come to fruition.

The first part of the flight was from Houston to Newark, then after a plane change in Newark, directly to Beijing. I slept about 4 hours on the plane to Newark but was stil pretty tired for the next leg. The plane to China was a 777 and as such, every seat had individual entertainment modules complete with a lot of the latest movies, music, and sitcoms. While boarding, I noticed a hoard of kids sitting pretty close to where I was and was a bit concerned about the noise level. After talking with a little boy who sat next to me and noticing he had pretty good manners, I thought maybe I would be granted a reprieve.

Right before the plane took off, the trip leader for those kids decided it would be better to switch out the boy for the most annoying girl possible. I began to doubt the future of the US as this girl didn't listen at all, was walking around even as the pilot was telling everyone to be buckled down and constantly made really ignorant remarks about the plane. I think the best one was "Does this plane have gravity?" She also constantly tried to work the entertainment modules even after being told repeatedly that the module was turned off for takeoff. She even tried swiping a credit card (repeatedly) thinking that if she paid, they would turn the module on specifically for her.....After finding out the module wasn't working for her, she demanded to call her mom using the onboard phone, even after being told that it was going to be really really expensive. Her response to this was "It's okay, I have a credit card."

Needless to say, this girl was a chatterbox the entire trip and so I didn't really get that much sleep. Instead, I watched Iron Man, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Kung Fu Panda, and Iron Man again. Mixed in a bit of DS as well. The flight for the most part was smooth and we got into Beijing airport about 20 minutes after the arrival time. At the baggage claim, I waited about 40 minutes for my bag to show up, but finally learned after all the bags were out that my bag did not make it onto the plane in Newark....After some fun filling out forms in Chinese....Continental said they would deliver the bag as soon as it arrived.

My mom was at the airport to pick me up and after a 45 min or so taxi ride, I arrived at my grandparent's house. I must say, the air quality was a lot better than I remembered it to be as I could actually see portions of the blue sky. The evening was spent with lots of different family members coming by and my being interrogated with many questions about Princess Pineapple. All in all, a pretty eventful day 0.

Why stop at milk?

For some strange reason, PETA thinks that this is a good idea. But I question their dedication to the cause. Why only go so far as milk? Why not reduce the suffering of these oh so poor farm animals even more while also helping society eliminate some of its more seedy elements. I propose we substitute beef/pork/chicken with human meat! I mean it's brilliant! After all, you are what you eat right? So this is just making us more Human! Maybe even Too Human!

China Trip

Going back to China this Friday. Moonfleck suggested I keep a running daily blog on what occurred in China. While on paper, this sounds like a wonderful idea, I am not so sure I can keep the motivation to do such a thing as I have enough trouble posting once every week.....but nonetheless, never know what I am capable of if I don't try!

L2NightElf n00b!

It is often rare to meet with fellow MMORPG gamers IRL. Without meeting face to face, I often tend to associate the voices and persona with whatever video game character they currently play. Recently during my whirlwind California trip, I had the fortune to meet two WoWers that I used to play a lot with, Truflight and some vain druid beginning with Faa and ending with Lena.

I was exceedingly disappointed to discover that they were not Night Elves IRL. What travesty is this??!! I expected Truflight to come with his Epic Frostsaber and a giant monstrous, vicious, bloodthirsty crab following quickly behind. Vain Druid was to swoop in in epic flight form to pick some random flowers or something next to the hotel. What actually arrived to pick me up were two humans in a Prius.

Despite the initial shock, I soon realized that these people were actually really cool. They had set up a raid of a local seafood chain and just like IRG (In Real Game), we were on time and well prepared with the necessary gear (I quickly replaced Truflight's missing DreadPirate and gave vain druid the only thing that she lacked, a mirror with which to admire herself), enchantments (Nothing like Old Spice deodorant to cover up that none-showered, fresh off the power plant smell), and appetite for blood (or food in this instance).

The seafood was divine, never before had I tasted such great food. It probably boosted all my attributes for 15 minutes. We chatted about various things like what's the best way to farm for epic flying mounts, and what types of patterns to make while making aerial passes for mining nodes/herbs. The dinner passed quickly and soon we were off to the final challenge...the LVL???RB.

As soon as we got to the house, I realized this was indeed the home of Night Elves. The house contained a plethora of exotic animals, in this case, a house cat. I imagine the other animals were all in hiding in some tall tree to protect them from the sounds of battle against LVL???RB. After briefing entertaining the geeky side by scoping out their WoW UIs, I started the encounter. Unfortunately, we wiped several times during the first few attempts, but after recalibrating our gear, we soon rocked out.

Overall, it was a very nice evening and I look forward to future visits to other OOM members.

Houston: 3 Days since last Hurricane

You hear it on the news, but in person, it's even worse. On the drive back to Houston from College Station, as soon as I got into town, I started noticing things. Things like almost all the billboards are destroyed. Any high shop signs are either completely blown off or severely damage. Even highways signs show wind damage. There are still downed trees everywhere and piles of debris on the highways. None of the traffic lights I have run into function and you see makeshift power lines everywhere.

In my neighborhood, there are numerous fences that have been blown down or completely blown away all together. I don't really see any broken windows, but there is still significant debris on the roads. My house had its main fence get blown away, and my mom lost all of her potted plants. We had some minor water leakage as well. All in all though, I would say we came out well. We are also lucky in that we have power.

We aren't in Kansas anymore

Hopefully Hurricane won't blow my house away. Need to get prepared!!! California trip was fun, will try to update later....

Riverwalk and Hot pot

Spent a day in San Antonio over the weekend to show Princess Pineapple the Waterwalk and Alamo. At first we decided we would park at the motel and just walk over to the Riverwalk. However after walking about 100ft and noticing that we were definitely in a very very run-down part of town, we decided it was more practical and safer to drive.

Got to the Riverwalk rather late and at dinner ate this Italian placed called Paesanos. She had the Shrimp Paesano with Spaghetti, Lemon Butter, and Garlic and I had the Penne with Grilled Chicken, Mushrooms, Spicy Peppers and Tomato Cream. Pineapple didn't really like her choice as the shrimp in the Shrimp Paesano were too buttery and the accompanying pasta too bland. The Penne however was excellent. The chicken was marinated just right and the sauce was creamy with just a hint of spiciness. Pineapple ended up mixing her spaghetti with the sauce in the Penne and I ended up eating all the shrimp. The Tiramisu dessert was excellent and ended the meal on a high note. We walked around afterwords for about 3 hours looking at the various little shops and businesses that ringed the waterways, picking up many little gifts for my trip back to China.

The next day, we only had about 3 hours before having to head back to College Station for a birthday party so we made a very brief stop (~15 min? maybe) at the Alamo just to remember it...har har..and spent the other 2.75 hours walking around the Riverwalk again.

The birthday party in College Station was a blast though. The theme of the party was a hot pot style dinner followed with birthday cake and a heaping helping of Mafia. Everything went pretty well....except the birthday girl was busy attending another party and didn't arrive at this party until about 10 pm. By that time, we had already finished eating the hot pot (hunger >>> willingness to wait for guest of honor) so we went right to the birthday cake. The cake was an Oreo ice cream cake from Dairy Queen and tasted so awesome. It's been quite a while since I had had any type of ice cream so perhaps that's why this one tasted particularly good. Mafia was good as always with much killing, either premeditated or otherwise random lynching by the mob.

Operation Redecoration

Over the labor day weekend, Princess Pineapple came over with a very important mission: to transform the upstairs into something a bit more hospitable. It was a lot of work as the place was really messy with random stuff lying everywhere, furniture arranged in non-optimal locations, and strange smells coming from the restroom area.

We ended up going to IKEA since they were having a labor day sale. We ended up getting a new chair, several containers, and even new shower curtains. After cleaning for an entire day, several rooms looked really nice. The computer room is now much cleaner and very uncluttered. The restrooms are soooo much cleaner and even smell nice! There is still a lot of work to do though, but time was running short so the project will be completed at a later date.

A Perfect Excuse to Crash a Castle

Going to get a yearly physical examination on Wednesday. What was that you say? Castle Crashers just so happens to be coming out 12 am Wednesday morning! Did I plan it like this so that I can get a leg up on the competition, could I be so conniving as to plan a doctor's visit JUST for this? I say no....

Moving Day

Spent the past weekend in College Station helping Princess Pineapple move in. Over the past summer, Pineapple had been practicing driving so this was the first big test. Despite impending dark clouds and some thundershowers, we all made it there with few difficulties. I got to meet all of Pineapple's MBA friends during a dinner party and I totally enjoyed the atmosphere as it reminded me of when I first came to the US and attended my parents' parties. Not particularly rich, but living a very happy life with lots of friends.
We played a different version of Mafia as well. The rules were significantly different and I think it made the game go by much faster. Rule changes were:

1. Multiple police and no medic. There were the same number of police as mafia but to balance the game, the mafia wins if they kill all villagers OR they kill all police.
2. Each person can only speak once per daytime turn. They talk, then say 'done' and the next person talks. I think this speeds up the game tremendously.
3. Deaths on first turn (night or day) have a chance to speak before they die.

We helped different people move in on Sunday and had lunch at another friend's apartment. Papaya gave me a ride back to Houston later that day and I treated him to dinner at Fuddruckers. Overall, a very good weekend!

Up next: Remodeling! Where Princess Pineapple transforms an ordinary bathroom and den with help from IKEA. Tune in next weekend!

Prince of Tennis

I finally "convinced" myself to take up tennis after forcibly buying a racket a couple of weeks ago. I have always wanted to learn how not to hit the ball out of the court and so far, things look kinda bleak. The main problem the first time out was that I only brought 1 can of balls. It's amazing how unfun it is to have to pick up tennis balls every 15 seconds. I should have borrowed BlupnutMM's lovable lab to come retrieve the balls for us.

Anyhow, my main playing partner is Papaya who after playing that incredibly unsatisfying trial, decided to buy a basket and 48 balls. Drive A here I come!

The Wii-eal Olympics

Sure sure, we have the Olympics going on in Beijing. The spectacular opening ceremony, the years of history, the records in the making. Who can forget the incredible come-from-behind victory in the 4x100 freestyle. (Freedom fries ftw!) However, the WII-eal Olympics happened over the weekend in my house. This spectacular event featured 9 competitors representing 3 nations from all over Texas! We had national anthems, national foods, and real Medals! (made in China...) We even had our own Olympic Mascot: Teddy the Lab!



The three nations represented were China, Hungary, and USA. Well, China was "slightly" over-represented, but with some creative naturalization, the BlupnutMM couple joined Papaya on team Hungary!

Breakdown of the teams:
China:
He of Many Cousins
Cucumbernator
PrincessPineapple

Hungary:
BlupnutMM
BlupnutMM's other half
Papaya

USA
Maximo Guru
BitterPotato
Cousin of He of Many Cousins

We kicked things off with a spectacular opening ceremony consisting of Rock Band and dinner (Eat your heart out Zhang Yimou). The original plan was to light the Olympic torch before the event, but we decided to help the IOC out and lent the torch to Beijing to light some other Flame for some other sporting event they were having. FedEx couldn't get it back in time!

Breakdown of Events and Winners:

Pin the Medal on the Wii-lympian!
Tagline: How can this NOT be an Olympic Event??!!
Winner: He of Many Cousins

Boxing:
Tagline: There can only be one survivor!
Winner: PrincessPineapple

Into the Pool!
100m Freestyle:
Tagline: B is to recover Stamina, not A
Winner: BlupnutMM's other half

4x100m IM Relay:
Tagline: Miis only have 1 style apparently...
Winner: He of Many Cousins

En Guarde!!
Fencing:
Tagline: My name is Inigo Montoya!
Winner: BlupnutMM's other half

Onto track and field!
110m Hurdles:
Tagline: Obviously the most important event, only fitting that China wins!
Winner: Cucumbernator

400m:
Tagline: It's about how long you can flap your arms!
Winner: BlupnutMM's other half

Archery:
Tagline: Big Game Hunters
Winner: He of Many Cousins

Gymnastics:
Tagline: A, B, B, B, A, Twist, B, A, B, Twist, B, B, B (for 30 lives...)
Winner: BlupnutMM

Single Sculls:
Tagline: You sank my Battleship!!!
Winner: Papaya (in classic come-from-behind fashion)

Table Tennis:
Tagline: In an event ruled by China, was there ever any doubt!!??
Winner: He of Many Cousins

At this point, we had a 4 way tie for Bronze so we had a winner take all event to break the tie!
Dream Race:
Tagline: Who the HELL hit me with all those stupid lightning bolts?????!!!
Winner: PrincessPineapple

China finished first in the medal count with 6 golds, Hungary was second with 5 golds, and team USA finished in 3rd. Of course, there are no winners and losers in the Olympics...but in the Wii-lympics there are, so take THAT team Hungary and USA! Did you all forget to eat your Wheaties??!!

What Olympics would it be if there wasn't a signature vocal performance? To cap the night off, we all went out to sing Karaoke. PrincessPineapple dazzled the crowd with Faye Wong vocalizations while Papaya wowed the masses with a mastery of Chinese lyrics.

The Cliffs of Insanity!!!!

Thanks to tropical storm Edouard, I got to spend the day yesterday away from the office. I was hoping for a storm of epic proportions, but it ended up just being lots of rain..what a a letdown! However, I was able to watch Red Cliff. I have always been a fan of the Three Kingdoms periods and overall, I think John Woo did a good job with Red Cliff. Here are my general impressions of how each of the characters was played and how they matched my "vision" of what they were supposed to be like.

Shu:

Liu Bei: Decent, the movie portrayed him as little more than a peasant. He had no martial abilities, no general vision for his future, and primary Musou attack was "fix straw shoes for everyone." They did emphasize his deeply righteous beliefs on how a ruler should act.

Zhuge Liang: Totally did not match the impression in my head. He doesn't speak eloquently, seems insecure all the time, and generally just frowns a lot. Also has Brokeback scene involving zithers with Zhou Yu which totally didn't work for me. He also fondles horse uterus.

Zhang Fei: Pretty good, they toned down his drinking, but kept his general profile to what I envisioned. Loud, obnoxious, always looking to pick a fight, and having strength of 100 men.

Guan Yu: Dynasty Warrior. Face not Red enough, no Red Hare, but they obviously paid tribute to Dynasty Warriors with this incarnation of Guan Yu. Speaks little but absolutely slaughters legions of troops with a single stroke of his halberd. It's almost as if troops were just walking up and impaling themselves since no matter where he swung, heads rolled. I could totally see the body-count counter rolling up every time he appeared. I think the best scene in the film to illustrate this is when Zhang Fei is trying to hold Chang Ban against overwhelming odds, Zhuge Liang rides in and Zhang Fei asks him "Where are the reinforcements???!!!" Zhuge Liang simply points, and you see Guan Yu mysteriously emerging from the fog of war and then proceeds to slay about 40 soldiers with 1 swipe of his halberd

Zhao Yun: A good portrayal. Loyal and fearless. The movie actually featured the battle of Changban bridge and I thought his charge was a lot more realistic in the number of enemies he slew.

Wu

Sun Quan: For some reason, all the leaders were portrayed as these frail little things that had no other abilities other than sitting there. Basically does nothing the whole movie except frown and make fun of Sun Shang Xiang (SSX).

Zhou Yu: Wow, he was portrayed really well. He's basically the perfect commander. Brilliant military tactics, superior martial abilities, and exceptional love-making skills. He demonstrates all three to a high degree in the film. In fact, I think his sexiness is so powerful that Zhuge Liang could not resist.

Gan Ning (Named Gan Xing in movie for some odd reason): Same attitude, same elite fighting abilities, no bells. Pretty good portrayal

Xiao Qiao: Token female. Passes the days petting horses and passing wanting glazes toward Zhou Yu. Her lines sucked, "Cao Cao has army of death bringing and will surely destroy all of us, but he lacks one thing that you have....friends!" all in that super high pitched annoying voice. This is one character that I wish matched its Dynasty Warriors counterpart. Give her some fans, and watch her run amok.

Sun Shang Xiang: My favorite character from the movie. This was the best portrayal and basically matches my impression of her perfectly. Sassy, sarcastic, me-against-world mentality, and total self confidence. Even though she has a relatively small role in the film, her scenes were always the ones I enjoyed.

Wei

Cao Cao: A little too conniving, backstabbing, plotting, and generally evil for me. In history, he was a very charismatic leader with many good traits. In the movie, he is basically portrayed as obsessed with bedding Xiao Qiao. They did perfectly portray his rashness and arrogance as a military strategist.

Zhang Liao??: Can't remember which general it was, but he is the only named general I remember on Wei who does anything significant. Basically gets his army destroyed, and runs away.

Various other Wei Generals: Only job is to provide the other generals with stat power-ups and morale boosts. They slay a few foot soldiers or peasants, then immediately gets cut down by a Shu or Wu general.

Hans Zimmer roXXor!

Was just looking around youtube and stumbled upon some Hans Zimmer music from movies. He's such a great director, I wonder if there is a "greatest hits" CD that he offers? It would really be cool too if somehow Harmonix scored these for Rock Band!

Crimson Tide
The Rock (Not the Wrestler....)
Gladiator

Time to brawl in the Toyota Center...

Umm, so apparently the Rockets have traded for Ron Artest. This actually seems like a pretty good trade, on paper. Artest brings hard-nosed defense, and an offensive (literally and figuratively) touch to the SF position currently occupied by Battier. This certainly increases the Rocket's offense and if they can rotate Battier, better defense as well. Plus it adds a layer of perceived toughness to a relatively soft Rocket's team. Now if McGrady and Yao can just stay healthy the whole season....

Shut up PETA

Some people just have nothing better to do than complain. Take this article for instance. Yes, shooting animals is bad, but where else would you rather troops practice triage on live subjects? Maybe draw straws and randomly shoot the soldiers who drew the shortest straws? Civilian volunteers? Shoot POWs?
They mention a trauma simulator but nothing really simulates treating real wounds like treating real wounds. If a few wounded pigs can provide the experience to save the life of even 1 soldier, I say shoot the pigs.

The Dark Knight

Went to see Dark Knight last night. I went into this movie with extremely high expectations resulting from all the hype and reviews of the movie. I am happy to say that this movie did not disappoint. All of the actors put in superb performances and the plot was just as well-written. Special props to Heath Ledger and his Joker portrayal. While this may be a Batman movie, Ledger totally stole the show with his dynamic performance. This all leads to the question of how can you possibly find a replacement villain for the Joker in the other movies? It was done that well.
Not going to mention anything about the plot for those who haven't watched it.

Beijing!

I love Beijing! =)

Rubik's Cube

Always been interested in these little puzzle boxes. I have seen people solve them really fast so I know there are some fundamental algorithms to doing it. Hopefully with some diligence, I can learn to solve these things fast too!

Hancock

Watched Hancock over the weekend on Saturday. I really didn't have any expectations for this movie as I didn't know anything about the plot or the history of the comic. Turns out, I was pleasantly surprised by the movie. One important thing I learned was that every superhero has 1 phrase which will just cause them to blow a gasket when uttered. Overall, I think Fe-Man still holds the crown of best superhero movie.

Watermelon Lore

What could be more scary than Vampire Watermelons? This is just too amusing to me, especially the part where it states:

"The belief in vampire fruit is similar to the belief that any inanimate object left outside during the night of a full moon will become a vampire. According to tradition, watermelons or any kind of pumpkin kept more than ten days or after Christmas will become a vampire, rolling around on the ground and growling to pester the living. People have little fear of the vampire pumpkins and melons because of the creatures' lack of teeth."

Fission Mailed!! Almost

Saturday was the big Crawfish boil. Last time, there were some complaints that the crawfish were a bit too spicy so for this second round, I got the usual 30 lbs of regular and an additional 10 lbs of mild. This turned out to be a mistake because the mild ones basically had no taste. It was like eating boiled crawfish with no seasoning. On really bad thing that happened was I had invited one of my coworkers to attend this party and I had completely forgotten that the coworker did not eat seafood at all. So this led to a very awkward moment when we were preparing to eat:

Me: Okay, have a seat
Coworker: Gives me this blank look
Me: You don't like Crawfish?
Coworker: I don't eat seafood, remember?
Me: Ohhh crap...

It was particularly bad as there was no other food available except for some cookies and grass jelly drink. The coworker just ended up playing Rock Band upstairs while the rest of us gorged.

Besides that little blunder, the rest of the evening went off very well. We spent quite a bit of time playing Rock Band and Mafia. Originally, we were supposed to go Karaoking, but time constraints led us to just have a really late dinner (~10:30) at this Chinese restaurant and calling it a night.

All the pretty Horses

Borrowed from a Chinese Website: How many horses do you see?

Fireworks, Pew Pew Pew

My company is hosting a fireworks display for the coming July 4th holidays. Instead of the usual sitting outside, being eaten alive by mosquitoes, this event will occur indoors on the 64th floor of the office building. The interesting thing I found out was that the fireworks are actually going to be bursting about 20ft away from the building itself so we get a level-eye view of the fireworks as opposed to the usual ground-side view. There should be explosions all around and I just know I am going to instinctively reach for the shock paddles to do some medic-whoring!

Viva la Crawfish!

4th of July is coming up and since there hasn't been a really big social event in Houston for a while, I have decided to host a big party on Saturday, the 5th. As per special request from BluPnutMM, crawfish will be the main course again. It may be harder to get as they aren't in season anymore, but it's always worth a shot. Besides the crawfish, I am hoping this will be a potluck of sorts with everyone bringing some other foods to share.
Entertainment will probably be a healthy dose of Rock Band, Mafia, Bang!, and most likely some Karaoke at night.

*Update* Well, apparently, crawfish are actually still in season. Now the question becomes, Live or Cooked? Last time, the cooked crawfish was pretty good, if a bit spicy. Votes?

Etrian Odyssey 2

Read reviews on this game and they were all generally positive. What piqued my interest was that almost all the reviews noted the game for its punishing, merciless, unforgiving levels of difficulty; right up my alley! The Veggie clan was quickly registered with:

Cucumber -> Ronin
Grapes -> Protector
Catnip -> Dark Hunter
Kiratoma (stupid character limitation) -> War Magus
DataSix -> Hexer
Lemon -> Land shark

So far, Cucumber and Catnip have been slain by a giant caterpillar who 1-shotted them. I have also had my first voluntary encounter with a FOE and I learned a valuable lesson. When the warning says, DON'T FIGHT THE FOE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE HALLWAY, don't fight it...That thing 1-shotted everyone.

WANTED!! Dead or....Dead preferably

Kung and I were playing some Rock Band last night and for some inexplicable reason, I decided to sing. Ahh, the soothing ballads clearly got all the locals revved up as I think half the dogs in my neighborhood were howling by the end of my rendition of Wanted: Dead or Alive. By default, it doesn't actually play your voice over the speakers, but by holding down the left trigger, you can share your awesome voice talents with everyone playing. The best parts are when I have no clue how the song goes, so I just sorta mumble my way through, Just like a real rock star...

Cheap Parts

The prices for computer parts seem to be super cheap these days. Have been helping Catnipped with a new computer ever since the old one was devoured whole by age, and now, I am tempted to get some upgrades for my existing computer. They had 4 gigs of ram for $60 on Newegg. Totally makes me want to get another 2 video cards...

Cudrummernator

After a pretty long migration last night, I decided to check out the drum aspect of Rock Band. The foot peddle really could have been better ergonomically designed. The cord is too short, which limits where you can put it and the default position leaves you feeling so cramped up while sitting. Despite this however, playing the drums is an incredibly fun aspect of the game. If only my legs didn't hurt so much after playing them for an extended period of time...

Are you ready to Rock???!!!

Ever since VO4, I had wanted to pick up Rock Band simply because I think it would be a really fun party game when friends like the BluPnutMM couple and the Austin bunch come over. However, the price has also been a bit high as I didn't quite feel like paying $170 for the whole set. Well, on Sunday after having lunch with Potato, Tomator and Papaya, I decided that I would finally make the acquisition. Since Papaya needed some speakers for his PC as well, we all went to Fry's Electronics. Lo and Behold, it was only $140! Needless to say, I quickly made the acquisition and there was much rocking the rest of the day. Now I have Maps stuck in an infinite loop in my head.

On the NWN2 side of things, Kira, Grapes, and I will most likely be playing through the official campaign. I will likely be a pew pew sorcerer type character. This possibly stems from the awesome Icelandic movie that Dragonfruits recommended to us during VO4. After the movie, I think we all had an itch to try some classic P&P D&D. This was the next best thing.

Wake Island 2142

They released some new maps for BF2142, specifically Wake Island 2142 and Operation Shingle. They also tweaked the ARs a bit and fixed some of the badges. Link to official site here. Perhaps it's time to revisit that trusty VOSS.

What is More Fun than a Barrel Full of Monkeys?

The obvious answer is a colonoscopy. Took mom to get this procedure done today. I am pretty sure it could have been planned better as you aren't allowed to eat anything for a day before the procedure, but she also had to sing in this benefit concert for the SiChuan earthquake victims. Needless to say, she was pretty exhausted after the entire thing. Luckily, nothing abnormal was found, so all is well.

They must have all been reptiles

Lemon recently pointed out to me that Houston had been declared the #1 city to Live, Work, and Play by Kiplinger.com. I have never personally heard of this magazine, but any magazine that shows you 8 ways to make a million dollars must know what it's talking about. That and the reviewers must all be reptiles and love the 2 seasons that Houston experiences: Summer and almost Summer.

The article basically praised the Houston Downtown area and the Sugarland suburbs. While I totally agree that Sugarland is a great place to live, I must point out the fact that Bellaire HS ranked #102 in the best public high schools in the US, whereas those Clements "pretenders" only managed to eek out a lowly #364.

Just to paint a more vivid picture of this from a completely unbiased viewpoint, if rank corresponded to the days in the year, Bellaire would be a brilliant spring day, with birds chirping, flowers blooming, trees glistening with the morning dew while Clements would be in the middle of winter, where everything is dead, and legions of kitten haters and baby punchers roam the streets*. Do you like being associated with kitten haters or baby punchers? I think not.

*not based on actual facts

Veg Out IV: Day 5

Nothing really spectacular today as Kira left early in the morning and the rest of us were leaving later on. We had lunch at a local Chinese restaurant where they happened to misplace my order.

All in all, this was a spectacularly entertaining Veg Out. While not as dramatic as the previous icecapades in Colorado, this one was relatively cheap, relaxing, and just good company in general. No one got injured and no one got sick.

Now here comes the question of where the next Veg Out should be. Lemon suggested we have another simple Veg Out in Vegas (Just think of the title, Veg Out V: VEGAS: bring your grappling hooks and silencers, flashbangs optional) in November followed by a spectacular Veg Out extravaganza in Iceland, home of Dragonfruits, next summer. The BluPnuMM couple has already expressed a serious interest in Vegas.

Veg Out IV: Day 4

We decided to stay with the flow of things and not wake up in time for breakfast like the past couple of days. After a bit of Rock Band in the morning, we decided on lunch at the local Chick-fil-A since Catnipped hadn't had Chick-fil-A since the college days.

Sadly, we had to send Grapes off to go home afterwards, but it was certainly nice to finally have him show up at one of these events. After wishing Grapes a fond farewell, the rest of us headed back to the apartment for some gaming.

First up was Settlers of Catan. Except for Kira, none of us had played this game before but after a brief explanation of the rules with consult from the manual, we were able to get a good game going. I started off doing well with my sheep monopoly, but several unlucky rolls and untimely sacrifices to the gods in favor of developments left me pretty much in last place the entire game. Dragonfruits had a great run and was on the edge of victory for several rounds, but the rest of us banded together to wrestle the largest army achievement from him and into Lemon's hands, depriving Dragonfruits of a victory. Catnipped however stole the show with her seemingly innocent and harmless playing style. While the rest of us were preoccupied with Dragonfruits, she swooped in during one turn to upgrade 2 cities AND snatch the longest road achievement away from Lemon to claim victory.

Catnipped would not savor this victory for long however, as the next game up was Heroscape. This was basically a table top strategy game where players used plastic figures and different cards to battle each other. The setup of the game took an incredibly long time which detracted a bit from the fun factor. We just decided to have a quick 1v1 with my army of lizardmen (matching lizardmen warriors boosted by a lizard hero, with frenzying elven archers who all synergized together-handpicked by Kira) pitted against Catnipped's merry band of misfits consisting of a rhinestone cowboy, some WWII paratroopers, and several dwarves. Needless to say, my band of lizardmen totally dominated despite Catnipped's imba luck with the dice.

We ordered Papa John's deep dish pizza for dinner and watched Astropia with the food. Although the production values for this movie weren't exactly the best, the plot was quite funny and I think because of our overall geekiness, we related with a lot of the things going on in the movie. I highly recommend this movie to any geek out there. A bit of Rock Band followed to round out the evening.

Veg Out IV: Day 3

Today was the big BBQ day. A bunch of Lemon's friends came over and boosted the total number to about 13 people. While the rest of us played Rock Band, Lemon was busy at work at the grill. Lemon's control over the grill proved masterful as the burgers and brats he cooked were totally awesome. I had brought some cookies (made by a 12 year old girl) to Columbus and they were well-received. The peanut butter w/chocolate kiss ones were particularly good as they were gone within the first day.

After the BBQ, we all headed out to do some outdoorsy activities. We were READY for some football!! The game basically boiled down to a running exercise as everyone just constantly ran back and forth from the line of scrimmage. Two hours, a bunch of interceptions, and about 10 miles later, we were all pretty tired but decided to play basketball anyways. Thankfully, we ran halfcourt games instead of full court. I hadn't played basketball in 2 years or something, but I think I managed to remember enough to play decently. Lemon dominated his opponent in the other game and was basically unstoppable. Even Catnipped showed off her entire repertoire as Grapes simply had no answer for the cat-like reflexes.

Dinner was at another local favorite called Spaghetti Warehouse. While the spaghetti was merely above average, the calamari was awesome. We followed this with ice cream at Graeters. Lemon was touting this as the best ice cream place ever and it certainly did live up to the billing. We arrived too late to actually see the ice cream being made, but we were able to read about their long tradition and how they hand-packed every single pint of ice cream. After another coma-inducing meal, we spent the rest of the night playing BANG! One lesson learned was that the green-bordered cards from Dodge City needlessly bogged down the game and slowed the action down to a crawl while only providing slightly more strategic depth. The expansions also seemed to skew the game slightly in favor of the outlaws as the law side did not win a single game. Lemon had the most epic comeback ever as he literally rose from the grave to kill the sheriff in 1 turn.

Veg Out IV: Day 2

We woke up pretty early today in order to catch breakfast at a local place famous for its ginormous pancakes. On the way there, we were interrupted by a Memorial Day parade and we were forced to alter our route, eventually finding parking in some residential neighborhood. As we approached, only a few of us knew the building in front was a restaurant. The restaurant's name was Marshalls and the sign looked almost exactly like that of the clothing store line leaving us out-of-staters wondering if in Ohio, department stores also serve breakfast. The pancakes certainly lived up to the billing as they were about the size of Earth's orbit in diameter (Yes Yes, Earth has an elliptical orbit). Most of us couldn't finish our breakfasts as the food was too overpowering.

Battling food comas, we picked up Catnipped from the airport and headed to Dave and Busters for some gaming. We tried out most of the arcade shooters there, with the worst being some kinda VR headset simulation. The thing totally sucked as you had no peripheral vision and enemies would just walk up to you from behind and lob grenades at you until you died. We also did some Hoops games and skeet ball as well as setting the new high score of 67 in this virtual bowling game. For all of our efforts, =VGI= was awarded with a Dave and Busters pack of playing cards, WOOTZ ORE!

After Dave and Busters, we went to a Japanese Habachi grill to help wash down that early morning feast. It was good food all around as we gorged ourselves back into another food coma. Luckily, we did some walking around afterwards with Frisbee golf. I had never played this before but the goal is to toss some specially designed Frisbees into specially made baskets. The course was modeled after golf with 18 baskets placed around a course. Each basket had a certain number of tosses associated with it. The object was to complete the 18 basket course in as few tosses as possible. Because of our awesome skill at tossing Frisbees, we spent the majority of time searching for errant Frisbees in trees than actually playing the course.

For dinner, we decided to go light and ate at a local Sushi place, then caught Iron Man at an all digital movie theater. We finished up the rest of the night with BANG! and limited amounts of Rock Band.

Veg Out IV: Day 1

Mostly everyone showed up in time. We had a small issue in that Catnipped decided to forget that it was Memorial Day weekend and missed the flight! The new flight for Catnipped was scheduled to arrive at 12 pm the following day so we scrapped the original plan to watch Iron Man on day one. We ended up playing Rock Band for about 4 hours before calling it a night. It was also nice to finally put a human face on TheDragOnfruitS, and not think of him as a spiky red plant ovary.

Before/After

What fun it is to go shopping in San Marcos. Thanks to Caxiya (cleaning girl from before) and BluPnutMM, I was able to fulfill my goal of getting a bunch of dress shirts and pants to wear around the office, along with a bunch of nice polo shirts for semi casual wear. While there, I was also able to pick up some badly needed shoes, shorts, and later on, even a pair of sandals. It's just too bad that my wardrobe grows in inverse proportion to my credit limit. But at least this time, I don't think the credit card companies will cancel my card for fraudulent charges.

Besides the shopping, I also watched this fantastically awesome show called Ninja Warrior on G4. It's basically Japanese American Gladiators, but with much more difficult obstacles. The announcer is soooo awesome in that he tries to make everything so dramatic and keeps coming up with the best one liners ever. The spills are also very impressive, often showcasing contestants taking face-plants into walls. With contestants like "the Octopus" and "The ultimate Ninja Warrior", this show is a must see on my list.

I was also told by this tremendously gifted cellist (BluPnutMM's friend-let's call him Mr. Rainbow Shirt) during a commercial for male enhancement that this particular male enhancement pill can often cause elongated necks. I think they are enhancing the wrong part...

Fogo De COW

Currently residing in Austin this weekend with the purpose of attending BluPnutMM's graduation ceremony. The ceremony went pretty well, with the usual pomp, circumstance, and long long boring speeches. Since there was a pretty tight schedule for the entire ceremony, none of us really got to eat anything for basically the entire day. This actually turned out to be a good thing because..

Dinner was at Fogo De Chau, or as I like to call it, the place with the meat button. Basically, the concept of Fogo is that it is a Brazilian BBQ place where every guest is given a little saucer that is green on one side and red on the other. There are lots of waiters running around the floor with different types of meat and as long as your "meat button" is on green, they flock to you like buzzards asking you what type of meat you want. It's all you can eat salad and meat which is totally awesome. They had the best filet mignon and pork ribs I have ever had! Their chicken, lamb, other assorted beef and pork cuts were all very good as well (yes, even DeathBeef).

After this meal in which I am sure we devoured half of the worlds' meat supply, we stopped by at this strange trendy yogurt placed called Yogo Berry, copy of Pink Berry, copy of Red Mango. It is this frozen yogurt place where you can get infinite toppings but you pay by weight. It's supposedly HUGE in LA...but personally, I thought it tasted pretty crappy as the yogurt was way too sour and it left a strange aftertaste. Oh well, those people in CA are strange anyways...they aren't human!
Long day of shopping today at San Marcos.

The Beginning?

This is obviously the beginning to Iron Man quality powered armor. Repulsor Beams are just a hop and skip away!

ZOMG Lasers PEW PEW!

I found this on xkcd forums. Could possibly be old, but it was new to me. Pretty fun little game where you use mirrors to pew pew targets. Make sure to combine the lasers to form different colored lights!

The Horse Lords

There is a guy at the office named Rohan. He's a pretty cool dude and works in the Sharepoint group. However, every time I pass by his office and see his name tag, I think of cavalry, charging through and slaying all in it's path...Is this normal?

I am evil Homer!

While I usually strive to be the good guy in games, there is a deep, dark, evil side of me I refer to as the DevilCucumber. This side's only purpose is to sow the seeds of chaos and death in whatever gaming world I happen to be in. I can usually keep this side under control, but when it comes out...noo...NNOOO ARRRGHGHHHHGHH... BWAHAHAHA, I AM FREEEE TO WRECK HAVOC IN LIBERTY CITY!!

UNSUSPECTING GUY, ATM, BASEBALL BAT, ME = FREE CASH FOR ME
TAKING OUT THE "TRASH" WITH A DUMPSTER
ACCIDENTAL DISCHARGES OF FIREARMS AND VARIOUS MELEE WEAPONS IN HOSPITALS
FARMING POLICE FOR PISTOL AND SHOTGUN AMMO

Ahem...one particularly retarded thing I did was I learned that blindly firing your MP5 with one hand and driving with the other doesn't necessarily impress the ladies...rather it just scares the hell out of them. This isn't necessarily my fault as the button for brake is left trigger while the button for blind fire is left bumper...

Building my own Powered Armor

Is this actually possible? How does that Arc reactor work? Unfortunately, real life seems to be against me in the creation as dictated by this interesting forum post. WARNING: DO NOT GO IF YOU DON'T WANT SOME SIGNIFICANT SPOILERS!!!

Fe♂

Was never really a fan of him in my Marvel days, but he always seemed like one of those fascinating case studies. Now with the movie being released, I am actually quite psyched about seeing what they have done. One thing I have to say though, I always liked the way his armor looked.

Forbidden Kingdom

Watched this movie over the weekend. While the plot was a bit predictable, I liked how it tried to incorporate different aspects of Chinese mythology. Things like Monkey King, and Yu Huang Da Di (Jade Emperor) and the peach party. While they did mix it all around and made up their own spin on things, the movie was very entertaining. The fight scene between Jackie Chan and Jet Li was definitely the highlight of the movie. The best scene ever for unintentional comedy has to be after Jet Li knocks Jackie Chan down, he utters the phrase "No FOOL!!!" in the worst possible chinese accent ever. Hilarious.

Deadliest Bake

The trip to Illinois has been pretty good so far. Monday was just a massively long day of driving with the highlight being my getting my first speeding ticket ever for going 82 in a 65 zone. Strangely, they gave me the option to pay $75 cash and mail in the citation and within a year, it would be wiped from my record. Seems a bit sketchy but I'll take it.

Tuesday was more driving and visiting power plants. The setup went really well and the people were generally very happy with how the barcode scanners worked. The highlight of the day was lunch at this local restaurant. They offered such awesome food as the "Widowmaker" burger where they give you a living will with each meal. This burger was 2 patties piled high with bacon, dressing, cheese, and I presume fresh Kendall Lard or whatever it was. I ordered the chicken pot pie which was totally awesome. I couldn't even finish this pie because they packed sooo much stuff into it. The most ludicrous offering they had though was the 6 layer chocolate cake. This beast is literally 6 whole cake layers thick with frosting between each layer. I swear the oven is it's blood.

What is Rondo? and Why is it of Swords?

I have had a craving for a nice turn-based rpg (ala FF: Tactics style) for a while now, and Kira had told me about this SRPG. I had not really considered getting a DS at that point, but with the recent change in events, I decided to pick this game up.
One interesting little trick is that you don't actually "attack" enemies, rather, you set a course to move through them. It's a pretty unique system and one that I think should be employed by other games in the future.
Another nice thing about this game is the absolutely punishing difficulty. This is probably the ONLY game where I have lost repeatedly in the TUTORIAL missions. There is a in-battle save system, but it's not exploitable as the instant you save, it kicks you to the menu and the instant you load the in-battle save, the game deletes the save. However, being the masochistic, OCD gamer that I am, I absolutely love this.

Addendum: Well, turns out Rondo is the last movement of a sonata, so this can loosely be translated as A Symphony of Swords.

DS? PSP? DSP? DPS?

Want to get a handheld gaming device since I might be travelling a bit more for our Datasplice rollout. I heard Crisis Core was awesome for PSP, but Rondo of Swords and the larger selection of games makes the DS attractive as well. Suggestions? No, lugging around XBox360 everywhere I go isn't the best option =)

Ikaruga

Bullets....everywhere....

Operation Crawfish *

The crawfish boil this past weekend was awesome. Instead of actually boiling live crawfish, we decided on purchasing cooked crawfish from a local place called Seafood Shoppe. This place specialized in boiled seafood and BluPnutMM claimed they had the best crawfish she has ever had.


I was also able to get some cookies from a a privately owned bakery owned by a 13 year old girl. Her father works here and was passing out flyers in the lunch room. These cookies were both awesome and cheap (only $1.50 per dozen). I think I might bring like 10 dozen to VO4. =)

Besides eating crawfish, BluPnutMM also brought her Wii over. The Wii Olympics was pretty fun...although the shooting game was probably one of the more frustrating experiences I have had. Smash Brother's Brawl was really cool with my favorite being the Home run competition. There was also plenty of BANG!ing going on.

All in all, it was a lot of fun. Here's looking forward to the next one.

*DISCLAIMER* All crawfish involved were definitely harmed in the making of this operation.

Sick and Tired of VGI

Seriously, after years of using the Veggies pseudo-clan name, I am growing tired of it all. I mean what the heck is a Cucumbernator anyways? Some kinda lunatic cucumber? Anyways, I think it's time for a change. I propose reinventing ourselves as the CarneRou(4). This would be a total rebellion against all that is green and leafy. So onto proposed name changes:

GrapesOfWrath: Ohhh, I am shaking in my boots, a scary grape. This is just not intimidating enough, I say he becomes =CR= DeathBeef. Just looking at that name instills horror in opponents.

KiraTomato: A tomato..that is kira? No, just no, he needs to become =CR= ChickenDevastation. See, combining chicken with devastation? It even rhymes..sorta

Cucumbernator: A green squash is going to kill me...I quiver in fear. =CR= DemonLobster is more like it. If I don't kill you, my cholesterol content will.

Catnipped: Gets cats high? =CR= SlaughterCat. Much better, a homicidal cat. Very scary.

eLemonator: Tangy, but is it scary? No. =CR= PorkChop. Unsuspecting, but just when you least expect it, karate pig gets you.

theDragonFruitS: Anything is scarier when it's THE something, so =CR= theDoOmfriedShrimp. Keeps with the naming convention but also signifies the apocalypse.

SourTomator: What? Two tomatos? =CR= ExtraBacon. Ahh, now there's something that more of is always better.

jOrangeJuice: Teh Juice is LOOOOOOOSE!!!! =CR= GoatBlood. Just as runny, just as juicy but so much more repulsive!

MaizerBeam: One of the newer members and a vegetarian. =CR= SubstituteMeat. It's only fake in appearance, but just as potent as the others.

DataSix: Scary enough as is, I think it's fine. I mean...Data....Six...AHHHHHHHHHH!

Coop Crawfish Hunt

Attempting to host a crawfish boil this coming weekend. The plan is 50lbs of crawfish, giant propane boiling thing, and hopefully minimal explosions. Should be fun.

Ode to McMuffin

Much sadness in World
Egg McMuffin so tasty
the heart is crunchy

Rest well Herb, your legacy will live on in the drive-thrus throughout the US.

It helps you live longer!

Moral of the story: fight more! Make it a Mortal Kombat type of tournament for best results.

Expert Advice

Hamachi is cool and stuff, but we were having a heck of a time trying to get it to work with R6. Though we had made some progress, things were looking pretty bleak and we were on the verge of giving up when suddenly....*cue Huang Fei Hong music*..Catnipped, a member of the Canton Veggies and master of the No Shadow Click showed up. With some precision typing in google, Catnipped soon found the Ultimate Hamachi Gaming guide (I would link it, but I can't find it....) which proceeded to solve all our problems.
Catnipped had not acquired Rainbow 6 yet, so Kira and I celebrated for her by shooting some Tangos. I suffered from a bad bout of Grape-itis and kept chucking grenades at Kira...luckily, they were smoke grenades.

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Ahhh....this brings back fond memories...okay, good memories....maybe just decent memories....memories.....oh who am I kidding!! Nights wrought with frustration, anger, pillage, raze, obliterate.....WHAT DO YOU MEAN THE PRIEST HAS TO "WORK" TOMORROW!!!?? RAGS IS RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER!!!

Frog Eggs...Yum

My boss here at work is really cool and today, we convinced him to take the entire team to Chinatown for lunch. Surprisingly, NONE of my workers had ever been to Chinatown before so we obviously decided to go to one of the landmarks of chinese cuisine...House of Bowls!! My boss and a coworker both ordered the Chao Fen Singapore style (#41) and I had my usual (#104). They also ordered 2 orders of chicken wings, even though I warned them it was way too much food. They loved the food and afterwards, I suggested we try some Tapioca milk tea.

I was surprised that none of them had ever even heard of tapioca milk tea. This time, I did not make the mistake of referring to the awesome tapioca balls as frog eggs....Much apologies to RegiBlue. Most people I know find the somewhat slimy texture of the tapioca disturbing, but to my surprise, most of my coworkers loved it as well. All in all, I would say today was a totally unproductive day as the carb bombardment left us all in comas.

A Long Long Time ago.....

I was born!!! DUnnnnnnnnnnnn *insert Star Wars theme* Much thanks to BluPnutMM couple for hosting us in Austin this weekend. It was great fun as we played plenty of Bang! and Wii while also taking in some kayaking and even a bit of culture with a constipation concert.

Even our friend, a member of the Austin Symphony thought that this concert wasn't a very good program. He kept telling us that this concert felt like it was composed by some guy while he was sitting on the toilet. While the orchestra itself played beautifully, the pieces did leave much to be desired. The first and fourth pieces were particularly coma inducing while the "toilet" piece was actually one of the more interesting sounding ones. The third piece was actually pretty good as there was a fantastic piano soloist who kept us entertained because we could watch his fingers. We all agreed that if he so chose, the pianist could totally kick all of our butts at Smash Brothers.

The coolest part of the whole weekend was the birthday card that they got for me. It was totally Star Wars themed and on the front, it said "A Long long time ago...." When you open it, it says "You were born!" and starts playing the opening theme to Star Wars. Totally cool.

Austin for the weekend

It's off to Austin to spread the germs and get everyone sick! This weekend should be fun, as promises of Smash Bros. Brawl, and good food have been made. However, I feel this is just another trap to lure me there and get another credit card cancelled....

Sick..

Haven't gotten sick in a long time, but I can't say I have missed the runny nose, congestion, and annoying morning coughing fits. Best part is that since I can't actually smell anything, everything tastes like cardboard...mmmmm

Houston Pilum-AVRs

The Rockets have been awesome of late, winning their first 20 games of 60 in a row enroute to the championship. While I can lie and say that I always had faith in them and that my confidence in them never wavered, I must admit that I am seriously a bandwagon jumper. I totally rode them off as being doomed when Yao went down for the year.

MalapertMango however, has always had faith in the rockets. Of course, much of the Rockets' success can directly be contributed to her. Why is McGrady so awesome all of a sudden? Rafer Alston becoming Rafer All-star? Dikembe Mutumbo and his inspirational speeches? Let's just say these would all not be possible without Mrs. Mango.

This sunday presents a rather unique challenge though. While Mrs. Mango totally loves the Rockets, she also refers to a certain KB from the Lakers as her "husband." Will Mango resist the charms of KB and lead the Rockets to victory? Or will she go back to the arms of her former and leave the Rockets devastated? Tune in this sunday for this exciting episodes of All My Vegetables.

Armstrong Hotel

While training in Colorado, we are staying at the Armstrong Hotel. This hotel is totally awesome. It's got that historic feel (been around for over 100 years) but it has modern amenities. It's also rather cheap, about $115 a night for a suite which comes with a living room area, kitchenette set, and even a microwave. They also have this really cool 4 year old cat named Oreo who basically just wanders wherever he wants. He's not allowed inside the rooms for fear of people with allergies though. Often times, he is just curled up on the sofa in the lobby. He even took an elevator ride with me this morning.

The entire town of Fort Collins in general is a super awesome place. There are very few chain stores but there are many many mom and pop eateries, bars, breweries, etc. The whole town just has a homely feel to it. I almost feel as if this would be a wonderful place to live.

Three Kingdoms Comic

For those of you who enjoy anything Three Kingdoms related, here's a pretty amusing comic.

Lost Odyssey

Recently finished up Lost Odyssey. I loved the way the story was told and how they made the Dream sequences so enjoyable even though they were nothing more than text. The combat system felt really simplistic and because of that, only had rudimentary elements of strategy. Towards the end of the game, it basically boiled down to selecting the same sets of actions every battle. Perhaps I am judging it a bit harshly on the combat system since the last real RPG I played was Mass Effect which had real time combat. The character development was awesome though. You really got to know each and every one of the 9 characters you have with details going into their background and why they are who they are. Jansen in particular was probably the most enjoyable character in an RPG I have experienced. Each character was backed up with superb voice acting. The game difficulty started out pretty high, but as your immortals got more and more skills, the difficulty quickly became trivial. By the 3rd disc, they were basically unstoppable, immune to all statuses and elemental attacks.
Overall, Lost Odyssey is a great game. Its pace may be a little slow for people who want immediate satisfaction, but the end result is definitly worth the wait. Much thanks to Catnipped for acquiring a copy of Lost Odyssey! Hopefully, there will be many more free games to come =p