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