I've adapting a lot of Taoism into my personal philosophy over the past few years, but this could be an interesting situation.

Looking at the flow of my life, I see a big decision coming, one which could significantly alter my course through the universe. I do my best not to think about it - to shut it out of my mind and continue living in the present, but I've always had my head in the future.

In all honesty, I've never actually had to make a choice like this before - one where the two options are so closely balanced. Wu wei has always led me to a natural and beneficial conclusion in the end, and has yet to steer me wrong. The difference here is I don't see how wu wei is going to help, but then, I suppose that trying to dissect Tao is going to get me nowhere fast.

I guess I will have to hope that when the time comes the right choice will be obvious.

I am tired.

Somehow in this November/December timeframe I always have a lot more to do. With work getting increasingly busy, my rising workout intensity, playing bass for Super Squidy (third Google result, woot!), and a resurgence in my social life, everything is starting to take a toll on me. The weird thing about it is that I don't remember ever feeling so completely fulfilled. I wonder how much harder I can push myself before it all becomes too much; I bet I can still do more.

I am tired - but life is good.

Oh, and if you weren't aware, I have the biggest party ever at home (watch your volume).

As Gabe & Tycho have so accurately pointed out, we find ourselves in a dire situation - there are simply too many good games to play. For a time I thought I would be immune to this, but I too have succumbed.

Are all three games I'm playing sequels? Yes, but that doesn't make them bad. In fact, I picked the three most promising titles to fritter away my precious spare time. All RPGs, but only one turn-based one. My interests have been steering more towards action RPGs in the past few years, and it is starting to show in the games I choose. But Mother 3 is so excellent - a dark, intense story-line presented in the fun, light style of Earthbound.

I finished the main storyline of Fable II (I picked the Love ending, by the way), and so most of my console time is now being devoted to Fallout 3.

Tags: fallout 3, mother 3, fable 2

I don't mean the kind you get in the grocery store.

I used this recipe for the dough and a modified version of this recipe for the filling. I need an actual cookie cutter to make them better, these came out highly irregular, but still delicious - surprisingly a lot better than store-purchased pasta. Next step is to get a pasta maker so that I don't have to roll out the dough by hand, and so that I can make noodles.

Since it's now going to be immortalized in the blog, it's not going in my recipe wiki.

If you don't believe me, try it.

Yay. My previous goal of 30:00 was met some time ago. It was pretty hard to make it this time. I would love to reach 20 minutes for 5k, but that works out to 9 miles per hour. Can I run that fast?

Tags: running

Finished my first run-through of the game. Did it as the Commando.

Though Ben Croshaw (not safe for work) is spot-on in picking out issues with the playing the game, it was still really fun. I think it took me about 15 hours, and it got a lot easier towards the end as I discovered all of the power in the Commando class. I think next time I will play as a Berserker. Only read more if you care about this game:

As a ranged-weapon specialist I always had a lot of trouble dealing with hordes of enemies. While I could shoot and immobilize one of them, the other would keep getting closer, and the Commando really can't use melee weapons effectively. Finally I realized the power of my battle cry, which gave me extremely high ballistic knockback. I combined this with a rifle that had +100% ballistic air juggle. The result was that I could fire at a bunch of enemies, knock them all away from me, then shoot each one up in the air the finish it off. The battle cry also added knockback to my Commando's grenades, so that each one would send enemies flying off of ledges and into the air.

Tags: Too Human, xbox

The new Microsoft Ad "I'm a PC" is actually pretty cool. I use Macs at home, and the commercial isn't going to change my mind, but it was great. It stays on-message for Microsoft's new campaign (which I enjoy), and I really like the background music.

Tags: microsoft, ads

There's this really great website, which I can only describe as a social networking saving application. Get a great interest rate (currently 3.9% APY), share your savings goals, and have a really pretty website that helps make saving more fun.

I recently had a little problem because of…over-zealous saving…that required me to call up smartypig. There was no hold time and they were immediately able to address my concerns. This is by far the best customer service I've ever had when dealing with a bank.

Tags: smartypig, websites-that-rock, banking

I wonder if this is going to weird anyone out.

Does anyone else randomly feel this strange sensation of happiness? It's not exactly contentment, more a sense of joy that comes from the unknown myriad possibilities that the future offers. Do people feel this way all the time, I wonder? I usually have this experience daily, at times ranging from 7PM to 1AM. I tend to let the sensation wash over me - I never force it, but I never fight it, either.

I think it's weird, but maybe it's normal to feel happy for no good reason...

Tags: happy, feeling

It's not a great time, and you can probably do better, but it's better than my last time of 28:40.

Tags: running

I don't like most soups, but this was amazing. I didn't have any sausages around, so I made some turkey meatballs (much healthier). The combination of ingredients was great.

Side note: I know that Yahoo does pretty much everything, but is anyone else surprised by Yahoo! Food ?

Tags: cooking, soup

I was going to write a review of the critically-maligned Too Human, but this review pretty much sums up my feelings.

One correction, they discuss what Loki's crime is, but if you're not paying attention you would miss it.

Tags: Too Human, xbox

Hmm...I guess a lot of my recent posts have been about gaming...

In the last few years, there have been surprisingly few games that I have actually played to completion. The only ones I remember are every Phoenix Wright game and Mass Effect, all of which I thoroughly enjoyed. Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney is technically a Phoenix Wright (Gyakuten Saiban) game, but it's nice to be in control of a different character for the vast majority of gameplay.

Overall, it was a fun game, but honestly the characters were not nearly as endearing as those from the previous iterations, and this has nothing to do with it. When I was finished, I was still left wanting more, like there were too many mysteries left unresolved. Maybe that's a good thing, as I'll be even more eager to play the next game in the series. As far as gameplay is concerned, there were significant reductions in the pain points I traditionally felt with the older games - investigations are easier, and there are fewer occasions where I have no idea what to do or where to go.

Any fans of the series or genre (all 5 of us) should definitely play this game. Though to do it right you will be best off starting from the beginning with the first Phoenix Wright game.

Tags: phoenix wright, apollo justice

Ugh.

Interaction with the environment is much easier in the Mac version, since you can just click on an object. Unfortunately I didn't see a way to move my character around using the keyboard, which meant I had to keep click on where I wanted him to go...a little annoying, but that meant it was much harder to get your character stuck in some space. Be prepared to click a lot, though, pathfinding AI is horrible. For example, my character couldn't figure out how to move around a box that was on the floor.

Also unfortunately, I don't see a way to fight enemies without clicking first on the attack to be used and then clicking on the enemy. I think the fluid nature of combat on the 360 was one of the things that made it so enjoyable.

Oh well, I might still buy it...

Tags: mac, penny-arcade

Dearest Gabe & Tycho, I know you're never going to read this, and it is that knowledge which lets me write what I'm about to write. Having a little spare time today, I downloaded the trial version of this game via XBox Live Arcade. I had seen some of the gameplay videos, and was thoroughly looking forward to trying it out for myself.

Would that I could undo the following hour and the resultant disillusionment.

I'm a big fan of Penny Arcade and also a fan of video games. Given the involvement of Gabe & Tycho on the art and writing, I looked forward to both of these aspects, and was not disappointed. However, I personally found the gameplay insufferable. The mechanics of the world are enjoyable, with a fluid (albeit slightly hectic for me) combat system, and much of the polished jokes and effects that do a great job of setting the mood. I only played for about 45 minutes, but I'm assuming that encounters become either more random or more avoidable. What made gameplay unenjoyable for me was what I can only describe as a lack of polish. I had the exact same object interaction problems in this game as I do in Lost Odyssey. It's practically impossible for me to be in just the right spot on the map and facing just the right angle to get to talk to that person or inspect that trash can. Within the first 20 minutes of gameplay, I ended getting stuck behind a row of bushes, and only managed to get my character out after about 5 minutes of joystick wiggling - an extremely frustrating experience. If you don't want users to deal with this, either don't let us explore all 4 corners of your artwork, or just let us walk through the freakin' bushes, guys! I've played MMO's with fewer character sticking issues!

Well this might prove a valuable lesson to someone somewhere: No matter how good you think you've developed your game (or application), your users will figure out a way to break it or make it do something unintended. What's important is not just fixing these problems, but figuring out how to gracefully handle these situations as they arise out in the field. Preferably you're smart and add routines to predict when your game is in a bad state and take care of it dynamically, so that you don't have to keep releasing patch upon patch for games when you'd rather be working on the next one.

Well anyway, I'll try out the Mac version, and I'll post if I experience anything significantly different. I wonder what Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw would have to say about this particular title...

Tags: xbox

I've been thinking about this for a while and I've come to realize that on the road I tend to be a lot "nicer" to some cars than others. Here's a small list:

Cars I tend to be especially nice to:

• Volkswagens, particularly VW Jettas. Is it because I find them especially feminine?
• Most Nissans and Infinitis, except for Idan Beck (sorry). They're like my car's cousins.
• Those really, really old cars, where you feel like giving the driver a break

Cars I tend to be much, much less nice to:

• Toyota Priuses (Priusi?). I know it's not true but I still feel like every Prius driver has this sense of entitlement.
• BMW and Lexus cars, depending on the model. I really don't know why.
• People who seem like they might be interested in changing lanes, but haven't signaled. As far as I'm concerned they are going to stay in their traffic lane. Signal, people! It makes it clear to everyone else what your intentions are.

Okay, my rant's done.

I just finished assembling my first Freeduino board, based on the Arduino platform, but a little cheaper and with some slightly more convenient components. I think this might be the first time that I have soldered something together or apart without burning myself in some way. I guess that means that I'm getting better at this. I'm excited by all of the nefarious possibilities that an easy-to-use microcontroller like this one puts in my hands. Let's see what happens.

So this might be an easy task for many of you, but for the first time ever I managed to run 5K (3 miles) in 30 minutes. Yay!

So after attending the Seether and Flyleaf Concert on Wednesday (which was awesome), I was already set up to spend the next week or so really excited. Attending Startup School 08 only served to leave me feeling especially amped. The speakers were all great, of course, but the related events I attended the night before and after the conference were really the crown jewels of the weekend for me. Talking to so many people who have been working on their startups, and hearing the passion in their souls as they told me about it was incredibly inspiring. I left feeling like "I can do this, or I can at least try. If I never try, I'll never know what might have happened."

I'm hopeful, motivated, and excited.

Sigh...

So congratulations to all of the other people out there that graduated this month. You made it, good job!

I'll be starting at Microsoft in mid-August, and will be flying out to San Jose on July 25. This means I have a bit of time before leaving New York, and there are a few things I plan to do in that time:

1. Get my Learner's Permit, again (Done!)
   
2. Get my Driver's License, finally
   
3. Spend time with my parents, which I haven't done for several years
   
4. Spend time with my sister and brother-in-law
   
5. Catch up on my reading list, it's been growing longer and longer
   

I'm sure other things will come up and with a list of this size I'll have time to do some other fun things.

Well, I made it back last night. I've been too exhausted to think about posting, but over the next few days I will be posting entries from the journal I kept over the last week as well as the pictures that I took.

My sister will be arriving tomorrow morning, so I will be updating the blog some time after we return. These entries will be backdated, so just look at the entries from the start of January to read them.

Since we are at about 8°N latitude, we are smack dab in the tropics here, and life in the tropics is quite different…

We boarded a ferry and set out for adventure. The ferry was really full, to the level of being downright bursting. Fortunately the ride is only about 5 minutes.

We first went to the Swami Vivekananda Memorial. It's really a beautiful memorial to someone who is so important to many Indians' spirituality. I plan to add a photo album with more pictures. However photography was not allowed inside the buildings, so I don't have that many.

The statue was a wonderful sight, and we climbed the stairs all the way up the observation tower. This statue is 133 feet, in recognition of 133 short poems that Tiruvalluvar wrote Read More...

Today was a day largely devoted to travel, like most of the days were on this all-to-brief trip.

We visited the tourism office today, and were helped by a very nice Madrasi woman named Uma Devi. Read More...

Our South Indian adventure begins with a torrent of confusion. Our flight to Chennai was scheduled to depart at 10:30, so we left home a little after 8:30; plenty of time to get there, check in, and board the pane. Of course, things are never so simple, especially not where airports are concerned. Read More...

Happy New Year! At this point almost everyone on the planet has entered 2007, with some stragglers in Alaska and the Pacific Islands.

Sorry for not writing anything for such a long time, but I had a very good reason. Read More...

Associated album here. I suggest looking at the album while reading this post.

So today we went to one of Delhi's oldest markets, Chandni Chowk ("The moon intersection"). There is a lot of shopping to be done for the wedding, especially with respect to clothes, and so we were off. After a fun and crazy ride in an autorickshaw, we arrived in the market area. Unless you have been to India, you have never experienced a market like this one. Read More...

At the very least, I suppose it's a good thing that my uncle has DSL in his home. The big problem with it is that I only get out 30KB/s to the US, so many of my routine tasks (reading engadget, checking e-mail, publishing this blog) can take a long time to complete, especially if I do all of them at the same time!

I also find it hilarious how poorly written the articles that I wrote on the plane are. I'm going to leave them uncorrected to document this.

Since it is still Saturday somewhere in the world, here is my pick for SotW. Smultron (free, GPL) is a useful, full-featured text editor, with features that emphasize writing code. For the Linux/KDE-heads out there, I would compare it to be most similar to Kate, but without the integrated terminal. Read More...

Hi everybody. I'm making this post extremely offline, way up somewhere over France on my way from Paris to New Delhi. Read More...

I must admit, I'm quite a fan of the folks at Woot, and I am impressed with their Woot du jour: a 20 GB Playstation 3! They even threw in free shipping before Christmas. Wow. I had the option to purchase one (actually got the page loaded at 1:01AM), but it wouldn't really make any sense for me, at least at this time.

Just had my last final for the semester, and it went really well. Now I need to relax for a while then pack for my trip.

Woohoo!