judyonthenet

Our gateway (the router/modem thingy from AT&T) bit the dust Friday night. Kelvin claims my torrents broke it, even though 1) I don’t download that much anymore now that I’m low on TVtorrents credits (because the router sucks and I can’t upload to get more credits), 2) my torrents weren’t on when it died, and 3) Kelvin was playing TF2 when the router bit the dust. It’s been dying a slow and painful death. It would die randomly, and we couldn’t configure the router because any attempt to reconfigure the router would cause it to reboot. This time around, we asked AT&T for just the modem, and we’ll stick to using Kelvin’s Time Capsule thingy to do all the router stuff. No more of this stupid 2wire gateway crap. I’ve noticed we’ve had less interruptions in the video streaming from my PC to the PS3. So either the Time Capsule is a much more reliable router, or our PS3 doesn’t like Mad Men as much as Dexter.

Since we have no internet, that means no Team Fortress 2. Instead, we actually left the apartment last weekend to get some errands done. Kelvin upgraded his iPhone. Well, technically I upgraded to an iPhone 3G S since it was time for me to renew my contract anyway, Kelvin paid the $200 for the upgrade, he took my iPhone 3G S, and gave me his old iPhone 3G. So now I have an iPhone, which is pretty nice. Except I don’t have internet access, so I can’t download iTunes on my PC to sync it. I haven’t messed with it much because I’m not sure if syncing it up will delete anything. Seems functional so far. Feel free to recommend me any (free) apps.

We also dropped by Fry’s to get an external hard drive to encode all the wedding footage, so that is FINALLY done. Because of the heat, we’ve been staying away from the bedroom, where all the computers generate tons of heat. So Kelvin hasn’t edited the footage, and I didn’t play that many PC games. The living room isn’t much better, with the consoles and television also generating a lot of heat. At least the A/C is in the vicinity of the living room. We watched a lot of the second season of Dexter, and most of the gaming for the weekend was Dr. Mario showdowns. (I won a small majority of games with default settings, but when we set the game to have only 4 viruses to get rid of, I’d pretty much get owned by Kelvin.)

Nooo, so close…!

We could have been more productive, but the heat made us lazy. We unfortunately didn’t do any of the massive mountain of dirty laundry in our bedroom. We did make the effort to see some family. We dropped by Keni’s place and watched the nieces play in the pool; Kelvin and I were bums and didn’t feel like swimming. We also had dinner with my mom at PSK. Overall, a decent weekend where 80% of the time wasn’t spend in front of our computer screens.

I don’t have my card reader at work, so I can’t upload pics. I’ll upload pics whenever I get the chance (which is probably when we get our modem).

New thing I learned today: “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra” is a metaphor from the (Star Trek TNG alien race) Tamarians’ language, referring to a situation where two heroes must unite to fight a common foe.

Kelvin likes this weird Star Trek TNG techno song:

He also likes the “Darmok” episode where the “Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra” phrase comes from, so we watched it on Youtube because I had no idea what he was talking about.

Kelvin is considering getting an iPhone 3G S, and if he does, I get his iPhone. He hasn’t gotten it tho, but I do have an iPod Touch I can surf internet in bed with. I don’t have any DS or PSP games I feel like playing, so now I surf internet until I pass out. Kelvin is usually next to me doing the same thing with his iPhone. (Yes, we’re dorks.) He’s been sharing some interesting stuff with me.

I’m at work right now waiting for tests to finish running, so I’ll share a couple Youtube vids that I like at the moment…

Kelvin and I are still playing tons of TF2. It kinda pervades our thoughts all the time, kinda scary. An internet meme I wasn’t aware of is music made from TF2 audio samples. It’s usually just the scout’s “bonk” over and over again. However, I’m partial to this TF2 F-Zero one because of its ridiculous editing:

I haven’t seen Wolverine, but this 30 second rendition of the movie is excellent:

He has pretty good Star Trek and Terminator: Salvation shorts, as well.

New thing I learned today: That song you hear in all the trailers about people suffering through enormous tragedy but then overcoming it triumphantly and with perseverance is from the original soundtrack of Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story.

You know, THAT song.

(The recognizable part starts like a minute in.)

Sunday, November 23rd, 2008

Starting from this day and for the rest of my honeymoon days (except maybe the last two), my body followed a regular routine:

1. Morning – Feeling pretty okay, I must be getting better! Ready to enjoy a new day of New Zealand
2. Later morning – Sore throat/coughing/other cold symptoms begin, start drinking water and using up tissues incessantly
3. Lunch – Brief respite by consuming foods and beverages
4. Afternoon – Body feeling fatigued and getting warm, continue to drink water/sports drinks and using up tissues, nap in hotel room under influence of cold medicine
5. Evening – Find decent place to eat, barely eat anything because of complete loss of appetite and general feeling like shit
6. Night – Fever in full blast, constant coughing and throat pain wakes me up repeatedly throughout the evening, eventually manage enough sleep to start the whole damn cycle again

Not to spoil the rest of my honeymoon posts, but repeat that cycle, like, 7 times more. That pretty much summarizes my honeymoon. Some days (like this day) may be lacking in pictures and good recollection because I felt terrible and we really didn’t do that much as I tried to recover. I felt bad for Kelvin, who was a very good new husband and took great care of me the entire time. I’ve heard that women often get sick on their honeymoon because their immune system is less-than-optimal after the stresses of wedding planning, note to future brides: take care of yourself before the wedding!

During my hotel bookings, different hotels would have different perks offered on different days at different prices. Often times value was maximized with breakfast included, and this morning was one of those days. It was part of the “Lobby Breakfast Express” special, but when we went to the lobby, the breakfast area was full. Because of this, the staff directed us to the hotel’s breakfast restaurant, The Terrace, to fulfill our breakfast needs. We had a little difficulty finding it; it’s kind of hidden away on the 4th or so floor. The Terrace is a breakfast buffet restaurant, and with the freebie breakfast, we could help ourselves to any of the cold foods. There was a nice assortment of cereal, yogurts, pastries, and fruits to help ourselves to.

Display of grains

It was on this New Zealand trip I found out that Kelvin rather likes toast for breakfast. For just about every breakfast, he’d always help himself to toast, with both butter and jam. I only eat toast with butter, no jam. I never heard of eating toast with both butter and jam, so I thought this was different. Maybe I just don’t eat toast enough.

Kelvin enjoying toast with jam and butter

I can’t exactly remember when, but we went to the SkyCity casino either at this time or later in the afternoon (or both). The casino area has security guys checking ID at the entrance, and they seemed to be insistent on people not taking pictures, so I didn’t bother taking my camera out. There’s like 1.5 floors of casino, with most being slot machines with tables in the middle. Very similar to anything you’d find in Nevada, except every dealer was Chinese for some reason. (I wonder if it was run by some New Zealand triad.) Minimums were very cheap at 5NZD (so, like $3), so we wandered around looking for the craps table. Much to our dismay, the casino has no craps tables. I guess it’s not big in New Zealand. Instead, we tried our luck at blackjack. We did okay; we were both down in the end, but we played for a very long time. The casino was promoting some sort of drawing, saying you needed a casino card in order to enter. (The lady announcing it was an American, from California even!) We signed up for our cards, but we needed to play points. Not understanding how it worked, we gave it a shot at the roulette table. I’ve never really watched people play roulette before. Some people are pretty bent on their strategies, splitting their cash all over the board. I spread my money out along with all the other folks and waited for the spin. F*cking 00. I spat out a very unhappy “Wow.”, which was repeated by the Chinese dealer in jest as he cleared off everyone’s money, mocking all us losers. I determined right then that roulette is as lame as it looks, and that it’s worst casino game in existence. I think we lost more here than in blackjack, and we were only there for 5 minutes! When we went to card machine to check our points, we discovered the points must be based on time, cuz we both only had 5 lousy points. Too bad we didn’t have our cards for blackjack.

Kelvin had been saying he wanted to eat lobster ever since the wedding; he really liked the lobster that was served at the reception by Hong Fu. Because of this, we headed towards the harbor for lunch, where my guide books had said several highly rated seafood restaurants were located. There’s a free shuttle that goes around downtown Auckland, and we used this for a convenient ride to the waterfront.

Underneath SkyTower waiting for the shuttle

We walked along the harbo(u)r, looking for good eats. We passed by several restaurants, but not one of them served lobster! At this point, I was beginning to feel ill again. We stopped at a convenience store to buy water and tissues. We also stop by an i-Site (New Zealand visitor centers located EVERYWHERE in the country) to ask about restaurants, but none of the ones suggested had lobster. We ended up settling for crayfish at Harbourside Seafood Bar and Grill, located inside the local landmark, the Ferry Building.

Kelvin looks like a meh teenager in front of the Ferry Building.
I imagine my future children will look like this when they bitch
about me forcing them to be in every picture.

The place is a bit fancy-shmancy, so I made sure to order seafood instead of what I’d usually get (red meat of some sorts) to see what fancy-shmancy seafood tastes like. I’m not a big seafood person (neither is Kelvin), but honestly, I’ve never really tried any seafood in any sort of hardcore manner, except for sashimi. We both ordered soup. I got the seafood chowder, which was really… seafood-y. I tried to finish it, but it was a lot and overwhelmingly… seafood-y. (I really can’t think of a better word.) Plus, my appetite was shot from being sick.

For entrees, we got a 1/2 crayfish and the seafood platter. We only got 1/2 of a crayfish because, well, crayfish is pretty damn expensive. The crayfish combo with seafood platter seemed reasonable, allowing us to try a variety of seafood. According to menu listed on the website, the seafood platter is:

Harbourside Seafood Platter
Sashimi, Sushi, Oysters, Prawn Mayonnaise, Smoked Salmon, Scampi, Grilled Fish, Scallops, Steamed Mussels, Thai Fish Cake, Pipi, Cockle, Garlic Prawns, Chilli Squid

The seafood platter

So, this seafood platter turned out to be a huge mistake. I mean, I have no doubts that we were given high quality seafood worth its New Zealand dollar. It’s just that it turns out, Kelvin and I really aren’t seafood people. I think the only thing I could tolerate were the fish items. Again, every VERY seafood-y and fishy. We both had a really hard time with the shellfish. I could only get through a couple mussels, and there were lots of them, so many were wasted. I don’t even know what was up with that crab cake, cuz it was grosser than any of the half cooked creatures on the platter. Mind you, I actually like crab cake, mainly the East Coast/Baltimore variety. This meal made me feel terrible for two reasons: 1) we were wasting such expensive food and 2) I was getting barfy from trying to eat all of it. Kelvin said his crayfish was okay, but it was closer to a giant shrimp than a lobster.

So much wasted :(

After lunch, we decided to walk back to the hotel instead of taking the shuttle since it wasn’t that far. On the way, we dropped by one of the many shopping centers in downtown. In fact, it was a Westfield shopping center centre! There was a giant ornament in the front of the mall for Christmas spirit, I guess. It’s strange how Australia and New Zealand celebrate Christmas. Everything is still decorated with winter themes, even though it’s summer during their Christmas season. It’s always winter in the North Pole, so it’s not really a stretch. I just never associated summer with Christmas and Santa Claus.

Large ornament in front of Westfield

In the mall, the first place we went to was a pharmacy. I bought cough syrup, throat gargle, and more tissues and water. We bought a poker card box with a kiwi on it from one of the souvenir stands to give to Kelvin’s mom. (Now that I think about it… we still have that box!) We stopped at the food court to grab a soda before heading back to the hotel room. I think we walked back to the hotel, but I’m not sure. We also might have dropped by the casino at this time, but I don’t remember.

We spent the rest of the evening in the hotel, with me sick in bed. I drank a lot of fluids and used a lot of tissues while watching a lot of television. Like I said in the last honeymoon post, I ended up watching a lot of movies on cable channels during this trip, as most of the regular television was from America. (I think we even caught an episode of CSI: Miami one night!) I can’t remember what I watched tonight. I think I saw parts of Walk the Line and determined Johnny Cash was a jerk.

If I wasn’t feeling like turd, I would have had dinner at dine by Peter Gordon, the hotel’s restaurant. Instead, we ordered room service, which I generally like since it makes me feel pampered and extra lazy. The unfortunate thing was that the room service food was terrible. I would say this was definitely my least favorite meal of the trip. I had gotten a simple spaghetti with meat sauce, but the sauce was bitter, lacking flavor, and yucky. Kelvin’s burger and chips were terrible too, but I can’t remember why.

Looks better than it tastes

I think we finished the Lord of the Rings trilogy on Kelvin’s laptop and moved on to finishing the first season of Flight of the Conchords. At some point, I took a shower and found out that my shoulders, which were painfully sunburnt (contributing to my many physical miseries and often made worse by my purse’s strap), had begun peeling and looked disgusting. Luckily, all my shirts were sleeved, sparing New Zealanders of my grossly splotchy shoulders.

Previously, Honeymoon Day 5 – Vinaka Fiji, and kia ora New Zealand!
Next, Honeymoon Day 7 – Hitting the road (on the left side)

New thing I learned today: Lobsters and crayfish are similar crustaceans, with lobsters being marine creatures and crayfish being freshwater creatures and smaller. However, in Australia and New Zealand, the term “crayfish” is used for a saltwater spiny lobster indigenous to the region. Freshwater crayfish are instead called “yabby” (indigenous Australian) or “koura” (New Zealand Maori).

So, Kelvin technically did have lobster! Spiny lobsters have no claws, apparently.

Kelvin and I went to watch Up at the Camera 7 in Campbell with Ravi, Jess, and Avery last Friday night. Ravi helped us get tickets, we had dinner in the Pruneyard, and went straight to the theater right after we finished. We still had a good 45 minutes until our 9:15PM showing. There was a short rope line by the door, and we were told by staff to form a line by this rope. Originally, we were the only ones standing there, but as time passed, a formidable line formed behind us. For the entire wait, people would ask us what we were waiting for, since we were at the front of the line.

I was trying to get a pic of the line, but instead I get this blindingly white pasty
face on the bottom. At least the lady behind us has a decent pic :P

I thought it was a little ridiculous to make us wait in line for a movie when it wasn’t opening weekend. Even tho it was a June evening, it got cool quickly. Jess was getting cold, because she didn’t want to bother with a jacket, as we were expecting to go in any minute. 15 minutes prior to movie start, we still weren’t let in. At this point, even I was getting cold in my hoodie. 10 minutes before, everybody in line was getting antsy. I saw a couple people go inside and ask if they were in the right place. We kept waiting and waiting until showtime passed. We STILL weren’t let in. We made plans to take the center of center seats. The staff finally let us in a few minutes after showtime, and even tho we were at the front of the line, we rushed to the theater just in case.

We walked in, and there were already 10-15 people in the theater. WHAT THE F*CK, CAMERA 7? You make us wait in line for no reason, and you let people who sneaked in the theater stay before folks who waited in line. F*cking asinine. Of course, all the center rows, center seats are taken. We went to an optimal row, where some jerkwad was saving two seats aside from his own in the center and keep us from taking them. I said something stern/irked along the lines of “No way! We waited in line!”, while Kelvin was more chill/obnoxious, like “It’s cool, we waited in line” and sat in one of the seats he was saving. I’m glad this guy wasn’t feeling particularly entitled to argue with us as he let Kelvin take the seat, tho I think he later realized he was being a dick, as he asked Kelvin if the staff had really told us to wait in line. I’m willing to bet he saw the line, but chose to not inquire about it to feign ignorance when sneaking into the theater and taking seats early. I was still pissed; because of this guy who cut the line, Ravi and Jess and Avery weren’t particularly centered. Kelvin and I tried to give our seats to Ravi, who got us the tickets in the first place, but he wouldn’t take them. Whether or not that guy is a jerk, this stupidness is totally Camera 7’s fault. They should have just cleared the theater before letting people in. Seriously, what was point of the damn line??? I feel a complaint letter coming on…

Eventually, everything settled, and they finally started showing stuff on the screen. We were watching a 3D showing, so the ticket office had given us these dorky sunglasses-looking 3D specs to wear. The 3D took some time to adjust to; most of the trailers looked kinda blurry to me. I guess it’s good to let your eyes adjust during crappy trailers instead of the actual movie. The animated short shown before Up was Partly Cloudy. It’s a cute short film, with an interesting spin on creationism. Then it was finally time for Up.

Prior to seeing the Up, I had only seen the teaser trailer, its RottenTomatoes rating, and comments from my friends about how sad it was, so I knew Up was a really good film about a guy who’s house floats away in balloons with emotional moments. And that’s pretty much what it was… except I had no idea the movie had talking dogs! Talking dogs automatically make this movie awesome. I loved how they made them talk while maintaining their doggy mannerisms. Dug is, by far, my favorite character; he’s so adorable and hilarious! Actually, I really liked all the protagonists in the film. I think Pixar did a good job developing the characters and making us feel attached to them.

The things that happen in the film are pretty ridiculous, especially when you consider you have an elderly man and an 8-year-old as the main characters in an action adventure. And *slight spoiler alert on the antagonist* the bad guy has to be at least 90 something years old! All the crazy things they do, somebody should have broken a hip. And Carl (the main character) spends most of the movie dragging a house around! The movie lives up to its name, with many action sequences taking place up in the air. Pixar did a pretty decent job giving the viewer a sense of height. As a person who’s afraid of falling, I found myself a little anxious during some of the high altitude scenes. Watching the film in 3D was neat (reminds me of pop-up books), but I think about halfway through the movie I forgot about it because I was too enthralled with the flim. Ravi later told me it made his eyes hurt. The trailers showed the next Toy Story movie is going to be in 3D; I hope this isn’t a gimmick that Pixar is going to bank on.

Despite all its goofiness (house flying to South America using balloons, talking dogs, fistfighting elderly men), the film is surprisingly poignant. Like many other people, I did tear up a few times. Carl’s backstory is particularly touching and relatable, assuming you are (or were at some point) in a long term monogamous relationship. The film really takes you on an emotional roller coast, and I think it’s because of this, Up is definitely one of my top Pixar films. My favorite is currently The Incredibles. I haven’t figured out if I like Up more than The Incredibles, but it’s sure awful close.

New thing I learned today: Dug is voiced by the co-director of the film, Bob Peterson.

Another year, another E3 I didn’t attend. Been busy at work too, so I didn’t watch any of the conferences from the Big 3 this year. I did read up on announcements tho, so here’s what I’m looking forward to:

1. The Last Guardian (PS3) – My favorite game for PS2 is Shadow of the Colossus, so I’ve been dying for a new game from the same team. The game’s existence has been rumored for a while as Project Trico, but it was finally confirmed and given an official name at the Sony press conference. I WANT THIS. I don’t care if the doggy/kitty/bird/dragon is freaky looking.

2. Modern Warfare 2 (multiplatform, but I want it for 360) – I don’t know if I should count stuff I knew about before E3… I’ll count it anyway. CoD4 was my 2nd favorite game on 360 (second to Fallout), so I’m really looking forward to the sequel.
3. The Beatles: Rock Band (multiplatform, but I want it for 360) – When I first heard about the bundle, I scoffed at the idea. A ridiculous $250 price tag for more stupid instruments, and it’s only for one band’s music? Must be lame! Then I saw the intro to the game:

Okay, the intro doesn’t really have much to do with the actual game, but damn, it’s so freaking awesome. Watching the gameplay footage, I was reminded of how great and catchy Beatles songs are again. I think I may be sold on this game, stupid price or not.
4. Metroid: Other M (Wii) – I’m not a Metroid fan, but I thought the footage they showed was pretty interesting and exciting. I also think it was kind of a surprise. With Team Ninja developing the game, however, I am slightly worried for Samus’ boobies.
5. Metal Gear Solid: Rising (multiplatform, but I want it for PS3) and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (PSP) – It’s MGS games with Kojima’s help and seal of approval… of course I’m interested!

What I’m not interested in:
1. Project Natal, or the PS3 Motion Controller – Nintendo already beat you guys to it, give it up. And that Natal video was a joke. Maybe these things have potential, but I’m really not buying it at the moment. I’m all gimmicked out.
2. Facebook and Twitter on 360 – Why are people excited about this? I’m not going to look at Facebook and Twitter on my 360 when 80% of my life is spent in front of a computer. And I’m so friggin’ sick of hearing about microblogging… especially Twitter!
3. Left 4 Dead 2 – It’s just too soon.

I tried to find my E3 post from last year, but as it turns out… I never posted it! I even still have the draft of it: “E3 2008 – Highlights and conclusions of the Big 3″. I was doing a rundown of all the conferences, but I only made it through the Microsoft one. I guess I was busy. I have 11 drafts of posts sitting here. I’ll figure out what to do with them eventually.

New thing I learned today: “Taxman” and “Here Comes the Sun” were written by George Harrison.

I’m not familiar with a lot of Beatles songs, but I liked all of the Beatles songs I heard in the trailers with the exception of those two. I guess George Harrison’s stuff isn’t my thing.