judyonthenet

One of Kelvin’s Youtube videos was linked in the Steam forums, so it got a buncha views from TF2 folks in like a 1 hour period.

Here’s an explanation for folks who know nothing about Team Fortress 2. Kelvin (the perspective you’re seeing) is a medic, and medics have a medigun that shoots happy beams of healings to hurt teammates. When you point your crosshair on a teammate, you can see their health levels. Kelvin sees a soldier in the red for health, meaning he’s close to death, so he goes to start healing him.

The soldier, who knows he’s near death, is running towards a health kit, which is the teal and white box next to the sign that all of a sudden disappears. Health packs don’t magically disappear, so obviously a cloaked/invisible spy has taken the health. Spies are sneaky and bad; they can disguise as teammates as well as be invisible, and they can 1-hit kill anybody with a backstab. Spies create panic, and the soldier shoots the last spot he knew where the spy was, which is next to the sign. There’s no friendly fire in Team Fortress 2, but soldiers get hurt by their own rockets because rockets help boost them to jump great heights. Forgetting why he came to the spot in the first place (health pack for low health) and not aware of the distance between him and the sign, he shoots the sign (which ironically has a skull and crossbones) and causes enough friendly fire damage to kill himself, even with a medic healing him. The spy never even noticed the soldier; he was already behind the building by the time he blew himself up. (I know this cuz the spy was Ted. That troublemaker! *shakes fist*)

You like how I wrote an essay for a 5 second clip? It’s small things like this that make Team Fortress 2 so amusing. It’s also the reason why Kelvin and I started regularly recording our sessions, and it’s why we bought Fraps, so we can share these moments on teh interwebs. I was recording at the time of the clip as well. You can watch me (and the pyro I was healing) die from Ted’s backstabs before he went and grabbed the health kit.

I posted that as a video response to Kelvin’s video. I feel so cool!

New thing I learned today: A “teabagger” is an ultraconservative who protests the Obama administration, but doesn’t understand what they’re protesting.

To show how ignorant I am of politics, apparently there’s been “tea party” protests in protest of the Obama administration, and some folks have gone to label some of these protesters “teabaggers”. Before, I was only aware of the video game term (and the, um, real life equivalent). Someone on CAG pointed out this teabagger site, which I thought was hilarious. The best one, though not actually a teabagger, has to be this one:

Not for long tho. It’s hot right now, and this damn thing is like thermal hat. I took this picture with my iPhone to send to Kelvin. Only took me THIRTY tries to get a picture that wasn’t completely blurry and where both my head and the entire hat was actually in the picture. A self-portrait with that thing is really difficult.

I am super excited to get this hat, which was a pre-order bonus for Scribblenauts (AKA most hyped up game of 2009) from GameStop. Toys’R'Us actually had an AWESOME deal on this game yesterday and yesterday only: buy Scribblenauts for $30, get a $15 Toys’R'Us gift card. I didn’t partake in the because this hat just rocks so much that I’m willing to pay full price for something. TRU also had an okay deal for Mario & Luigi, but I’m hoping Scribblenauts will keep me preoccupied enough so that I won’t just impulsively buy it.

Anyway, I can’t wait for Kelvin to come home to see him wear it. Maybe I should find my nieces and stick this on them.

Edited 9/21 to add: Hehe, I got Kelvin to wear it. He looks SO cute, especially while he’s wearing his nerdy driving glasses and making a grumpy face.

New thing I learned today: The Large Hadron Collider is the world’s largest and highest energy particle accelerator.

One of the words that works in Scribblenauts is “Large Hadron Collider”, as xkcd noted. I tried to figure out what a hadron is, but I couldn’t get past the first two sentences of the wikipedia article.

Previously, Honeymoon Day 7 – Hitting the road (on the left side)

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

Today was the day I was trying SO hard not be sick for, as this was the day we were going blackwater rafting. Do you know remember what black water rafting is? Here’s a reminder:

It’s basically a cave tour in underground caves with some hiking, tubing, rappelling, yada yada. It’s pretty physically intensive, so I didn’t want to go through it feeling sick and hacking up stuff. That didn’t quite happen; as with previous days, I started off feeling pretty okay, but I’d gradually get more awful as time went on.

A view of the cottage from the front

Beautiful view of the hills

Morning started off with breakfast made by Liz, the lady who runs Kamahi Cottage. You have the option to eat in your cottage or at her house in her dining room. I chose the dining room, since I figured all our other meals would be at the cottage. Her home is gorgeous, with beautiful gardens and a spectacular view of the Waitomo countryside. On the table, she has a nice display of breads and jams, along of the plates of waffles we requested for breakfast. The waffles were only just alright because they were the thin kind, not the large puffy ones I’m used to.

After breakfast, we drove to Waitomo, where all the touristy stuff is located. The black water rafting tour we were going on was scheduled at 2PM, and there was this rabbit shearing demonstration I wanted to go to at 12:45. And that’s pretty much all there is to see in Waitomo. We stopped by the local i-Site and checked out souvenirs before heading over to the Shearing Shed.

“Willy wash” seems very… specific

The Shearing Shed, this barn-looking place that boasts “New Zealand’s only angora rabbit shearing show”, is located around where the Waitomo Caves touristy area begins. We were early, so we checked out the bunnies they had on display in the sideroom. They were super fluffy and a lot bigger than I had imagined. They reminded me of the Wererabbit in that last Wallace and Gromit movie.

Kelvin mingles with the rabbits

Before the show started, I did a bit of shopping in their store. I picked out a 10-pack of yarn to split amongst the knitters in my life: 3 each for Anna, Jess, and Kelvin’s stepmother, with 1 leftover for myself. I was kind of surprised the yarn is only 15% angora with the rest being sheep, but I shouldn’t have been considering how much more sheep there are than angora rabbits. I also contemplated getting a sheepskin rug. Our cottage had one by the bed, and it was SO soft. The Shearing Shed had the same rugs (by Classic Sheepskins), but I thought it was silly to travel around New Zealand and fly back to Fiji and the states with a furry rug and decided against buying one. I figured if I really wanted one, I’d find one at another shop somewhere, as they seem to be everywhere.

When the show began, a small crowd had gathered in the shop. Two old New Zealand ladies ran the show, with one speaking and another doing the actual shearing. The rabbit was already half shorn, and they were going to do the other half in front of the audience. The way they prepare the rabbit is both hilarious and freaky. They tie bunny up by its paws and stretch the limbs out so the rabbit can’t move. This allows the skin to stretch out to prevent nicks when they shear. They can also rotate the rabbit, very reminiscent of a rotisserie. The talking lady mentioned she’s gotten people who complained about animal cruelty, which is ridiculous since this is the safest way to shear the rabbits. The rabbit seemed cool about the whole thing before and after.

After the shearing, people can walk up and pet the sheared rabbit. They also put a non-sheared rabbit on display to take pictures with. When I motioned I wanted to post with the rabbit, the lady was something like, “Oh yes, you bought all that yarn. You must pose with the rabbit!” For a free attraction, I really dug the Shearing Shed; it’s definitely worth a visit if you head over to Waitomo. (Not much else around there anyway.)

We headed straight for The Legendary Black Water Rafting Co. There was still some time before the tour, so we ate lunch at the cafe located there and waited. Around 2PM, we were led by tour guide Josh, a young surfer-looking dude, to the changing area. There’s lockers to store your things, and separate men’s and women’s bathroom/shower areas. The trailer with all our equipment is here as well; they handed us wetsuits, helmets (the aesthetics of these things have improved since the first picture in this post, apparently), and boots to wear. The wetsuit is supposed to be as tight as possible; I spent a lot of my dressing room time trying to get the crotch of my wetsuit up all the way, but never succeeded. The wetsuit was otherwise fine in terms of comfort, except for the fact that they were cold from being damp still. If your hair is long, you also have to wear funny almost-ninja-but-not-quite hoods to keep your hair tucked.

This area is the last place where we can take pictures. After some group pictures, cameras are off-limits, even if it’s waterproof. Their reasoning is that they don’t want to deal with people losing cameras throughout the many activities.

Group doing haka pose. The New Zealand rugby team
apparently does it all the time

We were joined by Ross, our second tour guide, who’s been doing this tour for years (unlike Josh, who’d only done it for… a couple weeks or something ridiculous like that?). Our group consisted of me, Kelvin, two American brothers, one brother’s partner, and two other girls. The guides drove us in a company van (listening to Flight of the Conchords, appropriately) a ways to a hilly area to practice rappelling. We were taught how to use rack descenders, this weirdly simple mechanical gadget that controls your rope tension and how much you drop. They also emphasized the importance of keeping metal loop thingies (carabiners, I think?) locked on designated spots.

After the short training session, they walked us over to an area shaded by trees or rocks or something. There is a short platform that goes over a large hole. The trip advertises a 37meter (~121ft) rappel (or “abseil” in the British colonies), and apparently it’s how the trip starts off. Kelvin and I volunteered to go first; I’m easily frightened, but I find the anticipation of doing something much more nerve racking than actually doing it. While 121 feet is a decent height, and I’m not a fan of heights, the drop isn’t intimidating. From the top, the hole narrows down to a point where you can’t really see the rest of the drop, so it’s sort of split into two parts. Once you get past the tight spot, it’s dark and hard to see the bottom. When I went down, I was more concerned with hitting the walls too hard or knocking into rocks. Also, since I’m fairly light, I had to really put some effort moving down the rope, as gravity wasn’t enough to drop me down quickly. I never felt like I was close to falling because of this, plus I always felt safe because I trusted the guides, who can stop anybody’s rope from releasing too fast. I imagine it might have been scarier for the bigger men in the group; they had to control the tension carefully to avoid sudden drops, and the tight spots were probably tighter and more claustrophobic for them.

Kelvin go down the hole.

Judy go down the hole.

Once everyone gathered at the bottom, we walked through some cave area with our lights on. Along the way, they told us interesting tidbits and pointed out things, like an ancient shellfish fossil which I just happened to be leaning on (yay me for great fossil preservation). We reached a point where we’d be doing the ziplining. Apparently, we’d be ziplining in the dark, so we couldn’t see where we’d end up but we could still hear some sort of stream below us. With a tour guide on each end, we took turns ziplining. It’s kind of freaky, because you can’t see anything, so you don’t know if you’ll actually step on ground when you get off. But of course we all did, and when everyone gathered again, it was snack time! They had granola bar type thingsand hot chocolate (I think, I can’t quite remember) for us to munch on. I was starting to feel sick again, and I couldn’t finish my goodies with my poor appetite. I felt bad for being wasteful.

Group pic after ziplining

The next part was the really scary part. After our snacks and another group pic, we had to leave the ledge area we were sitting on. Apparently, the only way to leave is to make a 10-15 feet jump off that ledge. In the dark. Into cold, dirty cave water. While sitting in an inner tube. This… scared the shit outta me. Me and the other girls in the group. It’s not high at all, but I was like, I don’t think I can concentrate on keeping this inner tube on my ass and falling into who knows what. I’m guessing the water isn’t that deep, which is why we have to use the tube. Still, I have to brace for cold water, not drown, not fall too close to the ledge so I won’t bounce off and knock my head somewhere, and not fall into the water in some other awkward manner that might kill me. (Kelvin insists all these things are not possible.) A couple people went before me. I was REALLY scared, but I wanted to get it over with as soon as possible. I jumped over the edge, and for the moment when you first hit the water, you’re completely underwater. It’s dark and muddy, so you can’t see anything. And it’s freezing. The next instant the buoyancy from the inner tube pushes you out of the water, and everything is normal again (except you’re wet and freezing). Everyone else came down no problem, except for the last girl. She had a false start or two because of nerves, but she eventually made it down. I still found myself shaken up after jumping… I’m not sure I would ever do that again!

Since there’s no photos of this part, this is
my best Paint rendition of the jump

With the group all floating around on inner tubes, this section of the tour would be done floating down cave streams. We were all told to lie down and link legs (the person in front of me would hold my feet around their shoulders), and the tour guides led the floating, linked tour group down the cave, talking about more facts and pointing out glowworms. Looking at the high roof of the caves in the dark is very pretty, like looking at a bunch of stars in the sky. Nevermind what we’re really looking at is a bunch of maggots (gnat larvae, more specifically).

My Paint rendition of the tubing

As we floated down the cave, I began shivering to the point where the guy holding my legs kept asking me if I was okay. I started getting very cold, but for the beginning, I shook it off. I wanted to finish the tour, even though I was feeling worse and worse. Josh mentioned we were quite fortunate because of the recent spring rain. The water levels were high, and we could float for most of the tour instead of walking. This turned out to be a bad thing for me, as it meant more time soaking in the cold water. I don’t remember much of the tour at this point, because my mind was focused on figuring out how to control my chilliness so I could finish the tour. Eventually, we stopped floating and began walking, ditching the inner tubes. I remember Josh asking if anyone needed a bathroom break, which Kelvin made use of. Josh pointed out a spot to Kelvin that wasn’t upstream from the group, so no swimming around in pee water for us, I guess.

During some parts of the hiking, I remember walking through some deep water. Chest or neck high maybe? I was getting REALLY cold. We made it to another stop point, with more snacks and pictures. At this point, I was feeling totally awful and shivering a ton. The guides were getting concerned with my body temperature. They started pouring the warm beverage they had (some Tang-like orange drink) into my wetsuit to try and get my body temperature warmer. Felt better, but it wasn’t enough. The other group members were commenting on how blue my lips were. I decided at this point I needed to stop the tour. I really didn’t want to stop, but I was feeling pretty sick and cold. Russ kept saying that it was totally okay and that bigger guys have done the same thing. Everyone was really kind to me, but I still felt crappy about it. Apparently there’s an alternate emergency route from this spot, so Ross was going to take me down this less strenuous path back to the van, while Josh would take everyone else on the rest of the tour. Kelvin wanted to go with me, but I told him to finish the tour so he could at least tell me about it.

Right before I left the group

The walk back the surface was still kind of long, despite this being a shortcut. We walked a bit and stepped carefully over rocks, and we passed by another tour group doing the shorter tour. We finally reached the exit, and I sat on the ground near the van to really take in the sun while Ross grabbed me a towel and a sweatshirt. As I warmed up, I watched the nearby cows graze away. (They really waste no land for livestock.) I chatted with Ross while we waited for the group to finish the tour. He’s super nice and interesting. He’s from the Waitomo area, and he’d done a lot of odd jobs before doing this tour guide gig, including a brief stint in sheep shearing. (He said it was incredibly boring, and the schedule sucks.) He even owns a bit of farmland inherited from family. I asked if he ever thinks it’s boring being in the same, not-very-populated place all your life, but he didn’t mind. In fact, he seemed pretty content with staying there. Waitomo is very serene; I’d imagine it gets dull, but in a good way.

It felt REALLY good to be warmed up (and not constantly shivering), but I still felt like crap missing out on the rest of the tour and not being with Kelvin on this part of our honeymoon. (This one of the first things we planned and one of the reasons we wanted to go to New Zealand… as dorky as that sounds). Eventually, the rest of the group made it back. Kelvin told me the only thing that was remotely tricky was a small waterfall climb, but I could have handled it. He thinks it was good for me to sit out though, with my lips turning blue and all. However, he spent the remainder of the trip trying to rush through the tour so he could get back to be with me, hence the lack of a waterfall shot for him. The non-gay guy in the tour group said he didn’t think his wife would be able to handle the cold water after seeing what I went through, as she hates cold more than me. I don’t think that’s a fair assessment. I think I made the cold seem a lot worse than it was; I’ve dealt with colder water/situations before. I would have managed through the tour just fine if it weren’t for my damn sickness. When you’re sick, your body doesn’t generate as much heat as it normally does and you’re more susceptible to hypothermia. I hated not being able to finish the tour when I wanted to finish it. To this day, it still frustrates me that I couldn’t get better in time to complete this tour. ARGH :(

Waterfall I missed out on

The guides drove us back to the changing area, where we all showered and got back into normal clothes. We soaked the wetsuits and boots in water before returning them, which makes me wonder if this is all that’s used to clean them. The tour ends with free soup and bagel, so we enjoyed our soup in the main building where the cafe and gift shop are. I liked how the tomato soup is served in a tin can cup thing; it makes me feel like I just went mining or something. It was pretty tasty, too. Everybody also bought their photos at the gift shop. (The photos are kind of a ripoff, but how else are you gonna show that you actually did the tour? I wish they’d take more pics, tho I guess they’re busy making sure we don’t die.) I also bought a couple souvenirs, since you get a 10% discount when you buy the photo CD. The Black Abyss Tour, which is the name of the tour we took, is quite awesome and worth the money. It was a ton a fun, outside of the whole being-sick-and-leaving-two-thirds-into-tour-ARGH thing. It’s certainly not something I would usually do; I tend to lean towards “dull” over “adventurous”. I’d say I’d do it again, but that tube jump still makes me hesitant.

I only have blurry pictures of Ross (in third photo). I
should have been less sneaky and just asked for a pic.

We drove back to the cottage, stopping by Otorohanga to go to Woolworth’s and get some necessities. Another weird difference from the US:

“Krispies” sounds yummier than “bubbles”, no?

When we got back, I spent most of the night recovering from the day and continuing with my futile fight with whatever insane disease I had. My fever was in full blast, yet again. Liz brought dinner to the cottage. Kelvin wasn’t a fan of the chicken with pasta we had, which I didn’t understand since it seemed very similar to what he had the night before. I couldn’t even taste the food; my taste buds were shot, along with my appetite, from being sick. Kelvin got really concerned that I wasn’t eating anything. I think then I went to go rest a bit, woke up very hungry, and then scarfed down my cold dinner, at which point it was quite tasty.

Before going to sleep, I watched television while laying on the sofa, covered in a blanket. Movie of the night: Minority Report. I hadn’t seen it before, and I actually kind of enjoyed it, even though I was asking Kelvin every 10 minutes what was going on.

Next, Honeymoon Day 9 – Sheep, hobbits, and more sheep (and pappy-longs!)

New thing I learned today: When you’re cold, your body diverts blood away from the skin to your organs to keep them warm. Oxygenated-blood flow in the lips is what gives it its color, so when the blood is diverted away, the lips turn blue because deoxygenated blood is blue. This discoloration process is called cyanosis.

According to some wacky white lady who lived in Taiwan for a few years. As I was waiting for some tests to run, I browsed Amazon for some Taiwanese cooking books. There aren’t very many, but one that caught my eye was The Best of Taiwanese Cuisine: Recipes and Menus for Holidays and Special Occasions. Why? Because it had three 1-star reviews. I rarely see anything rate so poorly on Amazon, even with only 3 reviews. Upon looking at the first few pages Amazon has up, it’s apparent how ignorant the author is.

She organizes her recipes with respect to holidays, the first being Lunar New Year. What does she think is appropriate Chinese New Year food? Sushi and sashimi. WHAT? I’ve never seen anybody eat sushi for Chinese New Year. You know why? Because it’s not freaking Chinese or Taiwanese! She justifies it by saying that Japanese had a strong influence on Taiwan during their occupation, which is true (let’s see… civil infrastructure, language, music, other non-sushi foods like hot pot). However, sushi wasn’t one of the things the Taiwanese absorbed strongly from the Japanese. The only time I’ve ever seen sushi in Taiwan is at a Japanese restaurant, with like 80% of Japanese restaurants in Taiwan being trendy sushi bars.

To add insult to injury, what is the very first recipe she has listed for this supposed “best of Taiwanese cuisine” compilation she’s written? California roll!!! California rolls aren’t even Japanese!!! OMGWTFBBQ. You tell a Taiwanese person they eat California rolls for Chinese New Year, they’ll probably laugh and spit in your face if they even have any idea what a California roll is. If you don’t understand the difference between Chinese and Taiwanese and you tell a Chinese person they eat sushi for Chinese New Year, you better f*cking run for your life.

New thing I learned today: Eating pig’s feet noodle soup is supposed to bring long life and good health. It’s also supposed to drive off bad luck and provide a good new start.

One unique Taiwanese food I always think of is pig feet noodles. My mom’s family always ate this stuff for birthdays. It sounds weird, but it’s pretty tasty.

I saw this video linked in the comments for an article on Okamiden, the upcoming DS sequel to Okami.

The cuteness… it’s too much! Well, not really; I can probably watch this all day. Chibiterasu is friggin’ adorable, too. I’m sold on Okamiden even if the original Clover guys aren’t doing it.

New thing I learned today: French bulldogs were bred as ratters, but now are mostly bred as lapdogs.