judyonthenet

Video games and other gaming related purchases:
The Deus Ex Collection (PC) – $4.98 from Steam
Total cost: $4.98

I’ve been wanting to play Deus Ex forever. I think I actually have a hardcopy somewhere because someone meant to lend me a different PC game and accidentally gave me Deus Ex (and never wanted it back). For some reason, I wasn’t inclined to play it back then. Now, I have no idea where that CD went, so I just gave up my five bucks for that game and its sequel. Another two games for my ridiculous backlog.

Games I beat:
WarioWare: Touched! (DS)

I listed WarioWare: Touched! because I completed the “story” and unlocked all the game modes. Not very long if you play it to that point, but it’s got a lot of replayability. Regardless, I admit it’s a pretty weak game to mark as complete.

Prior to starting work, I had been playing a lot of Mass Effect 2. I thought I would beat it by now. For some reason, having a job makes me want to play Team Fortress 2 more, so I’ve been slacking on games that actually end. I was starting Saboteur also, but I think Mass Effect 2 is probably the next game I’ll finish. Check back next month!

I’m a little bummed that no one at work really games, except for the HR guy that dealt with my hiring. I lent HR guy my copy of Uncharted 2 because he was having issues with his copy, and in return he lent me Heavy Rain. A game I’d usually buy because I’m hella possessive, but I heard it has little replay, so I’m good with borrowing it.

New thing I learned today: A fiducial is a marking that imaging systems use as a point of reference.

This past weekend, Kelvin and I flew to Virginia near DC to attend Jamie, one of my best friends from college, and Gricel’s wedding. Aside from the 5-hour airplane rides (I hate flying), it was overall a pretty decent trip.

Friday
I ended up booking round trip tickets for less than $300 a person, which is awesome. What’s not so awesome is that both the departing and return trips leave at 7AM in the morning. We woke up super-early, drove to the SFO long-term parking, and got to our gate right when boarding started. Thank goodness Virgin America has assigned seating; I was way too tired to think about it.

This was my first trip with Virgin America, and I loved TVs provided at every seat. You can buy services, food, and watch television through the little screen. Even though I was tired, I have a hard time sleeping on planes. However, instead of sleeping, I got to watch the US vs. Slovenia World Cup soccer game. I missed the first half, which turned out to be a good thing, since US was down 0-2 when the second half started. I got to watch US make their comeback and get robbed their winning goal with many other passengers on the plane. Everyone on the plane was made well-aware of when US scored goals, regardless of whether or not they were actually watching the game. Probably sucked for people trying to sleep… but GO USA!

These screens love to freeze. For most of the trip I kept
thinking we were stuck over Kansas. *shudder*

At IAD (which is a pretty nice airport, btw), we picked up our rental at Alamo. Rather than sticking to whatever cheap and practical sedan I had booked, Kelvin upgraded to a Camaro. I figured, okay, whatever, he’s driving anyway. But then they gave us this bright yellow thing. Great, we’re fricking driving Bumblebee!

Before checking in to our hotel, we drove a block past our hotel to grab a late lunch at KFC. I haven’t had KFC in a while, so I was happy to be indulging in cheap fried chicken. Because I’m a procrastinator, we went to the CVS next door after lunch to buy some water, face soap, and things to wrap Jamie’s wedding present so that it actually looks like a gift.

We checked into the Courtyard Dulles Airport Marriott, which is only three exits away from the airport. Jamie’s church is about 30 minutes away, but a hotel close to the airport would make it easier to hit our 7:50AM flight on Sunday. The room is small, but has all the amenities one would need, including a mini-fridge. The bed and pillows were very comfortable. So comfortable, I made the mistake of lying down and passing out for three hours. The only annoyance is the ancient A/C that was really noisy and lacking precise temperature control.

The last time I had been on the East Coast was when I finished my college education. That was… about five years ago? I basically wanted to eat all the chain restaurants I missed from being in California. Tonight we had Legal Sea Foods at the mall in Tysons Corner. I had a bowl of chowder and two crabcakes, while Kelvin had surf & turf. The food was as good as I remembered (always went to the one in Kendall Square), but it was more quantity and richer than I remembered. Way too much food. Our waiter was super nice, and he even gave me a free bowl of chowder to-go, even though I had just told him I was going to explode. At least our room has a mini-fridge so I can put it somewhere until I figure out what to do with it.

After dinner, we went straight back to the hotel, where we prepared our attire (and Jamie’s gift) for the next day. I also watched many episodes of the Dog Whisperer. I watch SO much TV when I stay at a hotel…

Saturday
We headed out to Jamie’s wedding right after getting up. Halfway to the church, I realized I left his wedding gift in the hotel room. Even after I had gone back to the room to grab my phone that I had forgotten… which was sitting next to the gift. I can’t believe I did this AGAIN. Heading back to get the gift at that point would mean we’d be late for the ceremony, so we decided to continue on our way.

At the church, I ran into Jamie and his best man, Bob (another college classmate), at the entrance to the church. Last time I saw Jamie was my wedding, and the last time I saw Bob was in college, but they both are about the same as always, which is nice. After a quick chat, we sat down in the church.

It’s a pretty big church, but the wedding itself was much more modest. For a religious wedding, it was surprisingly quick. Gricel looked beautiful. I think Jamie trapped himself a good one.

One minor complaint about the wedding: what an obnoxious photographer! She would always stand in the middle of everything. Most photographers I’ve seen, if they need to be in the way, they get out of the way ASAP. She was just standing there half the time, not even always taking pictures! Right in the middle of the aisle! Can’t she squat once in a while or something? And her camera had to be the noisiest camera I’ve ever heard. The beeping of camera and the constant buzzing of her flash… why is she even using her flash? She has a fancy camera and the couple is well lit. ARGH! (In contrast, the videographer was quite the ninja. I didn’t even notice him until Kelvin pointed him out in the shadows at the front of the church sitting on a ledge like a gargoyle.)

Also, Kelvin’s cellphone alarm went off during the ceremony. Thankfully, it was peaceful harp sounds instead of NOM NOM NOM or the Hawaii Five-O theme.

After the ceremony, we checked out where the reception was and decided to high-tail back to the hotel to get the wedding gift. Even though it took less than 30 minutes to get to the church, it took over 45 minutes each way just to get the present. Getting to the hotel, I thought it was my fault because I messed up the directions back. However, the return trip, which was the same route we took in the morning, was equally awful. I don’t know where the heck all these people came from or where they’re going on an early Saturday afternoon! And it’s hot and muggy. Don’t these people want to stay home with their A/C?

And we ran into the most random delays, the strangest being at the intersection right in front of the church. A Prius wouldn’t go on a green, so we (along with many other cars) honked and passed it, only to find an old man sitting at the wheel passed out. WEIRD.

By the time we made it back, we missed most of the reception (which appeared to be BBQ buffet) and made it just in time for the cake cutting and bouquet toss.

Nice cake toppers :D

I finally had a chance to talk to Jamie and Gricel, who were prominently featured at their sweetheart table.

Bride and groom on display

Jamie prepared to fight crime even during his own wedding.

A pic with my classmates (Rodney, where are you?!)

My favorite part of their wedding had to be the send-off. I’ve never been to a wedding with a send-off. We were given little bubbles to blow, and their groomsmen had decorated Jamie’s getaway (or escape, har har) car. They even had cans attached to their SUV! I’ve only seen that on TV!

(bleh squished video. Need to figure out a better way to do flv.)

After the wedding, we went to the next East Coast chain on my list for mini-lunch: Friendly’s! We shared a cheeseburger and potato wedges because we were going to have dinner in four hours. I don’t know what it is about Friendly’s, but I always like their food. I only went there a few times when I was in Boston because it was quite a walk to get there, but it was always worth it. In fact, I’m pretty sure I always went with Jamie. We finished lunch with a scoop of mint chip ice cream.

Instead of going back to the hotel, we went to the National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly. It’s one exit away from our hotel because it’s on airport property, and it’s free after 4PM. It also closes at 5:30PM, which is good for Kelvin because he doesn’t particularly like spending a lot of time in museums.

The museum is basically a hangar crammed with all sorts of flying machines. You don’t have to be an aviation nerd to find the museum interesting. It was neat seeing all the different planes from different eras. Highlights were Enola Gay, the space shuttle, and the Blackbird (wth, ANOTHER Transformer?). Definitely a good way to kill an hour.

At Jamie’s wedding, we arranged to meet up with Bob for dinner. This time, we went to a restaurant to a chain restaurant Bob was missing: Uno Chicago Grill (AKA Pizzeria Uno). I caught up with Bob, who I haven’t seen in 5-6 years and is currently doing grad school in Taiwan. We’ll probably see him again whenever we go visit my grandparents sometime this year.

After dinner, we lounged in our hotel room for the rest of the night, watching Silent Library and finishing up my clam chowder.

Sunday
Another early morning flight, so we had to wake up early again, which was extra painful with the time difference. We returned Bumblebee, flew home, and I passed out on the couch from being unable to sleep on the plane.

Bye bye Bumblebee

New thing I learned today: The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird has movable cones to vary the air intake to the engines.

I also learned from going to the museum that Kelvin already knows a lot of random things about certain airplanes, like that tidbit above.

You know that job I applied for a while back where my blouse almost busted open? Apparently, they liked me enough to offer me a job. Unfortunately, the job offer was ready the day their CEO announced a hiring freeze. So, no job offer. They said they were trying to get me a contract offer so that I can temp until I can be hired full-time. So I waited…

Until today, when they called to say they finally got the temp position approved. Awesome! They asked me to start tomorrow. Aweso-what? Huh? Uh, I guess. They kind of caught me off guard. So yeah, I’m starting work tomorrow. That was fast. We’ll see how it goes.

New thing I learned today: The flag for England is a white flag with a red cross. The Union Jack is for the United Kingdom, which includes England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

I hope there’s a lot more being announced outside of the press conferences, because the press conferences were overall not very good. Microsoft was a disaster, Sony was snooze-worthy, and Nintendo had a lot of rehashes of old stuff.

Microsoft
Terrible conference. I’m already not a fan of Xbox franchises (Halo, Gears of War), but then they made a huge deal out of Kinect. Kinect took up most of the conference even though it already had its own press event the night before!

Good

• ESPN for Xbox Live, free – I don’t even like sports, but I can see how their target audience has a lot of overlap with video games. I also wouldn’t mind checking out some poker tournaments. I’m a little surprised there’s no subscription fees with this.
• Call of Duty Black Ops – It still looked pretty good, despite not being an Infinity Ward game.
• Metal Gear Solid Rising – I’m not even sure if I should include this since I’ll probably get this for PS3. Looks incredibly violent, but also incredibly awesome. I <3 Raiden even if he looks like a cyborg girl.

(bleh, not sure how to make these stupid GameTrailers.com videos smaller.)
Bad

• Anything Kinect related AKA 70% of the conference – God. GOD. Kinect Sports? I already have this game for the Wii!

Okay, to be honest, I actually kind of liked the Your Shape: Fitness Evolved demo. I like the idea of making fitness more fun with video games, and the Kinect technology actually looked interesting in this game. Everything else was pretty much a disaster. All the fake enthusiasm was making me cringe. I feel bad for the folks forced to demo these Kinect products.

I’m sure these games are a lot more enjoyable in your living room than on an arena stage.

Nintendo
They’re really going for the nostalgia, these guys. I personally feel they had the best showing, in terms of new game content. But everything they introduced is based off an already existing IP. Even the only new game, Epic Mickey, has strong nostalgia tied to it due to everyone’s familiarity with Disney. I was hoping for more original stuff, but I’ll settle for fun-looking, if derived, games.

Good

• Epic Mickey – Looks great and love the art style. Warren Spector is in charge, and it’s got Mickey.
• Nintendo 3DS – Originally wasn’t sold on this, but after seeing the list of 3rd party support, I’ve changed my mind. A new Layton and MGS? Yep, sold.

Bad

• GoldenEye – I never played the original, though I understand its importance. But DAMN, that game really shows the limitation of the Wii’s graphics capability. Yuck!
• Kirby Yarn – I actually think the game is cute, and the gameplay looks fun (and reminiscent of Paper Mario). But couldn’t they tie a new character to this? I like Kirby and all, but what does he have to do with yarn or fabric? They lost an opportunity to create a new Nintendo original and instead milked an old character in the process.
• No mention of Pikmin 3 – WHY?

I thought Metroid: Other M still looked pretty good, but it’s coming out in a couple months and isn’t new information. I didn’t really grow up with Nintendo, so all the new games of familiar Nintendo IPs (Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Kid Icarus) don’t excite me as much as they would others. Still, everything looked fun, jaggies or no.

Sony
Aside from Kevin Butler’s speech, not very impressive. I like the Move demos, and like the 3DS, I’m more sold on it now than before. I’m just not sure if it’s something I’d drop money for. Everything else wasn’t worth sitting around for.

Good

• Kevin Butler – Sony marketing is genius. To come up with a fake executive solely for the purpose of advertising their products… just genius. We’ve seen what crappy drones real executives are when they speak during these press conferences. Kevin Butler’s speech was awesome and full of truth. I just hope people heard the message (basically: gaming is for everyone).
• Move/Sorcery – Of all the gimmicky stuff, I liked the Sorcery demo. Especially when the ball changed colors. Oooh, colors.

Bad

• Lack of Last Guardian – WTF? This was the only thing I wanted to have mentioned in this entire show. I would have also settled for an HD remake of Shadow of the Colossus.
• Marcus Rivers – Sony scored with Kevin Butler. Now they’re bringing in some annoying snot-nosed kid to promote PSP? Um, why would a disrespectful child who thinks he knows everything make me want to play anything? He’s probably not even old enough to play half the games I’d want to play… according to the ESRB anyway.

Sony has the best presentation skills out of the three, but nothing they showed was a must-buy to me. (Well, except Gran Turismo 5 because Kelvin wants to drive his RSX in a video game.)

Let’s hope for some more interesting announcements in the next couple days.

New thing I learned today: Kevin Butler is played by actor Jerry Lambert, who was in the short-lived ABC sitcom Sons and Daughters.

In his speech, he says gaming is “girls who know that way to a man’s heart is through a melee attack”. Amen.

I’m sticking to this bread-making thing; I’ve been making a loaf a week. This past month, I started making wheat breads. Lesson learned: Always use the optional wheat gluten.

Bread #6: Debbie’s Honey Whole Wheat Bread

I tried to make this bread twice. The first loaf was incredibly dense. There was almost no air bubbles. I know wheat breads don’t rise as high, but I was convinced that my yeast was dead or something. I gave it another shot with new yeast… still dense! It was like eating a loaf of unsweetened and bitter cake. This recipe has an 8:1 ratio of wheat flour to bread flour, so it probably wasn’t a good beginner’s wheat bread. The more bread flour in the recipe, the better texture and rise the loaf has. Oftentimes, wheat gluten is added to give wheat breads better shape, though it wasn’t listed in this recipe as an option. I think I’ll try some other wheat breads before trying this one again.

Bread #6: Anita’s Italian Herb Bread

After my wheat bricks of failure, I went back to a white bread to give myself some motivation.

This was my first bread recipe using buttermilk. Considering how pungent that stuff is, I was surprised how mild the bread turned out. I thought it was a bit boring considering the ingredients, which included grated Parmesan.

Bread #7: Honey ‘n Oats Bread

To use up the rest of the buttermilk, I made this wheat bread. It has a 1:1 ratio of wheat flour and bread flour, so it had more rise. Still a bit on the short and dense side though. Because of all the bread flour, it was a mild wheat. I didn’t really see what the oats add to the bread.

The bread is kind of plain, so I usually ate this toasted with Nutella. I’ve decided Nutella can save any bread.

Bread #8: Carrot-Herb Bread

This wheat flour has a 2:1 ratio of wheat flour to bread flour, but I used the optional wheat gluten in the recipe. Man, that stuff makes a huge difference. This bread was rose well and had a light and fluffy, but moist, texture.

It had a really nice brown/orange color, and I liked the combination of flavors. I ate this toasted with butter… very snackable.

I had mainly been using a bread box until this bread. Previously, I had been finding the bread box doesn’t keep my bread moist, so I tried zip lock bags again, starting with this bread. The bread stayed a lot softer in the zip lock bag than the bread box, which isn’t sealed. They say bread should breathe, but I’m not seeing the benefits of using the bread box. I’m debating buying a reusable bread bag so I don’t have to waste zip lock bags.

On the other hand, I’ve been loving the butter bell I got. A butter bell is a little clay thingy that holds butter upside-down immersed in water. You leave it on the counter, and the water keeps the butter cool as well as seals the butter from the air. This thing gives you easy access to soft, spreadable butter, and so far, my butter has stayed fresh for weeks. (I haven’t pushed it past three weeks.) I’m sure it doesn’t work as well when it gets hot in the summer, but for now, it’s been great for my bread-buttering needs.

Bread #9 – Anadama Bread

I was worried this would come out yucky when I opened the bottle of molasses I got. I bought dark, or full-flavored, molasses, and it’s got a strong smell. Only after I opened the bottle and made my bread did I look up if people use dark or light (mild-flavored) molasses more for their cookery. Apparently, most people use light molasses. Doh!

It turned out it didn’t matter; the recipe only used a little bit, so the bread didn’t taste like how the bottle smelled. It did have a brown color because of the molasses, making it look like wheat bread. This is also the first bread that rose to the point where it smooshed against the top of my bread maker (as you can see in the picture, it got a weird tumor on the side), but luckily, the bread was still okay despite this. It tastes like white bread, and this loaf had a really nice texture and crunchy crust right out of the bread maker.

Bread #9 – Sweet Oatmeal Bread

This simple bread has few ingredients, but is surprisingly tasty. It contains molasses, so it’s brown despite not having any wheat flour.

Bread #10 – Heavenly Whole Wheat Bread

This wheat bread has a lot of bread flour in it, and as it result, it kind of tasted like healthy, fortified white bread… which I don’t like. It’s not even that healthy; the dough has quite a bit of butter in it. I was disappointed with this bread and ate it with tons of Nutella.

I haven’t quite figured out how to light my breads. The Heavenly Whole Wheat Bread pics look like white bread, but the bread is typical wheat-brown in color.

Just 128 recipes to get through! Only maybe half of the recipes in the book actually bake in the bread machine; a lot of recipes just use it for dough. I haven’t tried any of those recipes because baking in the bread machine is just so easy, and I’m so lazy. Next update, I *promise* to bake at least one bread out of the bread machine pan.

New thing I learned today: Anadama bread is a traditional New England bread made of cornmeal and molasses.