Stein's Spot

More thoughts on Foursquare and Location Based Services

2011-01-23T13:49:00.001-08:00

About eight months ago I shared some thoughts on Foursquare here. Although I focused on the mayor system in that post, as time went on there was something else nagging me about Foursquare. Something about the service doesn’t add up and still doesn’t for me. Gowalla is in the same boat but for the purposes of this article I am just going to focus on Foursquare.

There is a certain portion of the population interested in seeing where they have been, what they have done, chronicling all of this, sharing it with their foursquare friends, etc.

The rest aren’t.

I am in the former camp. I love the service: the stats, seeing where I checked in the most, who with, the badges, etc. However, because all of my friends aren’t necessarily the same and don’t use the service, when I look at my check-in history and see who I checked in with the most what I am seeing is a misrepresentation of the events of my life. The statistics presented are valid only for the percentage of friends in Foursquare’s population. Interesting but useless. Perhaps these stats don’t aim to attain anything other than being interesting.

Beyond the addictive nature of the service itself and being able to see where I have been it doesn’t really add much value to my life. The sense of community I have with Facebook, or even Twitter, just isn’t there. To be truly successfully Foursquare has to offer more and attract people who may not actually want to check-in. This would enable a sense of community.

My friends could be members of Foursquare and I can check them in on my account, but they don’t have to broadcast to the world. This enables a multitude of possibilities. Foursquare check-ins can then be revisited after the fact and all members could share photos, funny quotes (bnter like), etc. Sort of like Memolane’s offering. Putting the focus on the event versus the location would make the whole experience more personal. If you haven’t checked it out, Bing Plans takes this approach, however the two services aren’t really comparable.

If such functionality was added, it may weaken the appearance of Foursquare as an app that is strictly focused on location, its great strength. That’s why I don’t use Facebook Places. It feels like an afterthought. The service would not want to feel like a Facebook clone and I think ultimately this is going to be Foursquare’s challenge.

I really want to see Foursquare succeed and create a value to its users that goes beyond the “check-in.” Maybe this is continued discounts at some participating venues (personally this doesn’t excite), or more focus on the community and sharing. If they could find a way to get people using the application who don’t themselves want to check-in that would be a step up. Hopefully in 2011 Foursquare has some differentiating offerings coming down the pipe, because I don’t know how much longer my Starbucks check-ins and Fresh Brew badges are going to keep me interested. The sense of community and friendship on Foursquare is what will take it to the next level.

Kinect Mini-Review and Looking Forward

2010-12-29T18:28:00.000-08:00

Kinect is awesome – but far from perfect. There are plenty of great reviews out there so rather than comment on what Kinect does right and an overview I am going to cut to the chase of what it needs to do better. I mostly bought the Kinect for the dashboard integration versus playing games (it does that quite well).

Dashboard Integration

The current dashboard experience is subpar at best. Overall I would give it a C+ with a future outlook of an A. It is too disjoint and not integrated with the rest of the dashboard. I am sure Microsoft is hard at work on the next update. Some of the glaring issues:

- Only the Kinect Hub responds to gestures and voice commands.

- Some voice commands leave you down paths where you have to start using the controller (wth?).

- The voice commands are too strict. More natural language options would be better. I shouldn’t have to say “Watch a movie” exactly as it is spelled on screen. “Browse movies” and “movies” should suffice.

- The gesture to “press” takes too long and if you are impatient like me a setting would be nice to decrease the hover time.

- The Zune Music and Video Kinect experiences feel disconnected from the whole and if you choose to use your controller at any point you have to get thrown back into the other Zune Music and Video apps.

- Navigating the menus is extremely slow compared to the controller, but this is subjective to a person’s taste. There is something liberating about not having to use the controller so there is a tradeoff here.

Cool things:

- Scrubbing the video – once you get the hang of it – feels very futuristic and is just plain cool

- Swiping through movie trailers and songs is fun and has elicited many oohs and ahhs from my friends

- Voice commands to play and pause a movie are great although I would like an option to

Even fixing all of the above issues wouldn’t make the Kinect as outstanding as it could be with respect to the Dashboard.

Making it a must have device

The following things should be considered to make this the *must-have* device for every household.

- Let me turn the Xbox on or wake it up with my voice! How cool would that be?

“Hey xbox turn on.”

Better yet:

“Hey Xbox turn on and start playing music”

Better still:

“Hey Xbox start playing my hip-hop playlist”

- Custom gestures: I want to be able to define a gesture to jump to a certain area of the Dashboard

- Extended speech support: similar to above let me say almost anything and have the Xbox interpret it or find the best match. A menu could come up asking me for the closest matches.

- Let me use it to scan real-world objects to pimp out my avatar – a couple hacks have seemingly already done this

- Use the camera capabilities to skin the avatar with a real-world look and feel

- When I am home and online allow my Windows Phone to use the Kinect as a speaker phone

- Assuming Windows Phone someday gets a FaceTime component let me use Kinect Video Chat with Windows Phones

- Performance: This is really a request for the whole dashboard experience but it is very sluggish and then only makes the whole thing feel more disconnected

- Allow the camera to be viewable when I am away from home via a remote machine or the Windows Phone. It can double as a security device. (this is just icing)

- Let me browse the internet! Read the news, look at photos, etc. You just created a virtual iPad (albeit mounted on my wall).

I plan to update this post with more ideas of what would really set the Kinect apart.

What things would you like to see the Kinect do in the future?

Does Foursquare’s Mayor System Promote Monotony

2010-04-21T13:50:00.001-07:00

Let me preface this by saying I like Foursquare and am more or less addicted. However I was having lunch the other day at my one of my normal spots in San Francisco’s financial district when it struck me that Foursquare’s mayor system is flawed. The system itself works but to strive to be the mayor feels flawed.

I had just checked into Pasta Paradiso in the One Market building and the Foursquare app said something to the effect of “Congratulations you are still the mayor of Pasta Paradiso”.

And I thought – is that a good thing. Of all the places to eat in the city why am I the mayor of this one. Does that even matter? Why have I checked in here six times in the last month or so. I know exactly why. I usually eat there when I need a quick lunch and am stressed about work or just have a lot of work. In that respect Foursquare is a good way for me to analyze my work/life balance.

I have another mayorship in the same plaza and another around the corner. Of my 5 mayor-ships all are lunch spots. I recently lost two mayorships: One Market Bar and Bullit Bar – and I am glad I lost these. I still love the venues, but am glad I don’t have the mayor title. It means I have been going to other areas for my happy hour and weekend outings.

Until Foursquare becomes much more mainstream the mayor system is flawed because you are the mayor among people in the Foursquare ecosystem. Barely any of my friends use Foursquare, else they would likely be the mayor instead for many places. So basically you are winning mayorships over people you don’t know.

Overall I think Foursquare is hot, but the point/mayor/ranking system needs an overhaul. Maybe something more game like similar to MyTown. I am not going to comment on Gowalla because I haven’t used it enough.

Rather than put a focus on becoming the mayor of a place more focus (and perhaps a point system of sorts) should be put on being at places with your Foursquare friends (who are hopefully your real friends where as in with Twitter they might be random people). Maybe group mayorships, bar crawls (I know the swarm badge is kind of like this), group badges (that would be fun), etc.

Now, time to go check-in somewhere…new.

Bali - Candidasa

2010-04-04T15:29:00.001-07:00

Days 12 to 14 (November 18th – November 20th, 2009)

(My continued, long overdue Bali trip details)

The last morning at Villa Amala was spent just relaxing. At about 1 pm two drivers took us to our next destination, Candidasa.

The ride was going to take about two hours. On the way there I stopped at the ATM for the first time of the trip. I remember not feeling too well during the drive and mostly tried to sleep it off but wanted to see the cities we were driving through.

Before long we arrived at Villa Gils which was more or less right on the water. It was owned by a very boisterous Australian woman who now resided in Bali. She owned three villas in a cluster on the Candidasa shore. I didn’t have any accommodations when I arrived and she graciously gave me one of the rooms for 30$ a night – which was pretty much a steal.

Here are some pics of the villa and shore:

That first night we had a pretty mellow dinner at at seaside restaurant. Huge thunder clouds were forming in the distance but never quite reached us.

After we had some drinks and everyone turned in relatively earlier – we had a big snorkeling trip planned for the next day. After waking up and reading my book for about an hour we had breakfast and were picked up at around 9am by our ride to the beach.

The plan was to take two outriggers (our was named Reed Schapper - note the spelling error), seating three of us a piece, to the Blue Lagoon Bay where the snorkeling was supposed to be pretty good – and it was. Here are some pics of the outriggers, me in my snorkeling get-up, and the gorgeous view:

After snorkeling the outriggers took us past our villas a way for lunch at Puri Oka restaurant. I had – surprise surprise – grilled fish (probably snapper) and a Bintang.

We were driven back to Villa Gils and the rest of the day was spent drinking cocktails in the pool until dinner. That night we went to a high concept restaurant called Le 48. It was interesting and more or less failed. The highlight was the concrete squares placed in a pond that you had to navigate to get to the tables….doing it drunk would have been a disaster.

The next day was an adventuring day. Almost all of us piled into the car and trekked north. Our first stop was one a set of buildings I am going to dub a water palace: Taman Ujung. My guidebook wasn’t too into the place, but I thought it was beautiful. The King had a room in the central building which was surrounded my manicured lawns, fountains, a large pool and numerous ornate statues.

Pics of Taman Ujung

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After getting our fill of Taman Ujung we headed to Tirta Gangga.

Taman Tirta Gangga is a beautiful water palace built by the same King who built Taman Ujung. In addition to its pools and plant life it also has a maze like pond that you can walk on (see pics), a huge banyan tree, and if you really want to you can take a swim. At one point I was walking on the pond maze and a couple was coming toward me. As far as who had the right away to move or step aside onto a neighboring disc I have no idea, but a local guide more or less commanded me to jump to the grass bordering the pond. Luckily I have long legs :).

After walking through the palace we decided to eat there (there are accommodations at the actual palace – it might sound touristy, but doesn’t have that feel).

Pics at Taman Tirta Gangga

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While we were in the area our driver suggested we go and see an actual silver smith. Some of these “trips” are in fact fake and the people working the silver are just a ruse to get you to buy jewelry from the store. However this one was pretty legit and watching the people work the silver was interesting.

I didn’t buy anything and spent most of the time outside talking to the roosters and looking at the chickens…

After getting back in the car and getting caught in a monsoon we arrived at Virgin Beach (White Sand Beach) which would cap off our day of travelling. I was the only one in the group to take a dip. Everyone else kept in real by downing a Bintang.

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Upon arriving back at the Villa we started drinking, watched the rain fall and had an excellent dinner prepared by the staff. The next day I was going to separate from the group and head north while they headed west.

I would like one Square of Mint please…

2009-12-29T22:28:00.001-08:00

I think Square is perhaps the coolest thing I have seen since Mint with respect to personal finance management. Square is a new service aimed at helping both the payer and the payee. As someone making payments, with a Square account receipts are instantly at your fingertips through either email or a mobile device. As someone taking payments, with a Square account the payer can swipe their card on a dongle that fits onto a mobile device. This enables virtually anyone to begin accepting credit card payments. Think of the possibilities. No cash but want to buy a hot dog from the street vendor, no problem.

Here is a pic of an example receipt. Note the location of the purchase, the number of times the payer has been there, the signature, and how the transaction will appear on an actual credit card statement.

(Copyright Square, Inc)

Much more can be learned about Square at the website. What I think would be very cool is if Square and Mint joined forces. As an active Mint user I want to see my Square account and Square receipts in the Mint user interface. No more having to track down what some cryptic restaurant or bar is.

If Square really takes off it could be much larger than Mint would ever be. It is disappointing that Intuit purchased Mint in what I considered an early part of its initial product offering. Mint has a long way to go at becoming the end-all-be-all of personal financial management. A scenario can be imagined where Square takes off and needs an intuitive UI to manage users’ payments – that is Mint’s strength. Unfortunately Mint is no longer a private entity.

Hopefully some of the innovations Square is pioneering will find a way to be integrated with Mint in a first-class solution. Basically I want my Mint^2.

Photosynth of Four Seasons Hotel at Sayan near Ubud

2009-12-16T17:23:00.001-08:00

Here is a simple photosynth I created of the Four Seasons Hotel in Bali. You enter on the “roof” which is a huge circular pond with stairs leading down to the actual hotel.

Check out the panorama below…

Bali – Villa at Keliki near Ubud

2009-12-08T02:23:00.001-08:00

Days 9 and 10

I woke up determined to find my friends somehow. I assumed their internet was down or not present at all so I figured I would just trek up to their villa and surprise them. The owner of my bungalows, Madi, offered to take me up to the village of Keliki (about 20 minute drive) for 100,000 Rp. That was the price of one night at her bungalow. I shopped around and that was the going rate.

Before we left I got my second massage – they are so cheap here. It was pretty good and cost about 60,000 Rp (six dollars).

We set off out of Ubud and into the surrounding villages. I had once thought I could ride a bike to this next village, but am very glad I thought better of it. There were many hills to climb. We eventually passed Seliba and the villa was supposed to be in between Seliba and Keliki. At last we came upon it. Down a long narrow driveway and between two rice fields and backed by a jungle was Villa Amala. The only problem was that my friends weren’t here. They had just left to go to Ubud for the day for lunch. After a phone call between Madi and the driver of my friends car we found them. They were eating in Ubud where I had just come from.

Madi and I got back in the car and drove into Ubud. I eventually found them and said goodbye to Madi. We all had lunch – I just had a pizza and after they took some photos of Ubud proper we got back in the car and made our way back to the villa which I hadn’t really seen yet.

Villa Amala would mark the first time I have ever really been at a villa where there is staff, a cook, etc. The villa itself was very cool. I will let the picture do the talking. I spent two nights here in my own swanky little room and bath (and the occasional huge fucking spider … uggh).

That day I immediately jumped into the infinity pool and a quick little monsoon started up. Very few things are as relaxing as laying on the edge of an pool as rain is pouring down on you. At least for me. After some Bintangs and some appetizers it was time to get ready for dinner.

Here is a vid of the monsoon:

The group had already planned on going to dinner at the Chedi Club which was on the opposite side of Ubud. With the exception of my lobster dinner I was due for another more indulgent meal. I hadn’t really planned on going out to any nice outings however and only packed t-shirts and shorts. Fortunately Brett packed a bunch of linen shirts and pants and gave me some stuff to look more appropriate in.

The Chedi Club lies on huge spacious grounds filled with ponds, pools, statues, and tropical plants. The actual resort itself does not have that many rooms. After snapping a bunch of photos and walking around the grounds we settled at a table where we could catch the sunset going down over the rice paddies and the jungle beyond. The drink of choice was a purple basil cocktail – I think I had three or four.

Dinner at the Chedi Club resort was in a huge open air building that looked out over the rice paddies. What was really cool was that set amidst the rice paddies were stone lanterns that someone had to – each night – go and manually light up. The effect after the sun went down was very cool. I have a pic before the lanterns were lit:

We were seated at the far end of the building right next to the rice paddies. As dinner commenced we were the only people eating which felt kind of strange but as the night went on more people showed up. Dinner was great, the drinks were good, and the dessert filled me up too much (one scoop of ice cream is enough – no need for three– but it was butterscotch!).

There was also a cool bird in a cafe there that would do a little dance for you:

That night everyone promptly crashed – except for me. I had a nice little visitor waiting for me in my room…

Now this picture doesn’t do the size justice but that thing is huge. Everyone who knows me knows I have a strong sense of arachnophobia. This spider was large enough that it wouldn’t just crunch when you killed it; it would crunch, ooze, and pop. It was huge. And there it was just chilling five feet from my bed (thank god the room was huge).

I resorted to throwing things at it. First a sock, then another, then a shoe. It eventually scurried towards the floor to ceiling doors that open up into the jungle (and had been closed during the day) and went behind the drape you see it on above. So I didn’t kill it, but it didn’t bother me anymore. I have a video I will try to post later of me being quite squeamish and cursing a lot under my breath.

Sleep eventually overcame me and I woke up to a gorgeous morning and and the staff started spreading out a huge breakfast spread:

The fruit in the middle is called mangosteen and is super good. I don’t believe you can get it in the states – yet.

Half the group went to go on a tour given by a Balinese man through his “backyard” to give you a glimpse of how they live. Jeff and I decided to use the bikes at the villa and ride up to the next village, Keliki, and beyond.

The bike ride was short – its too damn hot – but was fun. The way up to Keliki was up hill just slightly which made the ride back down fast and fun. At one point a van almost brushed me (people drive crazy here) but other than that it was a clear ride.

The rice paddies and the people working them are pretty amazing. People walk around with scythes chopping away, others have sheaths of rice bundled on their heads. Some are “ca-cawing” at the heavens to scare away birds, and lastly you might see someone herding ducks to a rice paddy. The ducks keep bugs out.

After the bike ride I just chilled at the pool and read my book (surprise surprise). Uber relaxing. Pool. Rice paddies. Jungle. Drinks. Book.

The rest of the crew eventually came back and everyone settled in for lunch which was huge. Brett had originally requested that the staff keep lunch light because everyone but me was going to go to Mozaic for dinner that night. Mozaic is a really nice restaurant that was just to far out of my budget. Something got lost in translation and a huge plethora of meat was laid before us:

I think we ate almost everything and just had some chicken left over. The rest of the day was spent just chilling at the pool, drinking, and reading.

That night the idea was to go check out the Four Seasons hotel in Ubud for some drinks and then we were going to split off – myself to Naughty Nuri’s for diner and the rest of the group to Mozaic.

The Four Seasons hotel was amazing. We had just one (long) drink here after walking the grounds. The hotel pools are built right along the edge of the river. The hotel bar is about two stories up. The entrance to the hotel is actually the top story. You walk out onto a huge circular pond that has a staircase in the center. The jungle is surrounding you on virtually all sides. Again, I will let pictures do the explaining.

After dinner the driver dropped everyone off at Mozaic and then took me to Naughty Nuri’s. The menu at Naughty Nuri’s was all meat and that was the exact opposite of what I wanted given the lunch we had. I decided to go eat at Casa Luna again. It was good the first time and just as good the second. I did some emailing there, ate my dinner and then the driver took me back to Mozaic to pick everyone up. Back at the villa everyone slept and luckily there were no spiders in my room …

Bali – Nusa Dua to Ubud

2009-12-07T03:39:00.001-08:00

Hello! A lot has happened since my adventure at Ulu Watu that capped off my last post. My Indiana Jones-ing happened on Day 4 for me which was a Wednesday. That left me three more nights at the resort in Nusa Dua.

Days 5 and 6 – Poolside

I spent these two full days diving into my next book, Pillars of the Earth. I spent the first day at Hyatt’s pool. The Hyatt Resort is gorgeous. The pool was quite warm though and wasn’t very refreshing. At this end of Nusa Dua the beaches are much nicer than my end up north. After reading for awhile I was kicked out – but I was about to leave anyway. I took a quick dip in the ocean and then took a 4 km walk back to my hotel on the beach promenade. In my last post, you will remember I complained a bit about the quality of the beach promenade. Down on this end of the resort the promenade is kept much more maintained. The walk was nice and I got to see all of the five star resorts and their nicely manicured lawns and pools. If you have the $$$ there are plenty of great places to stay.

I got back to my hotel well past dark. I actually overshot my hotel because a street vendor was trying to sell me a flashing light yo-yo thing. He was shining it in my face right as I was walking past my hotel and by the time I told him I didn’t want it I had walked right on by my hotel entrance. I realized this about four more hotels down. The walk was relaxing though so I didn’t really care.

After turning around and arriving I took a night swim, ate some dinner (very tame dinner since I was still being cautious after my digestive escapades) and turned in early.

My last full day there I just hung out at my hotel’s pool and beach, chatted it up with some Aussies, read my book, and stayed cool. I took a video of the beach on my last day. All to myself:

Day 7 and 8– Central Ubud

One week down and I still had LOTS left to see. My next stop was Ubud. Ubud is known for its art, relaxing cafes, great food and is used by many people as a hub for their Bali adventure. I had a new driver (also named Made – there are only four male names here – Wayan, Made, Ketuk, and Nyoman (sp)) and we trekked up to Ubud. I had no accommodation set and he offered to take me to three hotels. I didn’t like any of them and took a break at the Laughing Buddha Bar. There was WiFi there. I had a beer and started looking up some places in my guidebook. There was one two doors away that was super cheap – Pramesti Bungalows.

I went in and the lady – Madi – asked how many nights I was going to stay. I didn’t really know because I had friends coming and was going to try to stay in their Villa north of Ubud when they arrived on Sunday (Day 8). She said 150,000 Rp for one night (and I got here down to 100,000 Rp (ten bucks :)). The bungalows themselves were very quaint but were set in this gorgeous tropical garden. She also had four rabbits that were running around and she made banana pancakes for breakfast in the morning.

After I got settled there I immediately set out to make the most of the half day I had left. I was starving and walked up the Monkey Forest Road where the bungalows were to the main drag of Ubud. Ubud was my first real taste of a real Balinese village. It was hard to grasp the sense of this in Nusa Dua due to the number of resorts.

The city was very much alive and full of tourists, places to eat, and shop. Ubud is known for its artsy nature and I passed many art galleries in my trekking. The first place I ate was Nomad where I had a great chicken satay. This also marks the first time I had Balinese food since my event. It also marked the first time I had a drink with real liqour in it so far – can you believe that! I had a Capinomad which was Balinese palm gin, lime, lemongrass and sugar. Very tasty.

A friend of mine looped me into one of his friends there and I let her, Winnie, know I was at Nomad. She came over as I was finishing up and we talked for awhile. It was great to have someone to talk to and then travel with for a bit.

She wanted to go check something out in East Ubud and I was just happy to tag a long an explore more so we started walking. On the way there she mentioned here and some Kiwis were going to the fire dance later – the keyack (sp?) dance. It sounded like a good way to spend the evening so I bought a ticket to that. Our walk ended up being a bit longer than expected and we still had to get back to our respective hotels and shower. Just walking around the block here will make you sweat buckets. My shirt was almost drenched as it was.

The fire dance was pretty impressive. It was broken up into three different dances. The latter was a man kicking burning coconut husks as part of the dance. It was pretty cool. The chanting of the males in the dance troupe did not leave my head for the rest of the evening.

Here he is kicking the fire around:

Afterwards we ate at Kafe which is a very organic, green, eco friendly restaurant. I had some ginger spiced chicken and vegetables which was really good and washed it down with a Bintang, the local Indonesian brew.

I was super tired – we all were – and after dinner I headed home in a light drizzle. My room at Pramesti had no air conditioning but it wasn’t that bad. I slept great and woke up very early – like 7ish (early for me).

One of Madi’s staff asked if I wanted breakfast and remembering the banana pancakes I said sure. I grabbed Pillars of the Earth and settled into that for awhile as my breakfast was being made. As I was reading one of the rabbits came to nibble on one of the ceremonial offerings put out every morning.

After playing with the rabbit for awhile (mind out of gutters people) my pancakes arrived:

It was more like a crepe than a pancake, and was very tasty. After eating I packed up my stuff so it was ready to go. Later this day I was going to go meet my friends at their Villa. At about ten thirty I set out for the Monkey Forest and after that a hike around the more rural parts of Ubud to get a feel for daily life and to just get out of the city.

My first stop on Monkey Forest Road was the Monkey Forest itself. The Monkey Forest (no that is not the official name) contains a temple, a cemetery and is home to hundreds of grey monkeys. The monkeys are not shy at all and at one point one of them jumped up on me – sadly I don’t have a pic of that. If you have a banana or other fruit you might as well wear a sign on you that says “attack me”. In my case I reached into my bag to get out my water bottle and a monkey thought I was going to feed it so it jumped on me and clung on for awhile.

Here is a video of one of these guys going crazy after a banana. Watch how fast he opens the sucker up:

After roaming the monkey forest and exploring the outside of the temple I moved on to some of the roads around Ubud outside of the city. Here are some pics of the monkey forest:

My favorite:

In my trek around Ubud I stumbled upon an abandoned house that was kind of creepy and overrun with wildlife (by the way the spiders here a ridiculous …. ughh).

I stopped at several vendors along the way to get Pocari Sweat and water (you can read about my fascination with Pocari Sweat here). The hike took me through verdant rice fields that were being harvested, some views of the river and the surrounding jungle. The rice fields here are very cool and in some cases where the land is not flat they are terraced.

After about three hours I had made a full circuit around Ubud and made my way back to the bungalows. My plan was to go spend the next three nights at a villa north of Ubud where my friend Jeff was staying. Long story short their internet wasn’t working and I had no way to get in touch with them. I ended up having a very relaxing rest of the day reading my book at the Green Room which had a good 2 for 1 Happy Hour and then finished up with dinner at Casa Luna restaurant.

I checked my email one last time to see if Jeff had arrived and when there was no word from them I went back tot he bungalow and slept. This was my first encounter with the wildlife in the hotels and I had a mean battle with a cockroach that ended up with it falling in the toilet on accident and me flushing it down two or three times … Matt 1- Cockroach 0.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T06:15:00.001-08:00

Hi everyone,

Here is a quick little message I recorded before our Thanksgiving here at the villa in Canguu. I have another blog post I have been meaning to send out, but I probably won’t get to it until later or when I come back :( …

Happy Thanksgiving and see you soon!

-Matt

Bali Update

2009-11-11T18:24:00.001-08:00

Hello! So I haven’t sent out any updates yet for a few reasons. The first few days I had just been chilling at the pool reading books and relaxing in the sun. Not much to show you (although I have some great shots of my feet on various lounge chairs).

The real reason though is that I got what I most feared right off the bat … Bali Belly (I actually think it was something worse. I would have welcomed Bali Belly as some have described it to me). I will spare you all the gory details (and trust me they are gory), but my second full day here was seriously one of the worst days of my life. I don’t exaggerate.

I had to have a doctor visit me, go on a slew of antibiotics (some that I brought and new ones that she gave me) and a variety of other drugs to stop certain parts of the body from behaving badly. I had a fever, aching back, a butt that wouldn’t stop and a mouth that wouldn’t stop either. Yeah TMI!

I may seem jovial about it now (I’m not really) but it was definitely the wrong foot to get my trip going on and it was hard for me to really get relaxed. This was frustrating of course because as I looked around I was more or less in paradise, but it definitely didn’t feel that way 100%. Her advice to me was classic too: “eat at the hotels". I had actually eaten that night at one of the top 5 restaurants in Bali and had a very good dinner. Anyhow my time during these first few days was spent at the Peninsula Beach Resort.

Peninsula Beach Resort in Nusa Dua

Enough of the gross stuff. I still got to relax a lot. Like I said I read two books. The first was Fevre Dream by George R.R. Martin (and yes it is Fevre not Fever). He writes the Song of Ice and Fire Series that they are making into an HBO series now – it is going to kick so much ass. Think Rome but medieval fantasy.

The next book was Life of Pi by Yann Martel. This was very good. I had been wanting to read it for awhile and blazed through it in a day. Spoiler: I am going to search for a carnivorous algae forest while I am here.

The Nusa Dua area is the ritzy area of Bali with many of the big name resorts you would expect to find. I had been uber-amped up on glistening white sand beaches and other standard staples of paradise. Unfortunately it is not as I imagined but it is still gorgeous. There is a beach promenade that, in the maintained parts in front of the resorts, is a great walk. I spent one afternoon strolling along it and staring at all of the infinity pools and over the top amenities and services offered. Some of these hotels go all out. Other parts of the promenade are unfortunately not as well maintained and just accumulate trash and weeds. Later in the week I plan on going further south on the Nusa Dua coastline to see if the beaches get better.

My hotel is perfect though. Small, good food, a little bar (although I couldn’t drink for a few days because of the antibiotics – felt pretty good actually), and a great pool. Their beachfront is nice too. A lot of water sports take place here and in between chapters of my book I would watch jet skis, flying fish (has anyone seen one of these – really cool – and no not the animal), and parasailers go by.

Here are some shots of the pool:

This whole time I was still suffering from a war being waged in my tummy from the various antibiotics. It always kept me kind of on edge – what was going to happen next in the circus that was my body?

Wednesday however that all changed. No more antibiotics and a normal, healthy feeling Matt. I had no more books, had pooled it too long (is there such a thing) and decided it was time to see some of this island!

Ulu Watu

I called up my driver Made (Mad-ay) and asked if he could come get me around elevenish. Lucky for me the day was slow for him and he could.

Bali is much bigger than I expected and there are many people who will offer to drive you around for the day for a reasonable amount of money. A half day is about 35 $ (350,000 Rp) and a full ay is about 50$ (500,000 Rp). Keep track of the relative cost of things as I bring it up because I have a sucker of a story for later (where I am the sucker who had a brain skip).

I suited up with my backpack and some shoes because i figured there would be some hiking around and I also thought it more appropriate to go into a temple with closed toe shoes on. I was one of few who thought that would be nice and later regretted this decision when I was at the beach. Not a big deal though…

The distance to the temple from my resort in Nusa Dua is probably about 20-30 km. Maybe twice that. But it takes much longer to get there because they don’t have highways here and the roads are cramped with scooters. There are no lanes here really and everyone drives very offensively – tailgating is an understatement.

But I trusted in Made and in about half an hour we made it over to the Ulu Watu temple. The temple was built in the 11th century and that is about all I learned about it in particular. It is supposed to be gorgeous at sunset but I chose to watch the sunset at Jimbaran Bay.

The view from the temple was breathtaking. It is built right on these cliffs that plunge right to the crashing surf below. Of course I took pics for you to see (I have many more that I will send out when I get back):

One thing to be wary about at this temple (and others from what I read) is the monkeys will get frisky with your hat, sunglasses, pretty much anything accessible to their mischievous little hands.

That’s right f-ing monkeys. Coolest thing! I took many many pics of them. I may have even accidentally caught one of them plowing himself into another but I think I took my finger off the button.

Some monkeys:

After I was done being Indiana Jones and watching the monkeys we set off to check out the famed Ulu Watu beach and moreover its surf.

The beach itself was a tiny little thing down a series of stone steps and carved over time between two giant stone structures. Built above it were a bunch of villas and surf rental shops.

Here I met the first other American so far! Crazy. She was from North Carolina and her boyfriend was surfing. There are mostly Australians here, German, French, and neighboring Asian countries, but ay my resort – no Americans that I have met.

I took two dips on the ocean, watched the surfers for a while and then set off back up the stairway to the parking area where Made was waiting.

Here is the view from above the beach:

That about covers Ulu Watu. The next stop was Padang Padang Beach.

Padang Padang Beach

This beach was much more swimmable than Ulu Watu and had a break that was farther off the shoreline. I pretty much did the exact same here that I did at Ulu Watu: swim, relax and people watch.

The whole time at both beaches I was wearing a rash guard so I would blend in with the surfers. No really, I was wearing it so I wouldn’t get sunburned. My ghost like features haven’t adapted yet to the blazing sun here. (and again, not to bring it up but the antibiotics didn’t help much since you need to stay out of the sun… grrrr)

This beach also had some gorgeous Italian woman sunbathing topless which reminded me of Italy where the woman sunbathed topless :) … However I still prefer the bikini. Don’t show it all off at once.

After relaxing a bit more it was time to go off to get some food. It was about five o’clock and I had skipped lunch. The destination: Jimbaran Bay.

Jimbaran Bay

Jimbaran Bay is beautiful and was home to just the beach I was looking for. Reminded me a lot of Hawaii actually. Along the beach are twenty four restaurants (Warung as they are called here). I am not going to detail my sucker story in this post but here is where I got suckered.

The draw here is that they catch the fish fresh and you get to pick the fish, prawn, or lobster (or Live Lobster if your name is Matt Stein) and they throw it on this big grill for you and cook it up with various spices and what not. I was a big fan of the idea of fresh food after my ordeal a few days ago. I could see it alive, watch it be cooked and hopefully there is no room in between for error.

My driver and I posted up on a table on the beach (note to people: this would be a very romantic dinner spot, but I was with my driver). When we first got there it was just him and I and a couple to our left. By the time we left all the tables in front of us (two more rows) were filled to the brim with honeymooners, families, and other groups. It was slightly strange eating with Made, but not really. We would talk here and there, but mostly it was still as though I was on my own. I did share a bit of my dinner with him.

The sunset was spectacular and the food was amazing.

Here is the feast before I devoured it:

And after:

It was my first time eating lobster if you can believe that. After watching the sun go down I paid the bill (ugghh) and Made drove me home to my hotel.

This day was hands down my best day here so far. I got to explore some of the culture of Bali, see some wild monkeys, go to three beautiful beaches and indulge myself in a tasty if overpriced dinner.

More to come! Tomorrow I am chilling at the hotel pool and Friday I may head back to Jimbaran Bay to go to the beach there for the day and catch another sunset (but NOT eat Live Lobster).

Send me emails! They are fun to read…

Oh and here is a pic of me :) …

And another from the temple …

Bali Updates

2009-11-03T14:21:00.001-08:00

Updates from my travels in Bali will be posted here soon!

XAML Wrap Panel Tip

2009-10-06T15:44:00.001-07:00

I recently need to display a set of items in a ListBox in a grid that wrapped based on the width of the ListBox. Simple right?

My XAML started out something like this:

<Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot">
        <ListBox Margin="170,57,134,150">
          <ListBox.ItemsPanel>
             <ItemsPanelTemplate>
                  <WrapPanel/>
              </ItemsPanelTemplate>
          </ListBox.ItemsPanel>
           <Button Width="75" Content="Button"/>
           <Button Width="75" Content="Button"/>
           <Button Width="75" Content="Button"/>
           <Button Width="75" Content="Button"/>
           <Button Width="75" Content="Button"/>
        </ListBox>
    </Grid>

and it produced the following result:

Notice how the 5th button is cutoff and is not wrapping. For awhile I was stumped and started looking at ways to modify the WrapPanel itself. One solution might be to give the WrapPanel a fixed width, but that is not very elegant. The solution I landed on (and what I believe to be the correct solution) is to disable the Horizontal Scrolling functionality on the ListBox.

The XAML changes to this:

<Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot">
        <ListBox Margin="170,57,134,150" ScrollViewer.HorizontalScrollBarVisibility="Disabled">
          <ListBox.ItemsPanel>
             <ItemsPanelTemplate>
                  <WrapPanel/>
              </ItemsPanelTemplate>
          </ListBox.ItemsPanel>
           <Button Width="75" Content="Button"/>
           <Button Width="75" Content="Button"/>
           <Button Width="75" Content="Button"/>
           <Button Width="75" Content="Button"/>
           <Button Width="75" Content="Button"/>
        </ListBox>
    </Grid>

The attached ScrollViewer.HorizontalScrollbarVisibility property tells the Scrollviewer the ListBox (and thus its containing panel) not to scroll horizontally. Thus the WrapPanel doesn’t assume it has an infinite width (this is a non-developer interpretation of what is going on).

The result is just what I want:

Hope this helps!

Dating advice

2009-10-05T22:03:00.001-07:00

My friend, a woman (let’s call her Jane), just asked me dating advice. Why I don’t know because I am probably not the best to give it, but her question went something like this (over text message):

Went on a date. Was ok. Not bad at all but not smitten. Kissed goodnight. Agreed to a 2nd date. Now having reservations. If I am not super into him then why waste time.

I couldn’t agree more – and not just because of the time she would be wasting. Both parties would be wasting time. If there is no connection then move on. There are plenty of other people out there.

However, most girls I know don’t throw kisses around on the first date unless they are into the other party. With that in mind I think Jane should think about the following:

- If she goes on many dates then she should abort any future dates with this guy. Even though they kissed, not a big deal, Jane does this a lot maybe (not judging here)

- If she doesn’t go on many dates and she kissed this guy, and that is rare for her, then she should give it another go. There must have been a connection. The guy is worth another shot. Maybe he was nervous, not acting like his normal self – there could be more there.

- If Jane was drunk at all at the time then she should cut ties now. The kiss may have sounded good at the time, but not afterwards, and since Jane isn’t smitten then its not going to get better

But what do I know…

Tune in next time to find out what Jane does!

Comcast - I plan to leave you

2009-05-18T22:24:00.001-07:00

I have taken enough from Comcast's DVR.

Things about Comcast I hate:
- The remote sucks - see my previous post on this
- Why I do have to pay more on top of an already horrendously high price for HDTV and the DVR
- Poor customer service (I have to drive to get a new set top box that doesn't work - bring it to me)
- 5.99$ to watch a movie OnDemand

The things that Comcast offers me that I like:
- HDTV channels
- DVR capability
- Internet access

I don't mind paying for the Internet, but the TV portion has to go. Even if the price was right, the hardware driving the Comcast solution is buggy and laggy. The user experience of the service drives me insane.

The problem: Find another way to keep watching HDTV (on my big gorgeous TV) and come up with a solution for recording shows.

Once I get a solution that works for me (and probably paying hundreds of dollars in the process) I will post it here :) ... The current plan in my head involves a HDTV antennae, my XBox 360, Netflix Watch Instantly, and an over the air TV Tuner input on my PC.

As Michael Scott would say: "So suck it (Comcast)" ...

Sidewalk Tickets in San Francisco

2008-09-03T22:29:00.001-07:00

This is surprisingly not a rant about the DPT - although they are the harbingers of the evil "On Sidewalk" ticket that has been adorning my windshield wiper lately. It is actually a rant on some of the residents of San Francisco. I have lived at my place for about a year. I am not going to say where that is and you will soon learn why.

I am fortunate, or thought I was, to have enough space between the garage door and the adjacent buildings wall to park my car in front of my front door. A spot that does overhang the five concrete tiled sidewalk by about 40-50% depending on how close I park to my front door. Plenty of room for a wheelchair to go through. Glorious I thought - a free parking spot that is not in anyone's way (logically at least). For the most part things have been fine. To this date, during my twelfth month of living here I have received only three "On Sidewalk" tickets.

Each sidewalk violation clocks in at a whopping $100. One hundred dollars. Again, one hundred dollars. Some stats:

That is two and half times the price of a parking meter violation and street cleaning ticket
Second highest violation (bus stop violations are $250 - yikes!)

I didn't notice on the first two citations, but on my third it says "Complaint 60% in sidewalk". Regardless of the fact that I was only 50%, I found the part about the complaint very interesting. Someone, some other resident of the city, actually called the DPT complaint number and complained that my car was blocking the sidewalk.

As a happy San Francisco resident who has had his fair share of crap to deal with regarding street cleaning tickets, and parking meters, etc. I would only in extreme circumstances call out another resident, especially when there is five feet or more of room on the sidewalk to walk, bike, hop, skip, whatever. You could park a motorcycle behind my car!

If I am blocking the whole sidewalk, then go ahead, complain.

If I am blocking your driveway then tow my ass.

That's about it though - other than that just let it be. Or at least write a note on my car explaining what the problem is.

Another strange thing about this is that it happened at night. My ticket was written up at 10:12 pm. Thoroughly interested, I called the DPT tonight and spoke to two very friendly ladies about the issue.

The first told me the following interesting tidbit:

If one car on the block gets a complaint than every car that is in violation of the sidewalk law is written up on the block.

This is where the City of San Francisco becomes evil again when it comes to how they fill up their coffers. I also asked if I could have the name and number of the person complaining (not that I expected to get it) and was told that they don't take that down for sidewalk complaints since it is the law (a California one at that). That means I could drive by a street that is not even my own, see a car on the sidewalk (or partially as mine is) and have the whole block written up. That is messed.

Where is your compassion people? Next time you think about filing a complaint about something that is not too severe - like partially overlapping the sidewalk - think twice about how $100 would feel sucked out of your checking account.

Also, these tickets cannot be appealed - I mean they can- but both ladies told me you have a chance in hell at actually getting them dismissed. If anyone has done this successfully please let me know.

Wow, I am generating some traffic

2008-09-02T00:21:00.001-07:00

Well it seems as if more people actually read this blog now, at least two that I know of: Shaan Hurley, Between the Lines and Steve Johnson, Blog Nauseam. As Steve mentions we do tend to agree on disagreeing and this time it is my Mojave Experiment post. But what I don't agree with is Steve's interpretation of my post. I said that the Mojave Experiment is "cool" and "great". Whether a gimmick or not it is a fun experiment. I don't think this is serious marketing or will be able to make any big waves for Microsoft in ramping up Vista adoption. That said I think the experiment does show how brainwashed the everyday consumer is around Vista. I have friends and relatives when asked about Vista will reply, "Oh, I have heard its bad." From who - someone else who heard it was bad, the Apple commercials (because those aren't biased, right), etc.

The Mojave Experiment will at its best be a small viral addition to what will be their next large scale ad campaign.

Also, the mojaveexperiment site now uses Silverlight (definitely not because of my surprise) ...

Lastly, Steve, those early posts can get a little racy ... I now write all of that kind of stuff to friends only on Facebook :) ... Happy reading ...

Edited

First Photosynth

2008-08-20T22:34:00.001-07:00

Here is my first photosynth creation. It is only 88% synthy because I don't have enough pictures but is still fun. Behold Akaka Falls.

Photosynth going public!

2008-08-20T21:35:00.001-07:00

I have been waiting for this to be released to the masses since it was originally offered as a limited technology preview last year:

http://photosynth.net/Default.aspx

Edited ...

Internet News Ruins the Olympics

2008-08-10T11:58:00.001-07:00

So I am watching the Olympics on NBC and enjoying what had been a fairly close game between China and the USA basketball team. At halftime I think USA was leading by ten or twelve. I then went into my room to check some email and browse the web and this greets me:

Yes, I went to Google News so you could say its my own fault, but come on. Google should throw up a temporary option to delay Olympic news by a day.

Note: I almost posted this during the game but then I would have just been contributing to the problem for the 1 person who reads this blog. That's you Chaffee!

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Teaser

2008-07-29T21:04:00.001-07:00

I don't know when I became an uber-Harry Potter fan, but I took a month off work (3 weeks actually combined with our week of rest) after completing this and one of the things I did was read the Harry Potter series cover to cover in about a week and half. A week and half well spent. I don't enjoy the first two movies very much but like the last three quite a abit. I may go re-read Half-Blood before this November just to brush up. Enjoy:

Why doesn't the Mojave Experiment use Silverlight?

2008-07-29T20:27:00.001-07:00

I don't get it. I just posted about how great I thought the Mojave Experiment is - and I still think it is great. But why doesn't the site:

http://www.mojaveexperiment.com/

use Silverlight for its interactive video wall. I am pretty certain Silverlight can do everything going in in the Flash app that is running instead.

The only viable reason I can think of is that the Silverlight market penetration is still too low and that Microsoft really wants people (en masse) to go to the Mojave Experiment site. If they have to install Silverlight and then see the experiment results it will be a barrier to entry.

Still though - makes you wonder.

Windows "Mojave" Experiment

2008-07-29T20:18:00.001-07:00

I think this is really cool:

http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2008/07/29/windows-mojave-video-posts.aspx

Microsoft basically disguised Vista as a new OS named "Mojave" and then showed it to users. Before the test users were asked to rate Vista and gave it low scores on a scale of 1-10. Then after being shown Mojave they were asked to evaluate the OS and the scores were much higher. The kicker is that Mojave is Vista.

I have been using Vista Ultimate on my ancient desktop and have been more than pleasantly surprised by mostly the numerous little features here and there in addition to the larger, more prominent features. For example, small changes like this to the volume control allowing for per program volume:

or the newly improved Calendar:

are just tiny of the level of change throughout the whole OS.

Other things I find valuable:

Start Menu Search is indispensable.
Sidebar: I use it daily to keep track of stocks and local weather without having to go into IE (lazy I know).
Speech Recognition: This still has a long way to go, but it is a huge leap in the right direction.
Windows Explorer "Breadcrumb" Navigation is much more versatile than the simple address bar.
Built in Windows Media Center (I mean come on, that is sweet)

Going back to XP makes me cringe. What is even better though is there are a bunch of Vista features I haven't even started to play with - like System Restore, the new wireless connection management (I am on a desktop at home), the Photo Gallery (I am still using Picasa, but this looks comparable now), Windows Remote Assistance (to help the parentals), etc.

Anyway, hopefully more people give it a chance and some good vibes about Vista will start forming.

Another Facebook test

2008-07-28T20:56:00.001-07:00

Blah ...

Testing out linking my blog to Facebook ...

2008-07-28T20:53:00.001-07:00

The new facebook redesign allows for sucking in stories you write on other websites such as Yelp, StumbleUpon, Digg, etc. One of the options is to use your blog. Let's see what happens...

AutoCAD 2009 Cue Cards Online

2008-07-24T00:31:00.001-07:00

One of the fun things our User Assistance group did for the AutoCAD 2009 release was a set of cue cards that shipped with the media. Now these Cue Cards are available online for everyone to enjoy. They are great way to get a quick overview of the new features introduced:

AutoCAD 2009 Cue Cards

By the beard of Zeus!!

2008-07-24T00:24:00.001-07:00

Two words: Anchorman 2. With Step Brothers getting pretty good reviews compared to Ferrell's recent duds Semi-Pro and Blades of Glory, let's hope this continues the upward trend and Will returns to form.

Story at EW

"It's called Sex Panther ... 60% of the time it works every time"

A Professional Introduction

2008-07-16T20:28:00.001-07:00

I have been meaning to, for awhile, start writing about bits and pieces of what I do at work on a day to day basis. Trouble is, most of what I do at work cannot be revealed until we release our product.

I work at Autodesk, in Marin County, as a Senior Product Designer on the AutoCAD team. For a certain portion of the product I am in charge of designing the user experience - everything from UI layout to business logic.

My education entails a BS in Computer Science so my first passion, I guess you could say, would be coding. I graduated near the top of my class, and really did like coding, but the dot com bubble had just burst (2002) and jobs were harder to find.

I had already been an intern at Autodesk since high school and eventually a position in QA opened up. I took that and eventually moved to product design making the 'decision' (although nothing is ever definite) to forego a career coding away.

But I still loved tinkering with code and kept up on new technologies and even flirted with them for awhile making silly games and other applications (Snake and an Outlook Contact Status Bar utility come to mind).

Whereas some Product Designers on my team opt for mockups in Illustrator or Photoshop, I would always start in Visual Studio and add interactivity as I went along.

Then WPF and XAML came along. Ah, what a wondrous piece of technology. Finally I was able to please the code tinkering with my designing side. Such a beautiful union. I am now one of the only designers in the company working on WPF related projects and actually contributing real, working XAML to the code stream. Last year, members of the development team and I pioneered a true designer~developer workflow for AutoCAD using XAML.

The experience has been amazing although there have been some frustrating days where I am sure I was experiencing what most developers experience when they are under the gun trying to fix bugs, get to code complete, and finish off their respective features. When you are working with XAML, you *are* still working with code. Not to mention WPF is a huge, robust set of functionality with lots to learn.

Which brings me to why I started this post. Since I cannot talk much about what I am doing on a day to day basis with AutoCAD, I was going to post some interesting WPF tidbits I find through my work. Hopefully I can post some stuff about AutoCAD too, with respect to our last release, AutoCAD 2009. Stay tuned!

The Dark Knight

2008-07-01T13:30:00.001-07:00

I have held off seeing any but the first trailer for this movie. This new poster that was just released is making the wait for July 18 that much harder... originally posted here.

HD and Special Effects revisited

2008-06-15T23:31:00.000-07:00

Okay, I am convinced that as I previously mentioned in this post: Does High-Def make great SFX look bad- there is something about watching a special effects laden movie in HD that is wrong. The green screening is too noticeable.

I just got back from a buddies house and where we watched half of Spiderman 3. We were flipping through OnDemand and saw it there and he was like, I have it on Blu-Ray, probably better than the HD delivered through Comcast (although technically it shouldn't be right??).

All of the scenes of Spidey swinging or that had extensive aerial maneuvering look too fake, especially the first battle between New Goblin and Peter. Don't get me wrong, it looks amazing and seeing the action in HD is great, but the composting is that much more noticeable.

I am thinking we are back in the early days of special effects where the blue screen was extremely noticeable - that got better and better. Now with the increased use of virtual sets and a higher resolution picture, we need to another technological leap to get the composition and lighting of the various elements of the digital scene and the real scene matched up better.

Testing out Windows Live Writer

2008-03-19T21:26:00.001-07:00

Windows Live Writer is a fairly new tool for publishing to blogs from a desktop application versus the web. Probably nothing new and groundbreaking, but it seems to offer easier editing and insertion capabilities than Blogger where my blog is hosted.

You can insert maps:

Pictures easily:

With different effects:

and even tables:

Header 1	Header2
Live Writer	Is Fun

Now to see if those images I entered automatically get upload when I click Publish.

A Dance of Dragons has cover art!

2008-03-17T21:19:00.000-07:00

This is so exciting - it has been around 3 or 4 years since A Feast for Crows came out and George R. R. Martin has been taking his precious time writing A Dance of Dragons. Check out the cover art for the American version that was just released and click through to the original story from George's blog below:

George R R Martins Blog

Microsoft Surface: Paying a Bill Demo

2008-03-16T22:19:00.000-07:00

This demo of the Surface resonates a lot with me and I hope a few of my friends (Sean and Frank) read this because they will probably get a kick out of it. I am convinced there are two kinds of people in the world: cash people and credit people. The cash people always have cash on them and almost always pay in cash. The credit people are always throwing their card down at dinner or at the bar.

I am a credit person. It's not because I don't have cash or the money, but because I like being able to track what I am spending - how much on gas, how much on dining, nights at the bars, etc. Not that I ever do anything with these statistics, but its nice to have a loose handle on the monthly budget. Anyhow for some reason I am one of the few credit types in my group and it a running joke now that I will put "The Difference on the Card". We even created an acronym for it - DOC. "Hey Matt, you going to DOC". Yeah its like that. Which is why the little demo below is so interesting to me because it makes paying a dinner or bill with your credit card really easy and even fun.

Check it out. Hey Frank and Sean - we are only going to go bars that have this setup in the future ;) ...

Microsot Surface: Wine Demo

2008-03-16T21:35:00.000-07:00

While at the MIX Conference, there was an area called the Sandbox where you could go and tinker with a bunch of Microsoft technologies and see demo's of Windows Mobile 6 and the MIcrosoft Surface. I hung out around the Surface mostly and watched them go through most of the sample applications. This one is a Wine Demo showing how a wine list could eventually be browsed in the future.

Bad Design: Comcast's DVR

2008-03-16T14:40:00.000-07:00

Comcasts DVR solution is a steaming pile. I have had a few of them in the past five years and each one, rather than getting better, is seemingly worse in some respect. I now just live with it. The usability of the on screen display is horrible - that I can somewhat understand (not that I am happy about it), because it was probably the next to last thing Comcast thought about - they just wanted get their product out the door so they could begin their market takeover.

The piece that disappoints the most though is the hardware itself. The remote and the actual DVR unit do not communicate well at all. I will hit the Menu button and 10 seconds later it will load up. But since I am impatient I hit the menu button four more times in that 10 seconds. These presses are queued up and the menu loads and closes four times. Channel surfing is just as bad. Sometimes it takes the input from the remote right away, other times there is a huge delay and as the button presses get queued up, you end up overshooting the channel you want.

The DVR fast forward and pause functionality is hurt because of this as well. How many times have I overshot the end of a commercial break by over two minutes because the damn remote won't accept the play input.

Comcast needs to put some serious effort in the quality of the hardware they are delivering as well as the embedded software solution that runs it. They should open this up to 3rd parties and let consumers choose what DVR software to use. I would pay for a 3rd party solution that works then use the current offering - that said I give Comcast so much money a month just so I can get HD, that their solution should be more than sufficient.

Anyway, rant over, going to go watch some TV now...

MIX '08 - Steve Ballmer Keynote

2008-03-06T14:21:00.000-08:00

So there are actually two keynotes at MIX. The second one just ended and it was a very candid, and eye-opening (for me) Q and A of Steve Ballmer by Guy Kawasaki. I personally didn't know who Guy was prior to the event, but after a few minutes of their quick banter back and forth your quickly learned that Guy worked out Apple at one point and Steve didn't hire him back in the mid 80s to work at Microsoft.

This was all delivered in some machine guy style, friendly barbs back and forth at each other which Guy continued in a humorous way throughout the hour long session.

Nothing was off limits as Guy asked "What is up with Vista", why Steve didn't have a MacBook Air (which he "fake" stomped and crushed Guys).

Steve Ballmer comes off as a very approachable, funny, self-deprecating individual. At one point during the attendee QA he got up and pumped his fist in the air with a wicked grin on his face yelling "Web developers, web developers, web developers". This sent everyone into a roar of applause.

Not much was learned, but it was very cool to see Microsoft's head honcho speaking candidly on a variety of topics from Silverlight, to the Yahoo takeover, Xbox, social networks and more. If some of his evasive answers are to be taken at face value, 2008 seems to have more suprises in store for the end user and developer. More tidbits about this keynote later (and I need to finish up my other keynote post).

MIX '08: Conference Keynote - Part 1

2008-03-05T12:49:00.001-08:00

I am currently at the MIX '08 Conference at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. The Keynote just ended here it is in summary form. I am skipping over a lot of stuff that wasn't entirely interesting or related to why I am here but here are the tidbits:

Ray Ozzie (Chief Software Architect of Microsoft) came out and rambled on about a bunch of stuff for 30 minutes. He focused on Microsoft's long term vision of how software and services and computing "in the cloud" will all come together. He brought up his three "C's": Content, Commerce, and Community with extra emphasis on the latter with respect to how the other two have been shaped.

The three principles which Microsoft is reaching toward are the 1) Web as a hub, 2) Business and the power of choice to embrace the "cloud" and 3) Compentization across the cloud to services and other devices.

He stated that in five years, the code that developers (as he points out to a group of designers and developers) will be writing will be fundamentally transformed by the cloud.

Next were the 5 major groups which I am mostly going to skip over, but it came down to "Connected Services", "Connected Devices", "Connected Business", "Connected Entertainment", and "Connected Development". Notice a theme ;)...

He alluded to a preview of a new way to connect PCs that they have been working on that will be previewable soon. He seemed to imply a way to dynamically manage multiple PCs from the internet for the end consumer.

Connected Entertainment was about managing all of your entertainment from one place and viewing/playing it everywhere. Think movies on XBox Live and the Zune - same with games and music. Those examples aren't what he said specifically, but what I took away as possible in the future.

Finally, after more 30,000 foot level talk about where we are going, Scott Guthrie was introduced to talk about "Great User Experiences". This is where the keynote became much more interesting and there was still 2 hours to go!

The four facets of Scott's presentation were:

Media

RIA (Rich Internet/Interactive Applications)

Mobile

Web

New technologies for ASP.Net were announced for later in 2008: ASP.Net MVC (Model View Control, AJAX, and Dynamic Data). All to aid in making data driven, rich interactive websites easier to develop. Scott wasn't on long before he brought out Dean Hachamovitch (sp) to talk about Internet Explorer 8. Dean sported a shirt that said eight but the "e" was an internet explorer logo.

After some slightly humorous jokes about how developers cannot count passed three, Dean decided to focus in on eight areas of IE 8 - CSS 2.1 Support, CSS Certification, HTML 5, a few more I don't remember and the more exciting ones (for me since I don't really do web development) were the end user features of IE 8:

WebSlices

Activities

WebSlices enables Developers via an OpenSpecification format provided by Microsoft to allow the end user to track a "slice" of a website. The real example showed was an eBay auction. Dean, pulled an auction item - for a camera lens - into a web slice and placed this in the toolbar of IE 8. When interacting with the slice, the auction item information for the camera was displayed, in real-time, showing exactly what the eBay site would display.

Next was an example of Facebook used to track the status updates of your friends. Think of it as little pieces of Google Gadgets (or Live Gadgets) that can be added to the IE Application window, except now web developers can add this granular control to pieces of websites themselves. Pretty cool.

The next item was Activities which is sort of like the new contextual panel that shows up when you highlight text in Word. Highlight an address, click the activity button, and boom a map from live maps comes up. Highlight a product name, select the eBay activity and you are quickly looking at any auctions that match. Creating activities is simple for developers to do via another Open Specification that Microsoft has developed. The mapping one alone will save me countless clicks of highlighting an address, copying it, opening a new tab, accessing google maps, and pasting it in. Now the map opens in its own little window, in the context of the current selection - it demo'd quite well and hopefully the real deal is as good.

The last bit was an announcement that IE 8 Beta would be released to the development community.

With that, Scott came back on to show off some more stuff. Notably, Silverlight 2 Beta 1 is available today. Skipping over some info on Adaptive Streaming in Silverlight 2 and also an annoucnement to partner with MoveNetworks ...

... More coming soon. I am off to my first MIX Session! I have pictures and stuff I want to inline into these posts later but I forgot my camera download cable at home so that will have to wait.

Microsoft Surface looks sweet!

2007-05-29T23:14:00.000-07:00

This looks like tons of fun! I want to play with one. Two years ago when I was at SIGGRAPH in Los Angeles I met someone from Microsoft Research who was demo-ing this touch screen technology. This looks like the partial result of his work:

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

-Matt

Two things

2007-05-29T14:18:00.000-07:00

Google Maps now offers a 3D street view where you can view both sides of the street - very cool...

Second: here is a link to a house I may make an offer on in google maps. It is the one on the left with the port-o-potty in front:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=1670+Hayes+St,+San+Francisco,+CA+94117&sll=37.776592,-122.443303&sspn=0.007607,0.009356&ie=UTF8&ll=37.77493,-122.443925&spn=0.007607,0.009356&z=17&om=1&layer=c&cbll=37.77421,-122.443931&cbp=1,0,0.479160666399554,0

New "Terminator" Trilogy Planned

2007-05-10T09:53:00.001-07:00

The Halcyon Co. has acquired the franchise rights to the popular "The Terminator" movie series and intend to make a new trilogy that would anchor their movie company.

read more | digg story

Funny as hell Comcast commerical

2007-05-06T23:49:00.000-07:00

My girlfriend told me about this and I hunted it down on YouTube ... this is hilarious ... "I webbed you, that means you got the apartment" ...

-matt

Lost has an ending! 2009

2007-05-04T15:17:00.000-07:00

I am actually really stoked about this development. Lost is probably my favorite show on television. The Office and Friday Night Lights were are the other two (Grey's Anatomy is up there too although the recent decision to have a whole other "sister" show is lame). Anyway knowing that Lost will end in 2009 is a breath of fresh air. I do not want them to come up with "interesting" ways to extend the series. I am glad that the writers have an end in sight and they are working towards tying up the story.

I will gladly wait 7 months to see the new set of episodes...

-matt

Spiderman 3 Review

2007-05-04T13:41:00.000-07:00

Last night my girlfriend got us tickets to go see Spiderman 3 in IMAX at the 12:01 am showing (yes because of this surprise she now holds eternal sway over me ;)). I have literally been talking about the movie for months if not over a year and she even got me a sweet looking Spiderman 3 poster for my office that you can see in this post: Poster

So after pining over the movie for upwards of a year you can imagine my expectations were quite high. It was refreshing to see that the movie was not ranked rotten over here and that all in all it would be an enjoyable movie - something I never really doubted. But would it just satisfy this Spiderman fan or would it merely be passable.

I remember seeing the original Spiderman in college right about the time I was graduating. I even remember dragging my mom along when she was visiting me down at UCSB (and she actually liked it). I still pop this DVD in my player every few months just to watch Peter Parker become Spiderman and deal with the beginnings of his troubled young life. Spiderman had a good amount of action, not too much, but more focused on the character of Parker and we understand the troubles he is facing internally with the using his newfound abilities responsibly but still trying to maintain some semblance of a normal life.

Spiderman 2 carried these themes and had the same approach as the first movie with regards to the villains - there was just one - Doctor Octopus. The refresing doses of humor remained and Parker's struggle with what he wanted to be and what he should be remained. The action in this flick realy upped the ante from Spiderman with both the train scene, church fight scenes and the climatic end battle being far superior to most of the action. This movie also has a permanent home near my DVD player ...

So what about Spiderman 3 ... what follows is my slightly sporadic review ...

In spoiler-free form I would say that this movie is a fantastic, super-charged movie, and one of the top comic book movies to-date. If you are a Spiderman fan you will see this movie - no question. You will want to see Venom come to life, see Sandman in all of his glorious detail(down to a grain - literally), see Parker succumb to the anger and agression of the "black suit" (still spoiler free - its in the preview). I loved the movie - period. It is not without a few flaws, but overall this is what I think many people have been waiting for. The action is more, the humor intact, and the struggle that is Peter Parker's life is still prevalent throughout. What this is not - this is not X-Men 3 (altough I like love that movie - but as a 3rd and compared to this that does feel like less of a complete trilogy), this is DEFINITELY NOT Batman Forever or Batman and Robin. If you are reading about these comparisons they are WRONG. This is mostly more of the Spiderman people have grown to like or love from the first two - a lot more.

The movie starts off similarly to Spiderman 2. The opening credit sequence shows us scenes from the past two movies and it serves as a good way of revisitng what Peter Parker has already been through.

Spiderman 3 takes the action found in the first two films and builds on it ten-fold.

The set pieces and effects are amazing - the choreography amazing. The use of some of Spiderman's agility and "moves" is so well thought out in one scene where he is falling through the air that you can tell the creators have done their homework in making the action scenes not just another action scene. This is Spiderman brought to life. I don't want to spoil anymore action but when it starts in this movie it takes off. In some places it is brutal and bone-crunching - we see these characters with superhuman powers taking it to each other. It's not just punches and kicks and in some scenes the calculated damage done to both sides (both "hero" and "villain") made more than a few audience members oooh, ahh, and gasp. (I cannot stop thinking about one scene in particular). As far as action this movie answers the complaint from anyone who ever said Spiderman and Spiderman 2 lacked action will have nothing to complain about here. I have read some reviews about the effects not being up to par - ridiculous. This movie is a visual feast for the eyes for both fans and non-fans alike. If you have enjoyed seeing spidey swing about and battling the bad guys then you will enjoy this.

SPOILER**** Highlight to see ...

Additionally the action in many of the scenes has an emotional backing as well. The fights between Peter Paker and Harry (new Goblin) in particular. At one point when Spiderman is struggling with the symbiote's effects on his character (mood and agression mostly) he inflicts a crazy amount of venomous (no pun intended) pain upon Harry - web-slinging a goblin bomb right at an incapicitated Harry knowing full well it will explode. The audience both cheered and gasped all at once - not sure what to think of this "darker" more hateful Spiderman.

END SPOILER****

Something that some people seem to either love or hate about the movie is that it does have three villains. This is a departure from the last two where there was one villain in each. At times this makes the movie feel a little rushed or contrived in terms of how the plot jumps from one to another - so the script feels a little less cohesive then what is found in the first two movies. This did not personally bother me - I understand Spiderman's troubles from the first two movies - his character is developed. I understand the struggles around Mary-Jane, and Uncle Ben -we don't necessarily need more of that - it needs to continue yes (and it does - it is still the focal point), but it doesn't need the same treatment it was given before. I also didn't want to see a movie just about Sandman or another movie with just Green Goblin - I have always wanted to see Venom visualized on the screen. As a character goes he is the least interesting (except for how Venom is born) but as a villain in a comic book movie what more are you looking for. Still at times when all three are thrown together it seems the director/writers had to use a few more contrived plot affordances here and there. But damn if this isn't a comic book movie of epic proportions. Fans of the comic and character should be much more forgiving for some of the jumpiness - other people may feel like they cannot follow what is going on and may be asking or thinking the creators just laid on MORE for the sake of more. (My girlfriend who is not a fan like me was not bothered by this).

Comedically, the movie keeps up the quirkly humor from the first two and goes to extreme right around the middle of the movie. You will know when you see it - I didn't know what to think but I was grinning a stupid nerdy grin, I know that. I turned to my girlfriend and said "Well that was interesting" but I found myself laughing the whole way through. Sam Raimi has some cajones, let's just say that. It's like the light hearted carefree scene in Spiderman 2 times 10. In the same way that scene showed us how Peter Parker was carefree again after throwing away suit and foresaking being Spiderman, this scene shows us Peter Parker succumbing to a darker nature, in albeit a strange humorous way. It is not the only transformation we to Peter's dark side, luckily, or else it wouldn't work but if you can look past the goofiness it is pretty effective at showing his new attitude.

SPOILER *****
It would be fun to know how many takes they did this whole montage of Peter strutting around like a bad-ass who has no clue in the world (but doesn't care), thrusting his pelvis at women walking by, and improvising his own dance moves. Then when coming out of an upscale clothing score, dressed in a dapper all black suit pretty much saying "Fuck you - I'm Peter Parker/Spiderman and I don't take any shit from anyone".
END SPOILER *****

Lastly, some random thoughts. Did I like Venom - yes although some of the effects around his mouth when talking were slightly weird but that is forgivable. Seeing the symbiote take over Eddie Brock was extremely well done and you truly felt like the two were one... I also don't want to make it seem like the movie is all action and empty plot everywhere else - a lot is going on in this movie - Peter is still struggling with his relationship, the origin of Sandman, Eddie Brock's nastiness and betrayal, some more wonderful scenes with J.K. Simmon as J. Jonah Jameson, etc.

As far as an ending the movie manages to tie everything up very nicely. There is still room for future series - I will leave that at that.

So some of the most excellent comic book action - (puts all other comic book movies to shame - alhtough some come close - and I am a huge X-Men fan as well), the same Spiderman humor and a fast paced script that really doesn't ever let go -although it feels a bit rushed and contrived at points == goes see the movie. Now. In Imax.

After the movie I was "interviewed" by KFOG radio and the lady asked me if you have to be a comic book fan to enjoy the movie. My reply was that if you cannot just enjoy this movie [watch the spectacle, laugh at the humor, and go along for the ride] then there is something wrong with you.

So stop reading this overly long blog post - go see it now.

Tissues at the Post Office

2006-10-05T02:05:00.000-07:00

So yesterday at lunch during the break between one of the sessions I had to go get some more Yen from the ATM... There is a post office in the office building that Autodesk Japan is based in and they have an ATM so I went there. I walk in and a man hands me a small, soft package with some colorful (think Pokemon crosses Care Bears) characters on it.

I took it, gave a little nod, bow, said arigato (sp?) and promptly headed to the ATM. Later as I was walking back to the office I opened the package to find a bunch of kleenex. I asked our host later what it was (or more why it was) and she said they hand out small items like this with advertisements from time to time ...
Just another of the "strange" things that Tokyo has to offer.

Sushi Zanmai

2006-10-05T02:03:00.000-07:00

Last night I had perhaps the best sushi I have ever had, or at least that I can remember having in the recent past.

My coworker and I were on our own for dinner last night and asked the concierge where to go for some affordable (but very good) sushi. She listed some places and we ultimately went with the one she recommended, Sushi Zamai.

Once there we met a Japanese couple? (maybe they were just friends) and quickly learned that the sushi chef was poking some fun at us Americans. Anyhow, after talking a bit more with them we started to let the guy pick some sushi for us to try. Mostly, we had stuff that I've had before, but there were some new items (of which the names I unfortunately all forgot). The amount of sushi we got though was amazing - Toro (fatty tuna) for 4$ ... unheard of over here. We left quite full. Here are some pics of my miso soup which had an unusual addition to it which scared the sh*t out of me when I took the lid off. I literally almost spilled the soup everywhere...

Very cool dinner ...

2006-10-03T15:19:00.000-07:00

After our first session - which went very well by the way - our host took us to a very nice restaurant where we were served an amazing 9 course meal. Most of the courses were very small, but it was like the food just kept coming. I took some pictures of everything to share ...

And here is me taken the crab down:

More Tokyo updates as they come ...

Run in with the law...

2006-10-02T16:37:00.000-07:00

Well not really, but it was definitely not a situation I was happy to find myself in. Our first session today starts at 10am (about an hour and half from now) and I decided I would get to the Autodesk Japan office early to print out some things and go over the presentation. Very noble of me right...

I get here and the whole Triton tower is pretty quite compared to how it will be an hour from now. There were not many people milling around. I went to the elevator, hit the 24th floor for Autodesk and arrived to a floor that was very dark and empty.

No problem I thought, I'll just get my card key out and swipe it out the door, turn on some lights, easy ... So my card key doesn't work on the main reception door. I go over to an adjacent door, swipe my key and push the door open. THis turned out to be a bad move as the LCD screen you place the card key up to went from a nice, pleasant green color to a flashing red color, while making beeping (beep, beep, beep) ... Shit. The last thing I wanted to do was set of the alarm to Autodesk Japan's premier building. At least the door was open, but now more than anything I wanted the door closed. It wouldn't close however.

I decided to see if I could get some help. On the other side of the floor are more offices. I reluctantly put my card key up to the reader and was meant by the pleasant side of the door unlocking. I walked in and asked the first person I saw to help me out a little bit. I told him what happened and when we walked over to the red beeping door there was a very stern looking security guard waiting.

I went over and explained what happened to the Autodesk employee and he relayed it to the security guard who was intermittently talking to someone on his radio. We all went inside together "to look to see if someone was inside" and when the area was deemed clear, I was allowed to stay.

Then I wasn't and the security guard motioned to me. Okay, I said I would go back out. We get back out and the security guard talks again on his radio. He looks at me and motions back in. The Autodesk employee says I may go wherever I like.

For a second there I felt like I was the guy in the movie whose in another country and gets setup by some big conspiracy - hey, I have to think of something to pass the early jetlagged hours of the morning...

More pics ...

2006-10-02T01:59:00.000-07:00

I have more pics of my trip so far here ... nothing too exciting - just some shots from the hotel room and from within the hotel room... (and some pocari sweat bottles)...

Pics

One of my favorite things about Tokyo

2006-10-02T01:49:00.000-07:00

Okay this is going to sound lame, but one of my favorite things about Tokyo is this little drink you see right here:

Pocari Sweat. Why would I want to drink something with the name 'Sweat' in it. I don't know, but the stuff is really good. It's pretty much just like a gatorade type drink, replensishes your electrolytes, ions, yada yada, you get the point. Anyhow - thought I would just share. The second greatest thing besides this particular drink is the fact that every vending machine has hot and cold drinks (almost every) -- it is very cool. You can be walking down the street and get hot tea on a whim. I think I mentioned this last year when I was here.

The machines are everywhere too.

Anyhow, we are off to dinner soon. More strange findings later...

Back in Tokyo

2006-10-01T17:08:00.000-07:00

I am back in Tokyo on business and am remembering how fun and exciting this city is. The road here was not as exciting. After a 10 hour flight, another 45 minute in customs, and then an hour and fifteen minute bus ride, followed by a 20 minute cab ride - we finally arrived at our hotel. Where are single (twin size) beds were awaiting us.

Being the hotel snobs that we are, we requested upgrades to queen size beds and unfortunately only have those for two nights, after which we have to switch to single rooms (but we are planning on just not leaving our rooms). Like last year, the rooms are very nice and the detail attended to everything is pretty amazing. I have my own little toothbrush, and hair brush, a toilet that has more settings than anyone needs (it can really clean you up afterwards - although I haven't tried). The room even comes with a computer, although the Japanese keyboard layout has me typing li$e thi$ (I am on my laptop now).

All said and done we (my coworker and I) got to our room at around 7:45 which was about 3:45 am San Francisco time. We knew we needed to rally to reset our clocks so we headed down to dinner at the sushi bar in our hotel.

After being seated we browsed the menu. I really didn't feel like spending 8,500 Yen (roughly 70$) for 10 pieces of maguro sashimi, so we got up and left. By leaving we probably broke about 50 different rules of etiquette to the Japanese, but I thought we left fairly politely.

From there we headed outside of the hotel - it is possible to find a well priced meal in Japan - I had done it last time around.

We are staying in the Ginza district which is full of tall buildings with flashing signs and lights. Perhaps something like Times Square (but I wouldn't know because I have never been).

After walking by numerous restaurants and seeing pictures of very exotic looking food we came upon a place that was serving blowfish. Blowfish is the fish where the chef has to learn to cut it properly to remove the poisonous parts - that didn't seem to promising and I didn't want to risk anything on my first night here (maybe tonight though :)). The chances of eating the poisonous part is probably very slim, but still ....

Anyhow, as we are walking by after perusing the menu, a hostess runs out and asks us to come in. We walk back over and start to blankly look at the menu. She says, "English menu, English menu" ... we say yes and she runs in side and bustles back out with two English menus. They didn't read any better:

Blowfish soup with egg
Raw bits of blowfish on rice
Fried blowfish skin
etc.

We just wanted some gloriously fresh sushi!!

We kept walking, took in the bright lights of Ginza found no more restaurants and walked back along the same road we were on. This whole time there was a light drizzle, but the air remained warm. I was just in a t-shirt, knowing that the rest of my trip I would probably be in my suit.

We came back to the blowfish restaurant, but decided to just take a chance and blindly walk into the restaurant across the street. We are seated, handed menus and find out that it is the exact same restaurant, just on the other side of the street.

Suffice to say, we did not eat blowfish, but ordered some maguro and tako sashimi, a great eel roll (Unagi Con Bo???), an interesting green salad (all of the ingredients were left un-cut and not mixed together - it was good), and miso soup (which never tastes like it does at home, but is probably much more authentic and true to the taste here).

The sashimi was amazing - I think later this week I will be more adventurous and try the blowfish...

After that we walked back to the hotel and promptly crashed. Now, we are about to head into the office and setup for the Customer Design Validations that are taking place Tuesday to Thursday.

More updates later ...

Birthday photos

2006-09-17T17:43:00.000-07:00

I just celebrated my birthday with a bunch of my friends. Here are the pics ...

From 26th Birthday

Spider-man 3 Teaser Trailer is live

2006-06-27T13:27:00.000-07:00

Today is a good day. The Spiderman 3 trailer just went live at Apple's quicktime site.

Now is the perfect time for everyone to take a break from their busy day and see some web-slinging action (yeah, I know - I'm a huge dork).

It short, the trailer is the shit - I think I may need some new shorts. We got some sandman, some green goblin (2), but front and center it appears they have decided to go with the venom storyline (or at least setting up for Venom in Spiderman 4). Still curious as to how they are going to do the whole alien symbiote thing seeing as spiderman never left Earth to fight in the Secret Wars, but hopefully they make it somewhat believable ...

Yeah, the fact that I know some of this stuff is scary, I know ...

so this is why my liver is okay ...

2006-06-12T20:44:00.000-07:00

Anyone who went to school at UCSB has at least once or twice made a joke about liver damage ... well maybe this post explains why there are numerous coffee shops in Isla Vista ...

Drinking lots of coffee saves liver from alcohol damage, research finds

Quick Fix Video Games

2006-06-06T23:01:00.000-07:00

The below is a quote from this article: http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/24946

Most video games are a rip-off.
Nearly every video game since "tank pong" has buried its best content behind layers of work. Unlike any other retail product I can think of, when you buy a video game, the chances that you will actually get what you paid for are infinitesimal. I can't think of a single game I've played where I am confident that I've seen every single level; unveiled every coveted secret; unlocked every whatsit and pretty and soundtrack left like kipple by the designers in the dark corners of the code.
I bought it. I want my game.

I mostly disagree with the article - I think games should provide the user a great amount of value - after all you are spending a good deal of money on it - relative to say a board game, or other "toy", but I do see where the author is coming from.

Recently, my roommate purchased an xbox 360. In short the box is amazing. We have Ghost Recon Advanced War Fighter and Oblivion. I haven't played the latter, but the former got me sucked in pretty fast. I played an hour to two every night for awhile and was completely enthralled with the graphics, game play and overall presentation of the title (there is nary a menu screen to be seen - instead it's like an interactive movie - I digress).

One day, however, my buddy told me to check out Geometry Wars. Geometry Wars is a game from the Xbox Live Arcade - a part of the Xbox Live functionality that allows the purchase of smaller, more retro style games. As an example Street Fighter 2 is going to be coming out soon.

The games are simple, free to demo, and only cost about 5 dollars to buy - which unlocks the whole game. So I went and played the 3 minute demo of Geometry Wars, which can be described as a mash-up between asteroids, Galaga, and adrenaline :) - and then promptly bought it because I was hooked.

The game has three controls - move, fire, and bomb. Your mission is to destroy everything moving on the screen. Is there strategy, yes, but I don't want to get into it. What's the draw you ask - the game is addicting as hell. In fact right now at this time of night if I weren't writing this post I would be playing. It is like my "before I go to sleep brain relaxant". It's a drug - quick games that get you out of the worries of the world. A healthy dose of frustration does come along and if you look at the all-time high score on the leader board (currently 101,000,000) it could make your own high score (mine is 790,000) feel very paltry. Yet I keep coming back - the simplistic, addictive nature is outstanding.

I see the point of the author's post - sometimes a game should just exist for the sole purpose of existing - to be played with all the cards out on the table. But most the time if you really want to escape and play in an interactive world you need to have a game that has some varying levels of exposure in it (what would a role playing game be if you had all the spells right off the bat - or a racing simulation that dropped you in the hands of a Ferrari F-50 where chances are you can barely drive an Audi TT around the track).

In the end - yes we do need quick fix games, but if games stopped being rich, interactive works (of art one could argue) there would be far more people griping ...

Does High-Def make "great" SFX look bad?

2006-06-06T22:51:00.000-07:00

I should preface this by saying I love HD TV and HD gaming. It's unbelievable - sports look great, games look great, and most movies looks great. But today I stumbled upon something I noticed once or twice before but kind of turned my head the other way.

I just finished watching Star Wars 3: Revenge of the Sith on HBO's High Def channel and I have concluded (because I am such an expert) that High Def is not always a good thing. In some cases DVD quality may be a bit better.

"Your nuts" you might be saying. Well here is why I say that. The High Def version of Star Wars 3 is such a clear, exact picture that everything, and I mean EVERYTHING is apparent to the naked eye. Especially the green screening that is being utilized for virtually every shot in the movie. Since George elected to create most of the background scenery digitally and green screen the actors in, every shot suffers from this fake feeling. It would not be so bad if just a few shots here and there had this effect, but its everywhere.

To be fair, I should go watch the DVD version and compare it - the green screening effect may show there as well. As high def becomes more prevalent, it seems that more time should be spent on the lighting in both the digital set and the green screen set to make the two environments as similar as possible, so when they are composited together the effect is realistic. The SFX of today seem to be able to get by when movies are viewed in the theater (the "resolution" is not as high as HD), but when viewed at home at 1920 x 1080 (i) it really shows.

It would be interesting to see if the digital projections of Star Wars 3 showed this same noticeable green screen effect versus the traditional film projectors ....

Funny animation

2006-06-05T14:45:00.000-07:00

This is really well done. Reminds me of the stick figure fighters Flash animation that was going around a few years ago:

Animator versus Animation

Angels and Demons

2006-05-24T20:27:00.000-07:00

This is interesting news:

http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/709/709558p1.html

I don't have a real desire to see Da Vinci Code in the theaters, but would like to see a film adaptation of Angels and Demons. Whereas Da Vinci Code was more about a great, plot driven mystery that turned pages really fast, I feel like Angels and Demons may transfer to film a bit better. The end could be a little crazy, and far fetched, but overall I think it works more on the bigscreen...

Spiderman 3

2006-02-23T19:37:00.000-08:00

This excites me:

http://www.aintitcoolnews.com/display.cgi?id=22567

-Matt

Where was the countdown!

2006-01-02T12:53:00.000-08:00

So me and about 20 friends were at the crawlSF Crossing Bar New Years Eve party in the city. Overall it was a pretty good party, but there is one thing missing considering this was a New Years Eve party. There was no F*cking countdown.

So we are all dancing and I glanced at my watch and realize it was like 11:55 pm. I look around the dance floor (okay i was wasted at this point, I more or less probably shook my head around the room) and see that everything is the same as it was a few minutes prior - people dancing, people boozing, security walking around - but no one gearing up for the big moment when the clock strikes 12. We kept dancing a little longer.

The people we were dancing with were making there way to the outside bar. I figured they knew something about the countdown so me and my other buddy followed. We get outside and I look at my watch. It is literally 12:02 and nothing has happened: no champagne toast, no countdown, it was like everyone was completely oblivious to the fact that it was now 2006 and no longer 2005. Now you may say, big deal, it was a party, get over it. And for the most part i am, but part of the fun of New Years is getting together with all of your friends, getting blizted, and then at 11:59 PM chanting at the top of your lungs 10, 9, 8 .... down to 1.

Anyhow, our revelation that it was the new year was met with a bunch of us standing in a circle and muttering something like "Well its 2006" - after that we were dancing again, it just felt like normal party - not New Years. I would go to the same party again only because its an easy way (not cheap mind you) of getting 20 of your friends to get into the same place and not worry about planning it on your own - but next year there needs to be a countdown...

SNL Chronicles of Narnia Rap

2006-01-02T12:47:00.000-08:00

This is funny ... Chronicles of Narnia Rap.

-stein

Day 6, 7 Seoul, Day 8 Beijing

2005-10-22T01:14:00.000-07:00

Seoul came and went very quickly. Our two full days there were spent working. The Autodesk office in Seoul was very nice, but short of my first night there, and my last night there, I did not really get to see too much of Korea itself. Last night, I went with Shawn and Doug to a more "authentic" part of Seoul. By the time we got there most of the shops had closed down, but this part of the city definitely did feel a little different. I was starving by this time and could only think about food. Every meal in Seoul had so far been great, with the one exception of a Chinese lunch (that are hosts took us to) that did not sit well with me.

Anyhow, little too much info there, we went to a restaurant that one of the ladies at Autodesk Korea told us to try. I asked a nice couple where it was (we had the korean name printed on a napkin) and we happened to be standing right in front of it. So much for being the experienced traveler.

As we get inside I go to the bathroom to wash my hands. I get out and Doug and Shawn go, "So Matt did you suddenly start to speak Korean or something". I thought the joke was kind of lame till I realized that they were blankly staring at a menu without a word of English. Rather than tuck our tails as I did in Japan we decided to make the most of it and try new things. After about a 5 minute straight interpretation of the menu through our waiter's broken english I settled on seafood and rice in a stone pot and a skewer of some sort of beef ... I think it was pork (Isaac, your email got to be a few hours too late, but thanks for the food suggestions anyhow).

The dinner ended up being great. After eating we took the subway back to the hotel and I packed up my bags in preparation for the last leg of my trip: Beijing.

So far all I can say about Beijing isn't very positive. The smog here is thick. My hotel is pretty grand, so that is good. The people here drive like fucking maniacs (and the use of the f-bomb there is definitely warranted). I have actually noticed that in Korea the same was true but to a much lesser extent. I am off now to explore and take pics. Tomorrow it is either the Great Wall or the Forbidden City. Everyone is telling me to do the wall, so that is probably what it will be.

Day 4: Tokyo and Day 5: Seoul

2005-10-20T00:21:00.000-07:00

Last Tokyo Day

The last few days have been mostly work, but it has still be an experience being in Japan and Korea respectively.

Our actual session with our Japanese customers was on Tuesday and it went very well. That night we went to a restaurant called Tofu-ie had a tapas style Japanese dinner of mostly tofu cooked and served in a variety of different ways. I had to load up on two extra plates of sashimi to tide me over, but all in all it was a very fun, different meal. The next day we had to get up very early to catch the flight to Seoul.

It was kind of sad leaving Tokyo - there is so much else to see and do there. One of the members of our group (who was not going on to Seoul and Beijing) was going to stay at a Japanese inn for the remainder of the week. I kind of envied her, but was looking forward to Seould and Beijing.

Before leaving the Narita Tokyo airport I made it a point to spend all of the loose change Yen I had accumulated. So I bought a bunch of wasabi peas and this really good chocolate called "Dars". Next thing we knew the plane took off and it was time for Seoul.

Travelling to Seoul and my Adventures in the Market

My first impression of Seoul was that is was a very modern, futuristic type city. The buidings all have their own distinct look with weird angles, sculptures, and facades adorning them. I took some pics if anyone is interested. Like Tokyo everything is big. The highway from the airport to the hotel borders a river and as a far as the eye can see are buildings, row after row.

We arrived at the hotel about an hour after leaving the airport. I am staying at COEX Intercontinental. Underneath the hotel is a mall that stretches undergound for a whole city block (at least it feels like that).

Rather than shop and eat there our first night a group of us decided to go see one of the larger markets in Seoul: Namdaemun Market. Here is where I would learn that my negotiating skills could still be a little better.

The market itself was pretty crazy. Everyone pretty much sells the same things: leather products, random toys, t-shirts belts, nice hand and garmet bags ,etc. All of the stores also have the same exact layout and setup. Intermixed between all of these little stores are food vendors who are also selling the exact same things in the exact same layout: live octopus, skinned snake, squid, silk-worm larvae ... all stuff that you don't readily find at home - there was also chicken and beef too, but thats not as exciting. I steered clear of all of these goodies, but it was great just seeing this sort of stuff up close.

So I have never owned a leather jacket, and my goal on the trip was to buy my mom one but I am also not a fashion expert . While looking for one for my Mom I stumbled upon a Kenneth Cole jacket that was almost identical to a real kenneth cole leather jacket I had tried on at the kenneth cole store at Union Square one day. I really wanted the jacket that day but the 400$+ price tag kept me away.

This jacket was so soft, it was calling me. I asked the guy how much and he says 280$. I kind of wince, say no, and continue to admire the leather (it really is super soft). I take it off and hand it back to him. He says how much you want to spend. I say 120$ (i have nothing to lose right). He kind of laughs, says the jacket retails for 750 (which it doesn't) and "ponders" (I put that in quotes because these guys are for sure just acting a certain role). He comes back with 230$ ... I counter with 190$ (which I really didn't want to spend) and he just rolls his eyes at me. I give him the jacket back and we leave. At this point I was kind of bummed, because I really wanted the jacket, knock off or not, the leather was real, and it was just like the one I had tried on before about a year ago.

I go to a few other vendors ( my two coworkers in tow - thanks Doug and Shawn) and I cannot find Mr. Cole's jacket anywhere. Hunger was calling us so I decided oh well and went searching for some food. We knew that we did not want to eat at one of the many stands -- we wanted to eat some good Korean food (not that the stands did not have good korean food). After walking out of the market we came upon a huge 12 story mall. The whole 10th floor was restaurants.

Only one of the restaurants was Korean food - we went in and sat down. All 3 of us ordered this prime rib dish where you cook the beef on this burner that is surrounded by a trough where a sauce/broth and the vegetables are cooked. We had three orders of this between the three of us (they said it is usually 1 order for 2 people) -- so we were hungry. Also served is an array of vegetables - Kimchi (sp?), a very spicy radish, a garlicy spinach, and a variety of mushrooms. It was very good. I also had some Korean wine which happens to be the first disappointing food item of the trip so far. It was the cheapest brand though. I was hoping it would be like sake but it wasn't.

After chowing down (and chow we did - so good) we schmoozed with our waiter and learned a little about how big brothers and little brothers talk to each other in Korean. Little brothers (or younger people) address older people by appending the word Hyong (sp?) to the name. For some reason getting us all to speak like this with the waiter around was pretty comical, but I guess you had to be there.

Dinner ended and we made our way back to the subway. Along the way I stopped back into the leather shop that had the jacket. The man immediately went to the rack it was on pulled it out, hung it up, and continued a phone conversation he was having -- I didn't have to say a word. I tried it on again waited till he got off the phone and told him I would buy it for 170$ (probably too much money, but like I said I would learn something about bargaining).

He kind of sneered at me (again an act) and said something like 190. I was a little more bold this time and kind of took it off and said I might come back tomorrow. This is where it gets interesting. I leave and he comes back out and says how much do you want to pay. I say "Ideally 140" (I felt the jacket was easily worth that). He says 160$. At this point I am thinking that he could have had me for 170 and then would have been it. I should have turned and walked away and gotten it down to the 140-125 range, but instead I accepted his offer.

So I am out 160$ bucks, learned a little about bargaining, but have a great looking Kenneth Cole (or at least ken cole knockoff) jacket.

He placed the jacket in a bag for me -- i promptly put it on and we rolled back to the hotel where we had a beer and listened to a Philipino (sp?) cover band request songs.

More updates as I explore more. Today was a work day and we met the Korean Autodesk Employees. i don't think (or I know) I will not have as much time to check out Korea as I did Japan, but will try to get some more sightseeing in.

Tokyo: Day 3

2005-10-17T17:28:00.000-07:00

Alas, today was a work day, but I still managed to be amazed (and continually am being amazed, as I am still at work right now, but decided I needed to capture my thoughts). For one, the Autodesk office here kicks some major ass. It's on the 24th floor of this uber (that's right - uber) cool building called the Harumi Triton Square Tower. As I have alluded to before everything here is big. The lobby to this set of towers is an immense cavern of architeture. Very cool. Then you walk through these automatic sliding doors that seems to manifest out of nowhere.

Even the bathrooms are fun (but I won't get into that). There are just so many small things here in Tokyo (and Japan) that add up to making life a little simpler, and a little more pleasant - the bathrooms, the cleanliness, a subway that I could have figured out when I was 5, the little umbrella holders inside of the doorways (we have a lot of rain in SF, why don't we have those??) - just a lot of cool stuff.

One thing I have not talked about much yet is the nightlife here and that is partly because the jetlag has been killing me. I hear all of my highschool and college friends groaning and saying to sack up. Well, I haven't really. Last night in bed at 9:30, up at 5:30. Should make it easy to catch my flight to Seoul, Korea later this week.

Anyhow, tonight more of the crew from Autodesk is here and we are going out for dinner for sure. Last night we went to a great noodle place where I had some beef noodle dish. Also shared a large mug (I'm serious they gave us a mug of hot sake - I was stoked - hey Sean - definitely wasn't like in Waikiki where we were cut off :)).

Last night's dinner was also in a new district I had yet to see, Roppinggi Hills. This is a very moderm, up and coming, fun, youthful place. I actually want to go back tonight to check it out some more.

Okay, off to do some more work - more updates later.

Tokyo: Day 2

2005-10-16T01:07:00.000-07:00

First things first a 5.1 tremor rocked Tokyo today. When it happened I actually didn't realize it happened. I was in the subway listening to my iPod Shuffle (by the way Japan is fricken iPod crazy -- it is everywhere - walking down the street in th Akihabara district today vendors were hawking the new Nano left and right) and all of a sudden the train just stopped in the tunnel. I paused the shuffle because the operator began speaking -- then I realized I have no idea what on Earth he is saying so i flipped the shuffle back on. Linkin Park's Numb/Encore remix continued and shortly thereafter the train moved on to the next stop. After I got back from my day of adventuring I found this excerpt in an online news article:

"Subway services in Tokyo were halted briefly, but have now resumed at lower speeds, NHK said." here is the whole article: http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=Breaking&storyId=1102992&tw=wn_wire_story

So as exciting as that probably was I missed it.

Anyhow, had another breakfast buffet and then I was off and running to the Akihabara district. This district is known for being an electronics store haven. That phrase really has no American counterpart. There is no one part of San Francisco or LA where you go to buy and browse electronics. We have Best Buy and Circuity City. The Good Guys and Frys. Well Tokyo has a whole damn district and its a sight to behold.

As you start walking through the district you pass identical shops (almost), one after another all hawking the same goods: laptops, cameras, dvds, ps2 games, xbox games, anime, anime porn, computers, monitors, you get the point. Pretty much anything you can imagine. Whereas a Best Buy may have one or two models of a certain camera or mp3 player on display these stores have them all and every possible accessory you can buy. I found a whole rack of little sleeves I could put my iPod shuffle in-- try finding that in the states, even at the Apple store. Now you might be saying, "Sweet Stein, you traveled half way around the world to go look at some electronics stores", but once you realize that a large part of the Japanese culture is revolving around this constant need to upgrade, be connected, play, and interact you see why this area of Tokyo exists in the first place. Japan is at the forefront of technology and it really shows.

After perusing a few of these stores I happened on an arcade. These things are a trip. I always liked going to the arcade as a kid, but they were few and far between. There was a Scandia that had mini-golf and an arcade. At the local mall there was a place called Aladdin's castle. To me a big arcade met a trip to Reno. I am convinced that America has no arcades (i have never been to a Dave and Busters though, and I hear those are kind of cool - cause you can drink AND play games ;) - yeah I'm a dork) after seeing the arcades in Japan. Within the Akihabara district alone I must have passed 10 arcades - and I bet I missed 10 more. And these are not just single level arcades, these are 5 story monstrosities. You know how in an arcade you will find those machines where you have to put money in and you get to move the little claw around and try to grab a prize. Okay, well the first 2 floors of the Arcade I went to was run by Sega (or at least sponsored) and was filled with these machines ... wall to wall. By the way, in case anyone gives a shit, over here Sonic the Hedgehog is more than just a little fuzzy character, he is on a bunch of gambling machines too ... (okay so I totally geeked out today). As you go up more levels you find yourself in these smoky rooms that are filled with the sound of tens of machines all chattering at you. Although I didn't play any, just being in the room made you feel excited -- like a little kid.

After getting my fill of games, electronics, and just people watching in this hi-tech little neighborhood I made my way to Shinjuku. This district is supposed to really pop off an night. I came during the day around 2:30. It was similar to Ginza (from my previous mail) but not nearly as big. Whereas Ginza had a huge main drag with big buildings and then really ritzy places in the offstreets, Shinkuju was a mix of both, but overall a smaller scale. To tell you the truth I was kind of tired at this point (already) and needed a little fuel. I went and had sushi (for the 3rd time since coming here) and at a small little hole in the wall place. Took me awhile to build the "courage" to walk in (last night my coworker and I went inside a place, they said "we don't speak english", kind of warning us, so we left -- mostly out of awkwardness). Well they didn't speak English here either, but I knew exactly what I wanted and I even knew how to say the word "bill" now, in addition to some other more common phrases. After polishing off some hot sake, and some salmon and tuna nigiri I bounced and strolled around the Shinjuku district some more.

Some things I have noticed about the Japanese (and Japan) since arriving:

-They name their stores random names ... i wish I could think of some examples off the top of my head, but just weird stuff - i've decided to photograph such places for kicks
-Eye contact is rarely given, someone probably told me this, but I have confirmed it, they must not people watch, because they are always looking straight ahead, men, women, doesn't matter - I have had some kids give me some weird looks though
-very clean city
-all the men wear suits to work - even for jobs where you would think a suit is not necessary
-no one is in the least bit confrontational

Well I had more observations but they escape me now, must be the jet lag ...

Anyways its time for more sushi, although I am still quite full - another member of the party has arrived. Tomorrow is our first day of work, although I have been on email early in the morning and throughout the day off and on (like right now). Right me back and tell me how home (or wherever you happen to be) is going.

-Matt

Tokyo: Day 1

2005-10-15T01:01:00.000-07:00

I am in Tokyo for work, but managed to get a little sight seeing in ... today especially was eventful: After a Japanese buffet breakfast at the hotel, Jose (another Adesker) and I went and traveled around to 3 different Tokyo districts: Omotesando road that borders Shibuya, Shibuya itself, and Ginza. In between Ometosando and Shibuya we went to the Harajuku where we saw a shrine.

Each of the three areas was very distinct from each other. Ometosando was filled with many young people each expressing themselves, mostly through their clothing, in a variety of different ways. Some of the attire and looks here would most closely resemble what you see on Haight-Ashbury. After circling this block a few times and pretty much people watching for an hour, we decided to move on. On the way to Shibuya we stopped and wound our way through Yoyogi Park where we eventually came to the shrine. The temple itself was pretty impressive. A picture is attached. The most interesting aspect of it all is that plopped in the middle of this sprawling, loud area of the city with so much youth and vibrance, is this peaceful temple surrounded by huge trees -- the foliage is so dense in fact that you can barely here the subway system that borders it.

Shibuya was much different -- although omotesando had many ritzy, upscale shops, Shibuya had many upscale, shops and malls that just loomed over your head. Huge malls, one after the other. Everything was just big. And the hordes of people were neverending. Whether they were walking with you or against you, there was always a mass of people. The most interesting thing here was seeing the food market. It was lots of fun to be in - there is nothing really like it stateside and its definitely not the Marina safeway ;). After getting some free samples of food and almost purchasing what would have been dirt cheap yet high grade maguro tuna we left to go to Ginza, which Jose told me was one of the places we would want to see at night.

Now, I have never been to New York, but you always hear about how large it is and Times Square and yada yada yada. The main area of the Ginza district is simply huge. It was in a word awesome to see-I still want to go to NY someday, but I cannot imagine anything being more impressive and large (although Jose told me that the Shinjuku district is comparable). So many people, a huge boulevard that was open to walk on, and building after building, all with their own colorful signage. Every shop imaginable was there, including an Abercrombie and Fitch (why!!). Anyhow, the people here looked like they could have fit in in California; definitely not nearly as expressive as the hipper teen crowd over at Omotesando. Jose and I walked up and down the large road a few times and some of the many sidestreets. The stores on these sidestreets are uber-expensive. My only purchase thus far was a waffle from a corner store (it was good).

Anyhow, now time to hit up some sushi for dinner.

Finally, its done ... time to Feast

2005-05-31T20:25:00.000-07:00

So when I was in Europe, oh so long ago, I was enraptured by a series of books. I started reading them on the plane ride over to London, would read them at night in the various hostels and hotel rooms, read them on trains traveling amongst the different countries -- I read them everywhere. This also entailed finding English bookstores in non-English speaking countries to buy the next installments of the series.

Well I came home from Europe 2 months after starting the first book and was over halfway done with the 3rd book which in some European countries was released in two separate parts because it was so damn big (1500+ pages).

The series is The Song of Ice and Fire, by George R. R. Martin, and the last time I picked up a book from the series was 2002. I have waited oh so patiently to read the next installment of the series and seeing that it is 2005 now I was kind of wondering when my man George was going to finish writing the damn thing. Well, seems he has and it also seems that there are two books coming not one: Check out the About a Feast of Crows link.

Seems the book is being split into two, because it is much larger than the last book and I guess when books get that large they cause publishing nightmares. Anyhow, all of you should pick up the first book in the series and give it a go. I think the "official" title of the genre would be Epic Fantasy or some other professional sounding phrase. You can check out the new book: Feast of Crows here.

24 kicks ass

2005-05-23T22:00:00.000-07:00

That show rocks. I think its the most fullfilling TV experience I have ever had (TV mind you, not movies). The end was brutal when Audrey finds out (or is led to believe) that both the men she loved. Can't wait till 2006 (actually I can, but good TV is hard to come by).

here kitty kitty ...

2005-05-15T13:29:00.000-07:00

It's Friday, after a long week of work. One of my coworkers told me of this great massage place to go to. I had recently kinked up my neck in my valiant efforts to begin working out again, and I thought that was just the thing I needed to unwind and prepare for a weekend that would undoubtedly involve my friend Mr. Grey Goose. So I head over to the massage place, Mill Valley Massage, and am treated to a great full body rub down (get your minds out of the gutter), where again I learned that my legs do not like getting massaged, it just tickles too much.

I digress. This post ultimately ends with my cat as is evidenced by the title. So the massage is great and I head home still covered in a light film of massage oils. It felt like the feeling you get when you are at the beach and put your clothes on over your sunscreen. Anyhow, I arrive at my home and am still very relaxed from the massage. Before I make plans for the evening I want to take a quick little nap.

I crawl into my bed and am manuevering the covers around when I see it. And by it I mean the nice little dollop of shit that my cat left in my covers. Two questions crossed my mind: 1) Why in the hell did my cat shit in my bed and 2) how long as the shit been there. Have I been sleeping with shit for the past few nights. I have a pretty large bed all too myself, for all I know the cat has been using it as her goddamn litter box.

In the matter of a few moments my relaxed self was unrelaxed and quite alert from the now apparent shit smell that was covering my bed. Strange that this one moment in my life gives credence to the saying, "I slept like (in) shit."

After cleaning up the little mess and burning my bed sheets (not really) I did a little investigating. Sure enough as I suspected my cat had left me a dingleberry of a shit that it had strutted around the house.

There were some smears of shit on the bathroom floor where her litter box is and more remnanats in the entry. It makes me wonder if my cat purposefully toted her little dingleberry around until she was able to ceremoniously drop it on my bed.

I may never know...

2005-04-28T11:35:00.000-07:00

The dreaded nine ball ...

Get in the hole 9 ball ...

2005-04-28T11:24:00.000-07:00

My silence is broken. Haven't blogged in awhile, but oh well. A lot of stuff has been happening ... work is good, life is good, everythings good. A few extradoinary things have happened in between my last posts that were probably worth writing about but last night something happened which doesn't ever happen. Ever. Never ever.

I warn you that this post is probably only exciting to me and you will find it just mildly amusing - if that.

Last night Chaffee, Jessica, and I are playing pool at Classic Billiards. Chaffee and I play once a week on average and have become pretty good, but last night was abysmal and Jessica was kicking our ass (on the last game at least).

So I have a very simple shot midway through a game of cutthroat. Cue ball is at one end of the table, 9 ball is perched at the lip of the opposite corner pocket. Simple right. Just ram the cue ball over, hit the 9 ball in and then have the cue ball place itself back on the side of the table where it started (where my other balls are).

I gear up, thinking nothing of the shot, and slam the cue ball down the green felt. It speeds along and crushes into the 9-ball careening away. Okay so this is the great part. The 9 ball plunges into the pocket, does one of those curly whirlwind things around the side of the pocket (this is what I am guessing), hits the other ball that was already in the pocket, BOUNCES OUT (it fucking bounces out), lands back on the table and resumes its inert position in the exact same place it started.

Unbelievable ... I told you it never happens.

Give me my f*ckin' drinks

2004-11-13T18:03:00.000-08:00

San Francisco has not been treating me well lately.

Last night Cohen and I go to this place called Club Six . We had both been there before an had an okay time, but the one thing we remembered is that the drinks were tiny and overpriced. Oh well, we were in again and were thirsty.

I go up to the bartender, some grungy looking guy, and order two Jack and Cokes. He takes out too small plastic cups, fills them to the brim with ice and does a simultaneous coke and jack pour. It is at this point we know we are being ripped off more. We are talking 3/4s of a shot of Jack here. What the fuck is that going to do for me .... nothing.

Anyhow, I am not one to not except fate and as he sets the drinks in front of us he says "Fourteen dollars". FOURTEEN DOLLARS. There is more alcohol in my piss at this point from my preparty drinks than there is in those two Jack and Cokes.

I say "Fourteen dollars" and give him a raised eyebrow looking. At the same time I was reaching in my pocket for the cash to pay. At this point I was going to pay anyhow.

So what does "Grungy" do -- he takes the two drinks, throws them in the trash and walks away. Once again (if you read my last entry) I was speechless. I turn to Matt and say "Did you see that?" ... We both shared a confused look and decided that it was time to go downstairs and get drinks there.

The rest of the night we drank 2$ Pabst Blue Ribbons.

-Stein

Who does that ...

2004-11-07T22:19:00.000-08:00

Okay I have a strange story that I have been meaning to tell the world (or just my few friends who read this).

Three weekends ago I was with some buddies at a bar in San Francisco, Eastside West. Its an okay bar, always pretty crowded with a super tiny dance floor, lots of cushy tables and a backroom to go back to when the front room gets too crowded. The mix of people is the normal for the Union, Fillmore, area; lots of twentysomethings running around, boozing up and generally having a good time.

I was having a good time too. At the time (well currently actually) I was still transitioning from being with my girlfriend of two years to not being with her (we decided to split up). I in no way want a relationship and frankly don't even think about hooking up (crazy isn't it -- am I even male -- do i have a penis??).

Which is one of the reasons why when the two girls across the way on the dance floor motioned at my friend and I to come and dance, I waved at them no and continued to sip my Captain Morgan and coke. I like Captain and Coke. The spicy rum and the coke tastes good on my tongue. I don't like being pestered by girls over and over again to dance after I initially say no. This is an important fact for the remainder of the story.

So Sean and I turn away from the dance floor. Matt and Kunal have come back and we are all standing around, I'm sipping my Captain and they are drinking their drinks. It's fun -- I'm having a good time. Being with the boys is always good.

That is when the girl that asked to dance comes around with her little sidekick. She was not a completely unattractive girl. Now I do not know what that translates too, but whatever. She starts kinda slapping my arm saying, "Come on, dance. Why don't you want to dance."

I said, "I really don't want to dance." I sip my rum and coke. It's good. I used to drink them in college like they were well, just cokes.

As I am sipping she says something along the lines of "I am going to rip your short off unless you dance."

No your not. No one does that. Although that is something that maybe in some instances a guy would want to hear, this was not one of them. I thought nothing of it, said "Yeah right" and sipped my drink.

The pyscho, no thats too harsh, even that it fits, grabs the ends of one of my favorite striped shirts and pulls outwards and up. I kid you not she ripped the shirt clean in half up to the second button from the top. Four buttons went flying out into the bar, falling to the floor amongst my friends and me.

I was aghast and speechless. Who does that. My friends are cracking up. The operative thing for me to say would have been "bitch", but for some reason the words evaded me. I don't know how, but she was suddenly gone from sight. I am sure she said something else unintelligent. My friends picked up my buttons for me and then we all laughed (me still in shock of such a crazy event) that my happy trail was now visible for all to see.

For the remainder of the night I walked around with one hand pinning my shirt together at the bottom and the other holding my Captain and Coke. About 20 minutes to a half hour later we saw the girl again.

She walks up and says "You hate me, I'm sorry, you hate me".

No I don't hate you, its cool, I just think you are crazy. I said somehting like that. She is holding a glass of champagne and says, "Will it make it better if I pour my champagne on my head. I'll pour it all over."

"I'll pour it all over" -- something else most men might not mind hearing. However I was indifferent and sipped my Rum and Coke (because it is good). I said "whatever" and kept drinking.

My friend Mr. Cohen however was not indifferent and piped it with one word -- "Yes".

And yes she did. This crazy girl takes her glass of champagne, tilts her head back and dumps it all over her face, forehead and hair. Not just dumped it on her, but relished in it. Matt and I pretty much went hysterical for a few minutes and then we left the bar with everyone -- but not before I finished my Captian and Coke.

Moral of the story -- if a girl asks you to dance, maybe you should dance (actually that is not the moral(-- but if you say no, like I usually do, be prepared to expect the unexpected.

Hero Audio Review ... very casual

2004-08-30T09:03:00.000-07:00

Its not just me about the lids ...

2004-08-24T07:35:00.000-07:00

Okay, so i am at oakland international airport with two of my coworkers waiting for our flight to Dallas depart. I was delegated as the bag watcher as the two of them went to the ATM, got coffee, etc. As Joanna is coming back with my coffee I notice that she has drips of coffee I all of her hands.

Ah-ha! I am not crazy. Turns out these coffee cups were worse than Starbucks coffee cups. I had to continually, as I was drinking my brew, take the lid off and wipe down the inner ring of the lid which at this point was a reservoir for my coffee ... Now its off to a meeting in Dallas -- but you all know where I will be heading first.

2004-08-22T20:40:00.000-07:00

Starbuck's coffee lids are abysmal

2004-08-22T08:58:00.000-07:00

Anyone ever had trouble with the lids on Starbuck's coffee. I do. Everyday. I swear there must be a science to the application of a starbuck's coffee lid. One wrong move and a little bit of coffee to a nice general dripping of coffee will surely find its way out.

The first flaw in the lids is actually a flaw in the Starbuck's coffee cup. See that seam running down one side of the cup. That is you worst enemy. For a Starbuck's coffee cup to not spill whatsoever (and even this does not seem to work) that seam needs to be 180 degrees opposite the opening in the lid. Perhaps this is common sense, but I can assure you that Starbuck's employee's do not always, when making your coffee, place the lid at this orientation.

What does this lead to you may ask ... Well everyday while driving to work I will place my starbucks coffee cup in one of my Accord's cupholders. All is well so far. As my drive commences however is when the spillage begins. Because of the fullness of the coffee cup the stop and go motion of the car inevitably leads to some coffee spilling to the top of the cup. But you have a lid on you say. Yes, very nice. But a small protrusion forms where the seam of the coffee cup meets the lid. Coffee will collect here and when it has formed into large enough drops begin dripping down the side of the cup.

THIS CANNOT ONLY HAPPEN TO ME. Someone out there who shares my grief please post your starbucks coffee cup mishap.

Spiderman 2 kicks ass

2004-07-12T19:35:00.000-07:00

I saw Spiderman 2 on it's opening night, but I wanted to wait to see it again before I posted my "professional" review. Suffice to say the movie kicks ass in so many ways. The action, humor, and performances are top notch. Especially Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker.

Light spoilers follow...

We feel this guy's pain. To live the life of a *superhero* is rough and the rewards are slim. The movie starts with Tobey Maguire delivery pizzas to pay for school and his dwelling which you could hardly call an apartment ... more like half a studio. His landlord is a dick, Mary-Jane is all but out of his life because he has decided that it is too dangerous to pursue her, his best-friend and him have had a falling out due to the fact that he takes Spiderman's photos, and to top it all off he still feels tremendously guilty over his Uncle's death.

This is all dealt to the viewer in numerous scenes interdispersed with a healthy does of web-swingingy and a bit of crime fighting. All in all the introduction to the movie is great, and holds its own against the beginning of the original Spiderman. I personally like the beginning of the original better because we see Peter Parker become Spiderman. Obviously that can only happen once, but Sam Raimi does a good job of reintroducing the character and his dilemma's in the sequel.

Where the movie steals the show from its predecessor is with the main conflict: Doctor Octopus, or Doc Ock as JJ Jameson aptly borrows from one of his underlings. (By the way JJ Jameson is spot on in this movie as well). There is a whole "fusion" plot device that seems quite contrived, but it is forgivable (to be honest I do not know if that is how Doc Ock gets his mechanical arms in the comic book). Once the Doc's arms become fused to his spine the fun factor of the movie jumps into a higher great. Especially cool is a scene where the tentacles are about to be surgically removed ...

I do not want to go into too much more detail about the plot; suffice to say the action is incredible and the romantic core of the movie is handled very well. It is not cheesy by any means.

I mentioned humor early. Although the movie takes itself seriously, it knows when to let up and show its lightheartedness. The comedic elements of the movie are sprinkled nicely throughout, sometimes even whole scenes are devoted to the laugh factor.

But each scene, whether comedic or not plays its part in the movie's ultimate message that "With great power there must come great responsibility" ... We are witnessing the growth of a young man who does not exactly want the power that he has been dealt. His life is by no means normal, he has a crappy job, the woman he loves and that loves him he has chosen to push away, his best-friend is Spiderman's biggest hater ... you get the point. By the end we see Peter Parker come to grips with what he has to do and how he must act around the loved ones around him. To give anything else away would spoil the fun for you.

Four of Five stars.

Gratuitous locker room nudity is not needed

2004-06-25T09:19:00.000-07:00

Okay, so let me explain this. I am in my companies gym changing into my gym clothes. There is a row of lockers and a mirror so that you can kind of see the two rows adjacent to you. So I am doing my own thing and changing when out of the corner of my eye, I see flesh, a lot of it, man flesh at that (cause I'm in the men's locker room).

I'm in a locker room right? This is fine. But I am a slow changer and its my first time in the gym so I am getting my keys tucked away, and my wallet ensuring they are locked up. Then I start changing. I go from jeans to workoutpants in about 10 seconds. Then out of the corner of my eye I am still seeing the man flesh. What the fuck? Is this needed. This guy had stripped down to his bare ass with just a shirt on and for the next three minutes is doing all of his organizing (keys, wallet, shoes, etc.).

Does this strike anyone else as odd. Although it is perfectly okay to be nude in a locker room, there is no reason to flaunt/show off your wares. Take off your underwear/boxers, put the next pair on and then do whatever else you have to do. Don't take off your pants, let it hang out and flop around the locker room like its your own living room, wait five minutes and then put your "workout" pair of underwear on.

Chronicles of Shittick ...

2004-06-20T19:45:00.000-07:00

In a nutshell this movie sucks major ass. As eloquent as that may sound, let me elaborate a bit. Pitch Black was a good, suspenseful, horror-action movie. It kept you on your toes a little bit and provided some good scenes and pacing. There was some cheesy dialog and what not, but it knew what genre it was in. Due to its somewhat successful run at the BO and Vin Diesel's *rising* star power, it was inevitable that a sequel would be made.

Enter the Chronicles of Riddick. The basic premise is that Riddick is the lone force that can stop the Necromongers, a people (humans) who worship the underverse. They basically travel around the universe (not to be confused with underverse) subverting or destroying all life. They replenish their lost soldiers and move on to the next planet. For some reason, and I will not give it away, yet, Riddick is the only thing between the head Necromonger and the taking over of "Helion Prime (IV I think, but it doesn't matter).

Firstly, what the fuck, the underverse, Necromongers ... of all the places they could have gone with this material they go for this fanatical religious cult (a large one at that) that eradicates entire planets with these phallic obelisks that wipeout whole continents. And by some tiny plot measure, Riddick, who is a Furian (Furyian?), is the roadblock to their success.

Okay, okay, lets go with the flow here and agree that this premise could possibly have some sort of promise. Classic one man versus everyone else scenario. So we should have so good action scenes. Because really all I wanted to see from this movie was some senseless action.

Instead we have a series of choppy, strobe light effect action sequences. Instead of seeing this movie, this is what you do. Go into a mirrored room with a friend, each with boxing gloves, setup a strobe light, close the door, take some speed, and start beating the shit out of each other. You won't be able to see shit, just pulses of light and a fist or a face here and there. For a more grand effect set up two strobe lights at different intervals. I was honestly appalled (as appalled as one can get from not seeing the action sequences they would like) at the quality here people. I would say go and see for yourself, but that is what I am trying to not get you to do. My friend who went with me summed it up succintly, "Sometimes the action scenes hurt my eyes so I just closed them."

So besides the action scenes of this sci-fi action movie sucking ass, what else was bad. Well the CG of the planetscapes was pretty horrible. The opening fly-in on one of the Helion Prime planets is no better than a videogame. Speaking of the videogame; that is actually supposed to be quite good. The premise of the game, from the title alone, seems to fit the character of Riddick well; a stealthy killer who can use his surroundings to his disposal, whether it be weapons or whatever else he can manage to find. Instead moviegoers are left with Riddick, defender of the universe.

The ending promises us many more, or at least one more installment to this series. I will not give it away, but one could say it is the lone bright part of the movie because it is actually pretty smart compared to the rest of the movie and comes out of nowhere. In retrospect one could figure it out beforehand through some cryptic dialog between the eye-candy of the film and her partner, but really, you will not care: by the time ending comes around you will either be closing your eyes or falling asleep (like me).

1 of 5 stars.

Burning drums, ramrods and more ...

2004-06-15T08:47:00.000-07:00

Been meaning to write a whole bunch of stuff down. First off a congrats to my brother for graduating high school. Although it was not much fun for him (the school part) he pulled through and is done. Finito. I'll try to get a shot of him in is gown up here so you all have the proof.

Did a lot of drinking this weekend, mainly because that is what happens on the weekend when the number of close friends that are actually living in the town you grew up in almost doubles for a night.

First up was George. He came in to do some airshow in ?San Carlos? Anyhow met up with Isaac and him at Salute. After having a drink there we made the trek over to the Broken Drum. We sit down, order a pitcher of IPA and start bullshitting like we always do. There is a buy your friend a drink board there and someone had bought someone a Keg.

So I am wondering how much a keg costs and I ask the bartender. She rattles off some number off the top of her head and then goes to get me the keg list. She walks over to the register area and comes back exclaiming about how the keg list was burned when there was a fire over a week back. Then she sniffs the air a few times, and says, "Can't you guys smell that, its like burnt rubber." To which my eloquent Naval Aviator George replies, "I live in a shithole, this smells great." ... Now it wasn't quite exactly what he said (although if you were there you would have been crying your eyes out from laughter like me and Isaac), but the way he said it. It was so matter of fact. At first I thought maybe this was how George flirts, but then I realized this was not flirting, it was what it was. I could go on about this, but I will not: suffice to say that the mind will come up with some strange shit after a few drinks.

Fast forward a few days, in-between of which I saw Harry Potter which I will have a full fledged review for (or maybe just a mini one). Very enjoyable movie. Monday night I spent the latter half of the evening at Moylan's drinking a pint or two with Jason, Kristen, Dan, Isaac and my other half, Laura. Don't really know how to transition into saying this but -- "Ramrods" ... who really knows what that means. We had a semi-philosophical discussion about Ramrods and the act of Ramrodding ... yes you can see where this is going. You have been warned.

In the midst of it all Jason decides that Ramrods are "prosthetic boners" ... hmmm hopefully i remember that correctly. If that isn't what he said then that must be what I subconsciously think ramrods are. Anyway, if you and your friends have never gone into an indepth discussion about what ramrodding could possibly be, then I suggest you start one.

At this point the conversation dove-tailed into some RealSex show on HBO where this woman was doing her husband in the ass with a "ramrod" while she had a butt plug in her ass with feathers on it.

On that note, Happy Wednesday...

Shrek 2 Reviewed

2004-06-09T12:18:00.000-07:00

That wily johnny over at Random Thoughts has deemed me evil and changed my picture accordingly:

Here is an excerpt from that encounter ...

6/9/2004 11:00:41 AM Matt Stein John search steinsspot on google and you get everything, that is to be expected though
6/9/2004 11:01:02 AM John Matt Stein yes, google, knower of all that is good and....
6/9/2004 11:01:03 AM John Matt Stein evil
6/9/2004 11:01:25 AM Matt Stein John so you are saying I am evil
6/9/2004 11:01:37 AM John Matt Stein I could put up that evil looking picture of you
6/9/2004 11:01:48 AM John Matt Stein you know, the one with your face behind the martini glass
6/9/2004 11:02:01 AM Matt Stein John do it do it
6/9/2004 11:02:01 AM John Matt Stein then what would all the netizens think of you?

Anyhow so Shrek 2. In a nutshell go see it. I found that with both Shrek movies, the beginning of the movie has been better. Before the actual story gets going there are more small, funny tidbits to watch and react to.

So whats good about the movie: the animation, I do not think it is as top notch as Finding Nemo; something about the water in that movie blew me away, but the features and facial expressions on the humans are very nice. Much more liveliness and emotion is being presented. And secondary humans are more lifelike than in the first movie. This is to be expected however with increases in technology ... more of an evolution than a revolution in CG animation ... still good however.

Puss an' Boots and Donkey are hilarious. Especially the former. Well maybe I shouln't say that, as I remember chuckling a lot at things that Donkey said. What is very refreshing in this movie is the level of humor, its very adult and mature. Kids will love this movie because of the characters and the antics, but grown-ups will also and find joy in seeing this because of the subject matter. I cannot think of any off of the top of my head but there were many references to everyday cliche's and current events. (The Prince and his baywatch hair shake just come to mind -- although compared to some of the others that is not nearly as funny).

Strange though, after seeing the movie just the other day I can barely remember any *favorite* scenes or spectaculary funny moments. We will have to wait and see how Incredibles stacks up this fall to really see how good Shrek 2 is and what the ever changing bar for animated films becomes. Still though, go see Shrek 2, laugh at Puss an' Boots and Donkey, snicker at the small satirizations (is that a word) of modern day society, and relax for an hour and half.

.5 of

Stuff

2004-06-07T15:42:00.000-07:00

So last week my friend changed my profile image for this blog. It really gives the impression that I am obsessed with Martini's... just look at my smile and that crazed look in my eye. Well at the time, I probably was. Anyway, you may ask how he could do such a thing. He hosts the images for my blog so he can change them at his will.

Little bastard.

Anyhow ... the weekend was quite relaxing. Tried to see "Harry Potter 3" on Friday night but it was sold out to my dismay. I do have two movie reviews coming up though. "Shrek 2" which I saw before Memorial Day and "Day After Tomorrow", which I 'begged' a friend to come and see with me last night.

I did not really beg, but my girlfriend did not want to go, citing that both Harry Potter and Day After Tomorrow are two movies she does not care to see, which is cool, I'm a movie nut and have to see them all. Anyhow me and Mr. Noh saw Roland Emmerich's latest and all in all is was pretty good. More details on that and Shrek 2 later.

RoliRoti - best chicken ever

2004-05-27T14:32:00.000-07:00

If you are in the Bay Area check this out: RoliRoti. Its the best damn chicken I have ever had. Every Thursday when the Farmer's Market comes this is where you can find me.

Sick at home

2004-05-25T10:46:00.000-07:00

Well I had a strange weekend in Chico that left me sick and tired. I will spare you all the details of the sickness, but it did involve many trips to the porcelain god of love.

Anyhow we went there for Laura's sister's graduation. It was a nice ceremony despite the main speaker was atrocious. You could tell the guy had a thesaurus on him while writing the speech. The BBQ afterwards would have been great if I had been able to imbibe anything. Laura's dad bought a Sierra Nevada Wheat (which up there costs only 70$ ... Down here I think that is like 110$.

But no Matt could not drink any because he had the sh*...- okay I will stop.

So now it is Tuesday and I find myself dialed into work from home taking it easy. Tomorrow I am hoping that I am all better.

Let me talk about Troy briefly. The movie was underwhelming. It was a good movie and entertaining, but did not live up the spectacle that someone could imagine on their own. Few movies do, but I think this one could have if handled differently. You see there are no Gods or Goddesses in the movie. It is just humans; which is fine, but the great thing about Greek Mythology is the relationships between the Gods and the Mortals and everything in between that is a demi-god and what not. It is the Gods meddling that usually holds sway over what happens in the Mortal world.

In Troy we are left with a bitter Achilles' (Brad Pitt) who is so full of pride that he refuses to accept the leadership of King Agamemnon (played by Brian Cox). Throughout the movie they go back and forth. "He won't fight for me" ... "I won't fight for him" .. blah blah blah.

That is the main dissension in the movie until (SPOILER) Hector, who was my favorite character in the movie and strangely as I remember was my favorite character in the Iliad slays Patroculus in battle thinking that it was Achilles.

Well this infuriates Achilles and if you have read the Iliad you more or less know how he reacts. I always thought this part of the Iliad was crap. If Achilles was not such a prideful man his cousin would never had died (at the time he did at least) ... Its achilles own fault that patroculus dies... Anyhow, the poem has been written and I am writing a movie review about the adaption not a book review.

So what was good: The battles are good. The Hector - Achilles duel is very good. Whenever Achilles battle prowess is exemplified the audience is probably thinking, oh that was cool, but these moments are few and far between and last roughly a few seconds each. The first battle and when he throws the spear are examples of this.

As I alluded to above what I wanted to see was the God's influence. For instance there are parts of the Iliad where the God's directly impact the course of the battles. I have a copy of the Iliad right next to me but am too lazy to open it up.

This movie should have been about grandeur and spectacle ... Instead we got a little bit of spectacle and too much humane adaptation of the story with the Gods taken out... The Gods' messages are conveyed through the mortals and for me this just didn't work. I wanted to see strings being pulled. The impact and emotions of each character could have been amplified if there was a supernatural aura about the battles, dialogues, and events.

Should you see it: Yes, but don't go in thinking it will be the greatest thing ever.

of

2004-05-21T11:43:00.000-07:00

Sometimes we all feel a little perplexed about life ...

2004-05-21T11:41:00.000-07:00

To be fair to my friend ... I have added a picture of myself in a drunken state.

2004-05-21T11:38:00.000-07:00

Here is my drunk friend Johnny playing golf late night at our recent palm desert debaucher-fest.

Tipping

2004-05-20T10:45:00.000-07:00

So last night my girlfriend and a friend from college went out to get a drink after watching the Kings lose in yet another game 7. I ordered up a Grey Goose on the rocks and my girlfriend and friend each had Spicy Bloody Mary's ... I tend to be a quick drinker and was done as they were midway through theirs.

Without notice, the bartender had another Grey Goose for me. Now Grey Goose is not exactly cheap so Matt and I are looking at each other thinking the bartender is trying to make some more money off of us then he already would. Whatever though, I would have probably ordered another one anyway.

The bill comes and he only charged us for three drinks -- my second Grey Goose was free. Thinking oh this bartender is cool, I gave him a big tip -- double I guess from what he would have gotten.

I guess I would feel like an asshole if I did not tip him properly since he "hooked" us up, but in the end its just like me paying for my second Gray Goose and giving him a normal tip. Just some thoughts for you to chew on -- nothing is really free, unless of course you are the "asshole".

Van Helsing

2004-05-14T09:06:00.000-07:00

So last night my girlfriend and I went and saw Van Helsing.

I had been looking forward to this for sometime, but as the release of the movie neared I noticed the big blitz marketing campaign and the increasingly cheesy, over-the-top trailers. I think I knew before I even sat down in the theater that this was not a movie I was going to like very much. At one point in my life, I think these are the movies that I loved to see -- yearned to see -- big budget, no plot, tons of action and sfx. I remember the summer when Independence Day came out. I worked (still do) at Autodesk Inc. and another intern, Armen Askijian, and I were creating a demo CD to showcase some of the really cool stuff that 3d Studio MAX could do. We would talk about the trailer and the movie nearly everyday leading up to the release and even animated our own little movie where this castle blows up the same way the building it ID4 just gets pummeled. Anyhow, that opening day we were both in line first thing and loved every second of flick.

Was Van Helsing entertaining? Yes. Was it a good movie? No. Did I like it as much as I would have if I were 11? No. Perhaps I was not in the mood to watch 2 hours straight of Hugh Jackman battling nearly every monster of our time (no Mummy, but we already saw how that goes). And it sucks too, because I am a big Jackman fan and especially like his role as Wolverine in the X-Men films (and hope he signs on for the third). The SFX were pretty good ... I liked the werewolf transformations. I thought the Brides of Dracula were not done well, as well as their babies. Dracula himself was horribly acted ... his transformation into his more demonic form was cool. If this was the first film someone saw Hugh Jackman in they would consider him attrocious. His ferocity and believability as Wolverine stands out on its own, but now stands out so much more when comparing that performance to Van Helsing. There is no emotion, he pretty much sleepwalks through the role. I thought that the best part of the movie (acting wise) was perhaps seen as the most cheesiest by others (SPOILER) but when he is the werewolf at the end and has killed Kate Beckinsale's character he begins transforming back into a human and crying out in pain because of her loss. He pulled it off pretty well considering it was hard to take anything in the movie serious at that point.

To sum this up, I would say that I am dissappointed that I can no longer fully appreciate the fun, popcorn action flicks. Or perhaps I still can and Van Helsing really does just bite the big one.

Troy (2004): Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom, Wolfgang Petersen

2004-05-12T13:32:00.000-07:00

Troy (2004): Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom, Wolfgang Petersen

The last sentence here: "As Troy grows in stature and intrigue, Achilles gradually withdraws. The warrior couldn’t look more disinterested, and as a result, the audience eventually begins to feel the same way."

seems to me like that is what happens in the Iliad ... Achilles withdraws from the fighting until his honor can be restored ... Hopefully Wolfgang dishes Achilles return in the movie the same way it is served in the epic.

The beginning

2004-05-11T17:33:00.000-07:00

Well, I just came back from a vacation with one of my buddies in Palm Desert and he mentioned he had a blog. I have been meaning to check out these hybrid sort of diary/get-to-know-other-people/post random thoughts things, so here I am. Although there is not much to say right now; work and sleep need catching up :), I'm sure I will want to shout out some things later.