Hello and Happy New Year
ByJanuary 1st, 2006
Let me start by saying Hello again. It, of course, has been a while
since I've posted anything here or on the message boards. Now that
the holiday season has passed us once again, I will hopefully have
a little more free time. I'm not saying that I'll spend said free
time updating this website, but at least there will be more free
time :).
The reason I'm posting today is because although at work we don't have the day off, I have been fighting a crappy cold since Friday, so I took the day off to rest. I'm now extremely bored, yet don't feel like doing anything. I don't even want to sleep. I do have this crazy pain reliever from when I had my wisdom teeth taken out that I'm sure would make the sleeping process much easier. However, I think I'll hold off for something like unbearable back pain.
I visited ArsTechnica for the first time in a long time today. The first article on the page was about Coldplay's new album and it's advanced copy protection software. I'll admit that I own a Coldplay CD, but I'll simply do without for this one.
Ok I'm bored again, good luck on your next search for something to do. Ohhh! Check this site out, it will make you laugh! Thank Willow for that one.
The reason I'm posting today is because although at work we don't have the day off, I have been fighting a crappy cold since Friday, so I took the day off to rest. I'm now extremely bored, yet don't feel like doing anything. I don't even want to sleep. I do have this crazy pain reliever from when I had my wisdom teeth taken out that I'm sure would make the sleeping process much easier. However, I think I'll hold off for something like unbearable back pain.
I visited ArsTechnica for the first time in a long time today. The first article on the page was about Coldplay's new album and it's advanced copy protection software. I'll admit that I own a Coldplay CD, but I'll simply do without for this one.
Ok I'm bored again, good luck on your next search for something to do. Ohhh! Check this site out, it will make you laugh! Thank Willow for that one.
Comments
New Gallery Page!
ByJanuary 7th, 2006
After many sessions of whining from Willow, I finally made the time
to fix the gallery page. You may remember that a while back I
introduced Dueling Monkeys Galleries 2.0, a custom built gallery
based on XML that I wrote in an effort to better familarize myself
with XML and it's various applications. Geek talk aside, I just
didn't finish it. I really hate doing that, but I'm awful good at
it (gallery, movie exchange, im client, message board upgrades,
etc.).
So, for the galleries, I decided to go with the very popular yet horribly unoriginally named Gallery (version 2). It works great, and allows for captions, comments, easy management, searching, and a whole lot more features. I spent today trimming out most of those cool features, but we may or may not add some in on a per request basis. I did a fairly quick yet very ugly hack on the default theme to make it fit our Dueling Monkeys theme.
Those that use Firefox should be good to go, but unfortunately people who are forced (or for some reason still use) Internet Explorer, things aren't going to be perfect. Because of the nature of our site design, we have a limited viewing area for images. Most of the photos we have will fit in our window, but Internet Explorer decides to put scrollbars around the photos if they are even slightly too big to fit, even if they appear otherwise. It beats the alternative, trust me. Just click that previous link and save yourself. I don't have access to a Mac, so if it looks absolutely horrible in Safari, please let me know and I'm sorry.
Bare with us as we migrate our images to the new gallery, as well as clean up some things that just don't belong on the site.
So, for the galleries, I decided to go with the very popular yet horribly unoriginally named Gallery (version 2). It works great, and allows for captions, comments, easy management, searching, and a whole lot more features. I spent today trimming out most of those cool features, but we may or may not add some in on a per request basis. I did a fairly quick yet very ugly hack on the default theme to make it fit our Dueling Monkeys theme.
Those that use Firefox should be good to go, but unfortunately people who are forced (or for some reason still use) Internet Explorer, things aren't going to be perfect. Because of the nature of our site design, we have a limited viewing area for images. Most of the photos we have will fit in our window, but Internet Explorer decides to put scrollbars around the photos if they are even slightly too big to fit, even if they appear otherwise. It beats the alternative, trust me. Just click that previous link and save yourself. I don't have access to a Mac, so if it looks absolutely horrible in Safari, please let me know and I'm sorry.
Bare with us as we migrate our images to the new gallery, as well as clean up some things that just don't belong on the site.
New Gallery Page
Comments
Look, I can doodle
By Mike DalyJanuary 28th, 2006
It's getting close to my bedtime, so I'll try to make this
quick.
The recent Halo party was some good times. Of course we forgot to take pictures, but at least we have some record of what went down. Take a look for yourself. Needless to say, we drank a lot of beer.
I've actually been doing a little bit of modeling and texture work at work, but I don't have the time to organize it such that it would make a presentable screenshot. Textures don't really make for interesting pictures to fill a gallery with, if you know what I mean. However, I did play around with a few things at home that I can show screenshots of. Check these out:
Unfortunately, these don't look like much on their own in screenshots. These are effects I made to try out with the level editor I'm working on at work. In order to see them in their full glory, you really need to see them animated and against a more interesting background but that is not really possible to just throw up in the gallery. Oh well, I do what I can.
Also, I sat down at the tablet today and did some doodling. I wanted to create a simplistic and generic bipedal character that I could model and animate for use at work. Obviously I didn't get to the modeling part, but at least I have some fun doodles to show for it. Check it out. My favorite part is the mischevious devil head at the top.
I also went through and rearranged some of the galleries today. I hadn't realized that we still had a bunch of pictures laying around that were only in the old galleries and hadn't been added to the new system yet, so I took it upon myself to set them up. Also, the paintbrush link at the top of the page now finally links to the art gallery instead of the gallery root directory. If you've got a little free time, why don't you poke around and see if you find anything interesting?
On one final note, I'm sorry I don't make updates with pictures and stuff more often. I really would like to see the site being more active like it used to. I would at least like to see myself write more stuff just for the purpose of archiving what is going on in my life. In order to fulfill the latter desire and to give a lame excuse for the infrequency of my updates, I'd like to point out that I'm very very busy at work these days. Most of the time, my workplace is able to avoid the stereotypical work hours you hear about from the game industry, but lately, I haven't been so lucky. The hours are really starting to add up, and I'm going in on weekends pretty frequently. It probably won't let up for another two months or so either.
On the bright side, I am able to fit in a few games every once in a while. I played Mutant Storm Reloaded one day and got a score in single player adventure mode that ranked me at 91 in the world! I've already dropped to 121 by now, but still, I'm pretty proud of that.
Here is your random link of the day: the beautiful Portfolio of Art Director and Matte Painter Raphael Lacoste.
The recent Halo party was some good times. Of course we forgot to take pictures, but at least we have some record of what went down. Take a look for yourself. Needless to say, we drank a lot of beer.
I've actually been doing a little bit of modeling and texture work at work, but I don't have the time to organize it such that it would make a presentable screenshot. Textures don't really make for interesting pictures to fill a gallery with, if you know what I mean. However, I did play around with a few things at home that I can show screenshots of. Check these out:
Unfortunately, these don't look like much on their own in screenshots. These are effects I made to try out with the level editor I'm working on at work. In order to see them in their full glory, you really need to see them animated and against a more interesting background but that is not really possible to just throw up in the gallery. Oh well, I do what I can.
Also, I sat down at the tablet today and did some doodling. I wanted to create a simplistic and generic bipedal character that I could model and animate for use at work. Obviously I didn't get to the modeling part, but at least I have some fun doodles to show for it. Check it out. My favorite part is the mischevious devil head at the top.
I also went through and rearranged some of the galleries today. I hadn't realized that we still had a bunch of pictures laying around that were only in the old galleries and hadn't been added to the new system yet, so I took it upon myself to set them up. Also, the paintbrush link at the top of the page now finally links to the art gallery instead of the gallery root directory. If you've got a little free time, why don't you poke around and see if you find anything interesting?
On one final note, I'm sorry I don't make updates with pictures and stuff more often. I really would like to see the site being more active like it used to. I would at least like to see myself write more stuff just for the purpose of archiving what is going on in my life. In order to fulfill the latter desire and to give a lame excuse for the infrequency of my updates, I'd like to point out that I'm very very busy at work these days. Most of the time, my workplace is able to avoid the stereotypical work hours you hear about from the game industry, but lately, I haven't been so lucky. The hours are really starting to add up, and I'm going in on weekends pretty frequently. It probably won't let up for another two months or so either.
On the bright side, I am able to fit in a few games every once in a while. I played Mutant Storm Reloaded one day and got a score in single player adventure mode that ranked me at 91 in the world! I've already dropped to 121 by now, but still, I'm pretty proud of that.
Here is your random link of the day: the beautiful Portfolio of Art Director and Matte Painter Raphael Lacoste.
Comments
Merry February Day!
By Mike DalyFebruary 20th, 2006
Last week I was in the office for 67 hours. I thought about going
in Sunday as well as Saturday just to get it above the 70 hour
milestone just so I could say 'hey, I've worked a 70 hour week
before!', but for some reason when I woke up on Sunday, I just
didn't feel like it. Go figure.
I'm sure you've all heard the horror stories about having to work absurd hours during crunch time for game industry professionals, and generally, I've been fortunate enough to avoid this for most of my short career thus far, but it seems that my luck was not to last. I've been crunching for a while, and it will continue to ramp up for about a month or so. Then about the beginning of April I'm going to take a big fat vacation.
Despite the workload, I've been able to deal with the mountain of paperwork and phonecalls it takes to purchase a house. Don't get all excited though, it's the one I already live in. To top it all off, my uncle just moved to Raleigh, so I'll have some more family around.
So in summary, I'm busy. However, I will try to post something worth looking at anyway.
First up, my dad got me a lavish housewarming gift that after I'm done crunch-timing, I think many can enjoy. I am referring to my new sectional sofa. I'm happy.
For the second item, I feel that I should first issue a disclaimer. I was thinking of posting a screenshot of the tool I've been working on at work. But then I thought that I might get in trouble for it, especially saying as the entire interface has already changed since I took the screenshot, and will again before the thing is done. I don't want to ruffle anyone's feathers, so I cropped it down. So keep in mind that this doesn't represent anything about what the tool will end up looking like ... screenshot of mysterious tool.
The only interesting things to point out here are that you can play with all the light parameters, and the material system that the scene is rendered with. The art here is not much to look at (becuase it was made by yours truly), but what is neat about it is the fact that each wall is only two triangles, and the 3d effect you get from looking at the tiles at an angle is done by a technique called parallax mapping which uses a texture to fake perspective. Additionally you have some per-pixel specular highlights that are offset by a normal map, which is another technique used to fake the 3d-ness of the walls. I'd say that the illusion worked out pretty well in this screen.
Well, that's all the update I have time for. It's now very late, and I have to go to bed so I can get up at 7 and crunch all day. For my parting gift, I give you web sudoku.
I'm sure you've all heard the horror stories about having to work absurd hours during crunch time for game industry professionals, and generally, I've been fortunate enough to avoid this for most of my short career thus far, but it seems that my luck was not to last. I've been crunching for a while, and it will continue to ramp up for about a month or so. Then about the beginning of April I'm going to take a big fat vacation.
Despite the workload, I've been able to deal with the mountain of paperwork and phonecalls it takes to purchase a house. Don't get all excited though, it's the one I already live in. To top it all off, my uncle just moved to Raleigh, so I'll have some more family around.
So in summary, I'm busy. However, I will try to post something worth looking at anyway.
First up, my dad got me a lavish housewarming gift that after I'm done crunch-timing, I think many can enjoy. I am referring to my new sectional sofa. I'm happy.
For the second item, I feel that I should first issue a disclaimer. I was thinking of posting a screenshot of the tool I've been working on at work. But then I thought that I might get in trouble for it, especially saying as the entire interface has already changed since I took the screenshot, and will again before the thing is done. I don't want to ruffle anyone's feathers, so I cropped it down. So keep in mind that this doesn't represent anything about what the tool will end up looking like ... screenshot of mysterious tool.
The only interesting things to point out here are that you can play with all the light parameters, and the material system that the scene is rendered with. The art here is not much to look at (becuase it was made by yours truly), but what is neat about it is the fact that each wall is only two triangles, and the 3d effect you get from looking at the tiles at an angle is done by a technique called parallax mapping which uses a texture to fake perspective. Additionally you have some per-pixel specular highlights that are offset by a normal map, which is another technique used to fake the 3d-ness of the walls. I'd say that the illusion worked out pretty well in this screen.
Well, that's all the update I have time for. It's now very late, and I have to go to bed so I can get up at 7 and crunch all day. For my parting gift, I give you web sudoku.
Comments
Willow Monkey: Private Investigator
By Mike DalyMarch 3rd, 2006
So I would tell you a very funny and well-written story about the
fantastic adventures that I had last night, but there is a problem.
The problem is, of course, that I have no idea what happened last
night. However, I have noticed a couple of indicators around the
house that suggest what might have happened. This calls for the
talents of a private investigator! I'm going to describe all of the
clues I found (unfortunately, I couldn't find Wayne's camera, so I
don't have pictures), and you can use your powers of intuition to
determine what really happened. Hell, your guess is as good as
mine. So c'mon gang! We've got a mystery to solve!
Aside: Wayne is not around very often these days to cook dinner with, so what do I eat nowadays? Not toothpaste, but it is a funny website anyways.
Clues:
- I woke up on the couch and not my bed. I had a headache.
- There were a great deal of empty beverage containers on the
coffee table. The arrangement is as follows:
- There are three India Pale Ale's (blea!) grouped at the edge of the coffee table closest to the television. There is only one person who would forsake this couch in favor of laying on his stomach in the middle of the floor. These beverage containers must belong to Mike E.
- There are four beverage containers grouped near another edge of the coffee table. All of them have precisely 1/10th of the bottle's original liquid contents remaining in the bottom. These must have been Pawel's.
- There are eight empty beverages lined up in front of the recliner with obsessive-compulsive-disorder-like precision. Ah ha! Those were obviously mine.
- I try talking to George and I realize that I've lost my voice. I obviously played some video games last night.
- There is my barbell in the middle of the office room. The weights are no longer symetrical, with one of them attached very close to the end of the bar, and one of the weights has a great deal of the black coating chipped and scraped away.
- My gardening gloves are on the kitchen counter. They are dirty, which is unexpected because I've never used them before (what? you think I garden?)
- On top of the gloves is one of the many lighters in my house. I'll bet that comes as a shocker.
- Outside the house around back I used to have a stack of stepping stones. The stepping stones are now a pile of rubble. Not one of them is still fully intact.
- Here is the most interesting part: on the coffe table is one of my old cookie sheets. Earlier this week, I had decided to throw it away (rather than having to wash it), so it was sitting next to the trash in the kitchen. The sheet of metal is now completely twisted up, sporting scratches, dents, and punctures all over it. A good portion of the cookie sheet has black soot on it and it smells like gasoline.
Aside: Wayne is not around very often these days to cook dinner with, so what do I eat nowadays? Not toothpaste, but it is a funny website anyways.
Comments
Face plate
By Mike DalyMarch 27th, 2006
Hello all; long time, no see.
I'm finally nearing the end of my big push at work, and in another two or three weeks my four-or-so month long crunch will finally be over. I tell you what, it feels pretty good to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Just in case anyone is interested, I have been working on a new aspect of Gamebryo that we are calling the 'Scene Designer'. Just to make the explanation simpler, I'm going to say that it is our game engine's level editor. Check out its web page. Not like you can really make it out from the downsized images, but I created the levels on the top and the bottom from scratch. We are shipping one of them, so I got to contribute art content to our game engine, woo!
Second thing that I'm excited about is that my company is moving into a spanking new office in the Quadrangle. That will reduce my commute by 8-10 minutes, and our new place is much bigger and nicer.
The third thing that I'm excited about is that my slacker brother Wesley finally wrote something for the webpage. You can find his most recent political rant in our much-neglected articles page. By the way, for those that don't know, my brother is also engaged to a chinese woman and will be moving to Shanghai soon.
Next up on the list is that George is a cute kitty. We were sitting in the living room drinking and playing video games one night when we noticed a shadow come across the room. Apparently curious george had decided to go exploring and walked on top of my kitchen divider wall, which was very cute despite the fact that he was covered in dust by the time we got him down. Fortunately, we got a picture.
I've managed to resist getting Oblivion still because I haven't fullfilled my current gaming obligations, but it is becoming more difficult as time passes. It will probably be still harder once I get my new HDTV delivered next sunday. Curse my weakness.
Finally, I never thought it would happen, but I finally got my developer faceplate from Microsoft. The guys who worked on software that went into the 360 launch and ordered a 360 from Microsoft got these. At the time we ordered, it was still thought that Oblivion was going to be a launch title, but in the end that didn't work out. Oh well, I still got my custom faceplate. Check it out. Unfortunately, you can't read the text because I was too lazy to resize the image in Photoshop so the internet downsampling and compression screwed it up. The green letters on the front say 'Thanks for playing with us', and the text on the USB bay door says 'Launch Team 2005'.
Well, that's about all I have to say. Sorry that all this information was so bland in its presentation, but I think it is better to have dull presentation of interesting information that a bunch of fluff about nothing. The latter of which is what I think I did for the first two years or so of the webpage. Maybe I'm wrong and fluff is better. Oh well, this is what you get. I already wrote it and I'm not going to change it now.
I'm finally nearing the end of my big push at work, and in another two or three weeks my four-or-so month long crunch will finally be over. I tell you what, it feels pretty good to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Just in case anyone is interested, I have been working on a new aspect of Gamebryo that we are calling the 'Scene Designer'. Just to make the explanation simpler, I'm going to say that it is our game engine's level editor. Check out its web page. Not like you can really make it out from the downsized images, but I created the levels on the top and the bottom from scratch. We are shipping one of them, so I got to contribute art content to our game engine, woo!
Second thing that I'm excited about is that my company is moving into a spanking new office in the Quadrangle. That will reduce my commute by 8-10 minutes, and our new place is much bigger and nicer.
The third thing that I'm excited about is that my slacker brother Wesley finally wrote something for the webpage. You can find his most recent political rant in our much-neglected articles page. By the way, for those that don't know, my brother is also engaged to a chinese woman and will be moving to Shanghai soon.
Next up on the list is that George is a cute kitty. We were sitting in the living room drinking and playing video games one night when we noticed a shadow come across the room. Apparently curious george had decided to go exploring and walked on top of my kitchen divider wall, which was very cute despite the fact that he was covered in dust by the time we got him down. Fortunately, we got a picture.
I've managed to resist getting Oblivion still because I haven't fullfilled my current gaming obligations, but it is becoming more difficult as time passes. It will probably be still harder once I get my new HDTV delivered next sunday. Curse my weakness.
Finally, I never thought it would happen, but I finally got my developer faceplate from Microsoft. The guys who worked on software that went into the 360 launch and ordered a 360 from Microsoft got these. At the time we ordered, it was still thought that Oblivion was going to be a launch title, but in the end that didn't work out. Oh well, I still got my custom faceplate. Check it out. Unfortunately, you can't read the text because I was too lazy to resize the image in Photoshop so the internet downsampling and compression screwed it up. The green letters on the front say 'Thanks for playing with us', and the text on the USB bay door says 'Launch Team 2005'.
Well, that's about all I have to say. Sorry that all this information was so bland in its presentation, but I think it is better to have dull presentation of interesting information that a bunch of fluff about nothing. The latter of which is what I think I did for the first two years or so of the webpage. Maybe I'm wrong and fluff is better. Oh well, this is what you get. I already wrote it and I'm not going to change it now.
Comments
Return of the underling
By WastrelApril 9th, 2006
Wow... I exist!
I did promise wayne to update like a month ago, but then forgot how, didn't really bother trying to find out, and now we end up not in smarch weather but smapril which will be the 14th month now that we are past the possibility of using the 13th (erroneous simpsons allusion).
Anyway so I thought I would have content to post a long time ago, but as Willow mentioned I have moved to California, attend UCSD for my biochem PhD and thus have no time. But Wayne said he would post these roadtrip animations a long time ago (they are big so I understand and I have found another place to 'host' them) click.
But really my main reason for posting is the one cool thing I have learned in grad school sea snails are cool!. Heck I may have a chance to go diving in antarctica for a post-doc position (if I'm interested), but that is years down the road and there is no point to think about that, instead you should think about your random link or simply go back to your sudoku puzzle.
-Peace
I did promise wayne to update like a month ago, but then forgot how, didn't really bother trying to find out, and now we end up not in smarch weather but smapril which will be the 14th month now that we are past the possibility of using the 13th (erroneous simpsons allusion).
Anyway so I thought I would have content to post a long time ago, but as Willow mentioned I have moved to California, attend UCSD for my biochem PhD and thus have no time. But Wayne said he would post these roadtrip animations a long time ago (they are big so I understand and I have found another place to 'host' them) click.
But really my main reason for posting is the one cool thing I have learned in grad school sea snails are cool!. Heck I may have a chance to go diving in antarctica for a post-doc position (if I'm interested), but that is years down the road and there is no point to think about that, instead you should think about your random link or simply go back to your sudoku puzzle.
-Peace
Comments
Word of the day: Rube Goldberg
By Mike DalyMay 5th, 2006
For those of you who don't know already, my brother has finally moved to Shanghai China to be married. That is a pretty exciting event; far more exciting than anything I can report on from my life.
However, I'm going to bore you all by reporting on my life anyway; sorry.
So last time I posted (man, that was a long time ago, wasn't it?) I said that we were almost done with the big push at work. Well, I was wrong and we still aren't done now almost a month and a half later. In theory, we will be shipping Gamebyro 2.2 very soon, but that is a statement I could have made for the past month, so take it for what it's worth. Testing and documentation is probably the least enjoyable part of my job, and it is what I've been doing for the past month or so. At least the new office is pretty nice. I've got a lot more desk space and it is easier to keep the place clean.
When not working, I've been doing some fun stuff. I've been enjoying Oblivion on my new big TV. When I don't have enough contiguous time to play Oblivion, I play Mutant Storm and Geometry Wars. Wayne and I are now ranked in the top 100 co-op tally mode players on all of Xbox Live. They are apparently working on a sequel to Mutant Storm, which I'm excited about.
The weather is nice enough for Volleyball now, so I've been doing that recently. One of my co-workers and I go climbing every once in a while as well, which is great. I also still like to drink and catch stuff on fire. My most recent victim was an easter peep.
In not-so-good news, I have to replace the roof on my house. Not only does it have a leak, but the shingles have hit their lifespan anyway. Fortunately, I do live in a family of construction workers, so hopefully we'll be able to knock it out ourselves pretty quickly and affordably.
I've been doing a wee bit of drawing and modeling recently, but I don't have anything I can show off. One creative thing I can show off, however, is the new recipe I invented this week! I am happy to present Fried Noodles - mmm.
To wrap up this little post, I will say this: watching rube goldberg machines is fun and all, but to really get the most out of it, you need crazy japanese-built machines that have little jingles to accompany them, and comes complete with a rube-goldberg theme song and dance half way through. Enjoy.
Comments
the China connection
By WesleyMay 13th, 2006
well here i am, writing you all another awesome update on DM,
except this one is even awesomeerer because it is coming from
CHINA! yup, thats right, Willow was not kidding when he said i
moved to china. thats right, MOVED to china... to get MARRIED. I've
been here a month now, settled in pretty well. not married yet, but
i'm taking some language classes and trying to get a job. in
between all that i'm having lots of fun being a househusband...
NOT! i have made it my No. 1 priority to get a job asap so that i
can hire a maid and NEVER DO DISHES AGAIN! or laundry, or sweep the
floor, or clean the bathroom... or wipe the kitchen... or...
so, i got food poisoning the first week i was here which was two of the worst days of my life. in general the food is pretty good though. there is a lot of good chinese food, there is a lot of mediocre chinese food and also some very BAD (i'm talkin skull and crossbones bad) chinese food. the fact that half of the dishes they serve still has the bones in it is not so bad once you get used to everyone just spitting the bones onto the table. the flavor is usually fine, its just super annoying to eat. the worst thing i've eaten is "stinky tofu". that is the literal name for it in chinese. can you guess why it is called stinky tofu? thats right, because it smells worse than a dirty diaper. me, being the daring and adventurous fellow that i am, thought i'd just give it a try (they told me "smells bad, but taste is good!"). can you guess what it taste like? you guessed it, it taste the way a dirty diaper smells, except worse. WTF MATE?!?! it was all i could do to keep from ralphing all over the table in front of my girlfriends co-workers and boss. so if you come visit china, try everything EXCEPT the stinky tofu!
one other fun food story, i went on a trip with my gf's work group this weekend and one of the places we stopped to eat was this kind of outdoor fish market. they had all these live sea creatures in styrofoam boxes in front of their "kitchen" and you pointed to what you wanted and they killed it and cooked it. can you guess how they kill the fish (and octopuss)? they hold it up above their head and they throw it down onto the concrete really hard! of course. then they wash it using a garden hose, and put it in a pot of boiling water. all of their kitchenware looked like military surplus... from the communist revolution in '49. i didn't eat there... i went to KFC instead.
so anyway, i'm having quite an adventure over here. the food is just a small fraction of the exciting things i have to deal with everyday. if you are interested in hearing more stories about my awesome life of adventure you can check out my WEBLOG where i periodically post updates. and now for your RLD: Stewie and his women.
so, i got food poisoning the first week i was here which was two of the worst days of my life. in general the food is pretty good though. there is a lot of good chinese food, there is a lot of mediocre chinese food and also some very BAD (i'm talkin skull and crossbones bad) chinese food. the fact that half of the dishes they serve still has the bones in it is not so bad once you get used to everyone just spitting the bones onto the table. the flavor is usually fine, its just super annoying to eat. the worst thing i've eaten is "stinky tofu". that is the literal name for it in chinese. can you guess why it is called stinky tofu? thats right, because it smells worse than a dirty diaper. me, being the daring and adventurous fellow that i am, thought i'd just give it a try (they told me "smells bad, but taste is good!"). can you guess what it taste like? you guessed it, it taste the way a dirty diaper smells, except worse. WTF MATE?!?! it was all i could do to keep from ralphing all over the table in front of my girlfriends co-workers and boss. so if you come visit china, try everything EXCEPT the stinky tofu!
one other fun food story, i went on a trip with my gf's work group this weekend and one of the places we stopped to eat was this kind of outdoor fish market. they had all these live sea creatures in styrofoam boxes in front of their "kitchen" and you pointed to what you wanted and they killed it and cooked it. can you guess how they kill the fish (and octopuss)? they hold it up above their head and they throw it down onto the concrete really hard! of course. then they wash it using a garden hose, and put it in a pot of boiling water. all of their kitchenware looked like military surplus... from the communist revolution in '49. i didn't eat there... i went to KFC instead.
so anyway, i'm having quite an adventure over here. the food is just a small fraction of the exciting things i have to deal with everyday. if you are interested in hearing more stories about my awesome life of adventure you can check out my WEBLOG where i periodically post updates. and now for your RLD: Stewie and his women.
Comments
It's been a while
ByMay 20th, 2006
I've neglected the front page for a while now. As always, the
message board has kept us afloat. We appreciate it. I did fix the webstat pages and they are available here. I wish we had those from long ago. :(
I'm not making excuses, but here's what I've been up to lately. I still work two jobs, and though I definetely don't mind the extra cash or the work, it's getting old and my right eye has been twitching for about 3 weeks now. I don't get enough sleep and I don't get to do what I want to do as much as I want to do it.
I've been playing pool in a league on Tuesday's for a pretty good while. I still suck, but I enjoy it and while it's something I don't mind spending money on, I wish it was cheaper.
I would love to tell you more of what I have been up to, but it's after midnight and I just remember that I have a meeting at 8:00 tommorow, so I better get ready for bed. Willow and I would like to have a cookout sometime soon, but we're not sure when it can happen yet. We'll make a post when we have a date, and we'll try to give you at least a full week's notice. In the meantime, if you already know of a weekend you can't make, drop us a line so we can cross it off the list.
Now I give you, "Grocery Cart / Pyramid Guy!"
I'm not making excuses, but here's what I've been up to lately. I still work two jobs, and though I definetely don't mind the extra cash or the work, it's getting old and my right eye has been twitching for about 3 weeks now. I don't get enough sleep and I don't get to do what I want to do as much as I want to do it.
I've been playing pool in a league on Tuesday's for a pretty good while. I still suck, but I enjoy it and while it's something I don't mind spending money on, I wish it was cheaper.
I would love to tell you more of what I have been up to, but it's after midnight and I just remember that I have a meeting at 8:00 tommorow, so I better get ready for bed. Willow and I would like to have a cookout sometime soon, but we're not sure when it can happen yet. We'll make a post when we have a date, and we'll try to give you at least a full week's notice. In the meantime, if you already know of a weekend you can't make, drop us a line so we can cross it off the list.
Now I give you, "Grocery Cart / Pyramid Guy!"
Comments
Spells of Fury
By Mike DalyJune 13th, 2006
So I am going to tell you something that I did a while ago. Before
I state what I did, I am going to preface by saying that the
following statment is literally true:
I killed a spider by casting Spells of Fury at it.
I'll let that sink in for a sentence. If that is literally true, does that make me a real life wizard?
If you are an acute reader, you may note that Spells of Fury is capitalized. The trick to my statement is that Spells of Fury is a proper noun. It is the title of a book that I threw at a spider to squash it. So I indeed killed a spider by casting Spells of Fury at it. I thought I would share that because it was funny (to me, at least; Wayne didn't think it was funny)
Another thing that is funny is the book 'Spells of Fury' itself. No, it's not a D&D manual. The subtitle reads: "Building Windows 95 Games Using DirectX 2". It has chapters with such AWESOME titles as "Chapter 5: DirectSound: Enter the Realm of the Queen of the Night", and "Chapter 7: Recipes for Destruction". Needless to say, this is a pretty awesome book.
Man, people that work on video games must be dorks!
In other news, my older brother (who you may know as Wesley) Moved to Shanghai China and is now married. In other other news, Some guy on Hillsborough street is an idiot. In other other news part 2, I hope you don't have to go to Crabree Mall anytime soon.
Last week I broke out the ol' tablet and made a new digital painting. I think it turned out pretty good. I'll go ahead and apologize in advance for the background. I only spent a few minutes on it:
Bix: Elven barbarian
I think that about sums it up for now. I can't say that I have a whole lot else to report. Catch y'all later!
I killed a spider by casting Spells of Fury at it.
I'll let that sink in for a sentence. If that is literally true, does that make me a real life wizard?
If you are an acute reader, you may note that Spells of Fury is capitalized. The trick to my statement is that Spells of Fury is a proper noun. It is the title of a book that I threw at a spider to squash it. So I indeed killed a spider by casting Spells of Fury at it. I thought I would share that because it was funny (to me, at least; Wayne didn't think it was funny)
Another thing that is funny is the book 'Spells of Fury' itself. No, it's not a D&D manual. The subtitle reads: "Building Windows 95 Games Using DirectX 2". It has chapters with such AWESOME titles as "Chapter 5: DirectSound: Enter the Realm of the Queen of the Night", and "Chapter 7: Recipes for Destruction". Needless to say, this is a pretty awesome book.
Man, people that work on video games must be dorks!
In other news, my older brother (who you may know as Wesley) Moved to Shanghai China and is now married. In other other news, Some guy on Hillsborough street is an idiot. In other other news part 2, I hope you don't have to go to Crabree Mall anytime soon.
Last week I broke out the ol' tablet and made a new digital painting. I think it turned out pretty good. I'll go ahead and apologize in advance for the background. I only spent a few minutes on it:
Bix: Elven barbarian
I think that about sums it up for now. I can't say that I have a whole lot else to report. Catch y'all later!
Comments
Summer Vacation!
By Mike DalyJuly 4th, 2006
So the week before last, I took my first vacation from work in a
year and a half. I will chronicle the story of this journey here so
that it will remain on the (web)pages of history forever!
Tuesday night, 11 pm I pick my brother Dave (Wesley) up from RDU. We drive from the airport strait back to Clyde, arriving at 3 am. Wednesday morning at 7 I wake, eat breakfast, and set off.
My Dad, two of my brothers an I drove a camper pulling a trailer with Jeep strait to Denver Colorado. It was a 27 hour trip in total; we didn't stop for anything but gas.
We arrived in Denver and set up our base of operations at about noon. That afternoon we checked out the world's largest brewery: the Coor's brewery in Golden, Denver. We got to sample some beer and I learned some fun facts. We also checked out the Red Rock natural amphitheater, which was cool, and saw some dinosaur tracks next the the highway.
The next morning, we went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, which was pretty cool. I hadn't been so excited about Dinosaurs since I was like 10. I even took a picture of some dinosaurs fighting a fierce battle as well as some mammals being really passive and boring.
Shortly afterwards, Dave and I went to the airport and took off for San Francisco. From SF, we Drove to Napa (wine country apparently) and crashed.
The following day, (Saturday) we attended the wedding of Jason and Kaori Howard. I got to spend a lot of time hanging out with old friends and sitting quietly in the corner avoiding eye contact when the hosts were recruiting people to dance.
The next day we went back to San Francisco. We kind of wandered around like a dozen headless chickens for a while, but were eventually decisive enough to visit the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts. Can you guess what is inside the Palace of Fine Arts? If you guessed 'A hands-on science museum', you would have guessed correct. It is a very odd mix. Anyway to make a long story short, I applied for a job as a statue, but for some reason, they didn't hire me.
On Monday, we just basically drove all around western California trying to deliver people to whatever airports they belonged to, eventually settling down in Santa Cruz. We played a little putt-putt, then the next morning was the long trip home. I finally arrived back in Raleigh at 1 am Wednesday morning and was at work 7 hours later.
Some Stats:
Time spent: 7 days
Distance traveled: A really long way (but too lazy to figure up)
Weddings attended: 1
Pictures taken: very few, but I found some random old ones when downloading from my camera
Crazy people met on the airplane: 1
Stages of Mega Man cleared: 22
Hours of relaxation: 0
...
Making a Mastercard pun out of this list: priceless
Really, the Palace of Fine arts was way cool. Here are some other random pictures of it: 1, 2, 3, 4
THE END
Tuesday night, 11 pm I pick my brother Dave (Wesley) up from RDU. We drive from the airport strait back to Clyde, arriving at 3 am. Wednesday morning at 7 I wake, eat breakfast, and set off.
My Dad, two of my brothers an I drove a camper pulling a trailer with Jeep strait to Denver Colorado. It was a 27 hour trip in total; we didn't stop for anything but gas.
We arrived in Denver and set up our base of operations at about noon. That afternoon we checked out the world's largest brewery: the Coor's brewery in Golden, Denver. We got to sample some beer and I learned some fun facts. We also checked out the Red Rock natural amphitheater, which was cool, and saw some dinosaur tracks next the the highway.
The next morning, we went to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, which was pretty cool. I hadn't been so excited about Dinosaurs since I was like 10. I even took a picture of some dinosaurs fighting a fierce battle as well as some mammals being really passive and boring.
Shortly afterwards, Dave and I went to the airport and took off for San Francisco. From SF, we Drove to Napa (wine country apparently) and crashed.
The following day, (Saturday) we attended the wedding of Jason and Kaori Howard. I got to spend a lot of time hanging out with old friends and sitting quietly in the corner avoiding eye contact when the hosts were recruiting people to dance.
The next day we went back to San Francisco. We kind of wandered around like a dozen headless chickens for a while, but were eventually decisive enough to visit the San Francisco Palace of Fine Arts. Can you guess what is inside the Palace of Fine Arts? If you guessed 'A hands-on science museum', you would have guessed correct. It is a very odd mix. Anyway to make a long story short, I applied for a job as a statue, but for some reason, they didn't hire me.
On Monday, we just basically drove all around western California trying to deliver people to whatever airports they belonged to, eventually settling down in Santa Cruz. We played a little putt-putt, then the next morning was the long trip home. I finally arrived back in Raleigh at 1 am Wednesday morning and was at work 7 hours later.
Some Stats:
Time spent: 7 days
Distance traveled: A really long way (but too lazy to figure up)
Weddings attended: 1
Pictures taken: very few, but I found some random old ones when downloading from my camera
Crazy people met on the airplane: 1
Stages of Mega Man cleared: 22
Hours of relaxation: 0
...
Making a Mastercard pun out of this list: priceless
Really, the Palace of Fine arts was way cool. Here are some other random pictures of it: 1, 2, 3, 4
THE END
Comments
Hello from Pittsburgh
ByJuly 15th, 2006
Hello everyone! It's good to see you all again. And by that I mean,
it's too bad that I am in Pittsburgh instead of Brad's pool party.
But, if I weren't in PA, I'd be in SC, so sorry Brad, but it just
wasn't meant to be. I flew in (my first commercial flight, yay!)
here Friday afternoon to do some testing for work. It hasn't been
very hard work, only 5 hours a day, but it has been hot and dirty.
No, I'm not secretly a porn star. We've been collecting samples of
mercury emissions from a power plant. The place we're at has a 1000
ft smoke stack, but we are sampling from 300 feet. I hope we can go
to the top to get some good pictures, but the guy who runs the
place is hesitant to let us go that far up because the elevator is
24 years old and often breaks down. If it were to break down while
we were up there, we'd have to lower all of our heavy equipment
down by rope, and then climb down the ladder! Nevertheless, we do
have some pretty good pictures from 300 ft that I'll try to
remember to put up. I must say that Pennsylvania has some beautiful
countryside, and Pittsburgh is not bad looking either. I have to
tell you a funny story from this little trip... There is a small
pizza joint here in town (town is a small place outside of Pitt
where we are staying) that we have been visiting quite frequently.
The food is cheap and they have a bar serving equally cheap beer.
Saturday night was dollar domestics! They were only 10oz, but $1 on
a weekend is pretty good. Anyway, this cute girl who was our
waitress before we moved over to the bar came up and told us about
the deal. When my boss asked for a Yuengling, she replied
"Yuengling isn't domestic". We tried to tell her that we were
pretty confident that it was, but she insisted on asking the
bartender, who proceeded to laugh at her and at the same time
seemed like he wanted to smack her with the spine of the Pittsburgh
phone book. For those of you who don't know, Yuengling is brewed in
PA just north of Philly. Anyway, thats my story and now I will go
to bed because I got up to work at 6:45 this morning after a decent
night of drinking (this has been the way of life for the past few
days) and I have to do both again tommorow.
Comments
Starships!
By Mike DalyAugust 12th, 2006
Hey all! Time for a quick update on what I've been up to these
days. Every once in a while, I manage to fit time into my schedule
to work on a little personal project I have going on. This project
is to create a simple space dog fight game. I have been working on
the thing forever, but progress is very slow because I usually only
end up doing about one day's worth of work per month; if
that.
Anyway, very recently I have come to the realization that almost all of the work that has been done is programming, and that we have a monumental amount of artwork that needs to be done. This is very motivational because, for those who can do both, artwork is much more fun to do than programming. My goal is to make 5 ships; each is a one-person fighter ship. I do have a couple of design ideas that I want to accomplish:
Cannon Ship
Next up, we have the long-range ship concept. I wasn't really sure where I was going with this one until I started modeling. The idea is that the center is hollowed out for some sort of energy railgun-type thingy. My first thought was to make it shaped like a World War 2 style submarine. Eventually, this kind of morphed into a cartoon-style yellow submarine, which eventually morphed into a hollow football. I just did this one this weekend, so I haven't started on the texture yet. It will probably end up having the same scratched metal look as the cannonship because I want the ships to look consistent with each other and it is a pretty easy effect to accomplish. The slots on the side are what it uses for propulsion.
uh... Football Ship?
Yeah, that one really needs a name.
Well, that's all I have so far. I've been able to crank each of these babies out pretty fast. If I was working on it full time, I'd say about 2 days each. It would take about 3 each to get them to completion. Hopefully I'll have more to show next month.
Anyway, very recently I have come to the realization that almost all of the work that has been done is programming, and that we have a monumental amount of artwork that needs to be done. This is very motivational because, for those who can do both, artwork is much more fun to do than programming. My goal is to make 5 ships; each is a one-person fighter ship. I do have a couple of design ideas that I want to accomplish:
- Ships should all be consistent enough in style, construction, texturing, etc. for it to be believable that they were all created by humans
- Ships should not look like any stereotypical spaceships from movies or TV, but are still recognizeable as spaceships
- Ships should be stylized to exaggerate their function. Since these are fighters, this usually means big guns.
- Ships need to be easily identifiable from a top down perspective at a long distance
- They should probably look cool too
Cannon Ship
Next up, we have the long-range ship concept. I wasn't really sure where I was going with this one until I started modeling. The idea is that the center is hollowed out for some sort of energy railgun-type thingy. My first thought was to make it shaped like a World War 2 style submarine. Eventually, this kind of morphed into a cartoon-style yellow submarine, which eventually morphed into a hollow football. I just did this one this weekend, so I haven't started on the texture yet. It will probably end up having the same scratched metal look as the cannonship because I want the ships to look consistent with each other and it is a pretty easy effect to accomplish. The slots on the side are what it uses for propulsion.
uh... Football Ship?
Yeah, that one really needs a name.
Well, that's all I have so far. I've been able to crank each of these babies out pretty fast. If I was working on it full time, I'd say about 2 days each. It would take about 3 each to get them to completion. Hopefully I'll have more to show next month.
Comments
September's News Update!
BySeptember 16th, 2006
That's right folks, its time for our monthly news update. I
remember back when we first got started the goal was two to three
per week, but now our policy is at least once each month, so here
it is.
First off, I'd like to thank everyone once again for coming to our latest Halo party. We had a good time and hope you did too. We shall do it again hopefully sooner than later.
Secondly, things have changed a bit for me lately. I quit my job recently and went full time with the consulting gig I had been doing for the past year. For those who didn't know, I have been working on websites specifically for real estate brokers and agents, setting up MLS data feeds, and working on some other top secret projects. I enjoy the work and the best part is I get to work from home. I was a little worried that I would have a hard time staying focused with distractions around the house, but it has gone pretty well so far. I have a fairly unproductive assistant, a fancy new laptop which beats the pants off my 5 year old desktop, and my morning commute went from 25 minutes to 15 seconds. It does suck to be in the house all day, but I often find an excuse to go and and run an errand or two during "lunch".
In other news, some of you might have seen last night that we no longer have a big tree in the front yard providing shade, extensive home repairs, and hours of leaf-raking chores. After half of the bradford pear fell on our house a few months ago, we noticed it wasn't looking so healthy. Since then, a fairly large branch had started to split and was threatening the street where our neighbors park at least one of their dozen cars. It was time to put this tree out of its misery. We took some pictures to post, but they seem to be missing from the camera. This is unfortunate, but I think that they may have been exported to Mike's mom's computer. We will post them when we get them.
The Panthers just ruined my Sunday of football viewing by losing their second game (now 0-2) to the Vikings. Not that everything is his fault, but I hate Jake Delhomme. I especially hate his stupid commercials. I wish I could watch one game without seeing his stupid tougue hanging out of his mouth like a rabid dog. But more than Jake, I hate all the hype the Panthers got in the offseason about going to the Superbowl this year. They may still be able to get something going, especially when Steve Smith gets healthy, but as of now they are embarassing. I'll go ahead and call the Chicago Bears as one team that makes it to the Superbowl. I'll be sure to link back to this post in February.
Sorry for that big chunk of sports rant, but I was too lazy to make in into a rant. If you read this far, give yourself a pat on the back!
First off, I'd like to thank everyone once again for coming to our latest Halo party. We had a good time and hope you did too. We shall do it again hopefully sooner than later.
Secondly, things have changed a bit for me lately. I quit my job recently and went full time with the consulting gig I had been doing for the past year. For those who didn't know, I have been working on websites specifically for real estate brokers and agents, setting up MLS data feeds, and working on some other top secret projects. I enjoy the work and the best part is I get to work from home. I was a little worried that I would have a hard time staying focused with distractions around the house, but it has gone pretty well so far. I have a fairly unproductive assistant, a fancy new laptop which beats the pants off my 5 year old desktop, and my morning commute went from 25 minutes to 15 seconds. It does suck to be in the house all day, but I often find an excuse to go and and run an errand or two during "lunch".
In other news, some of you might have seen last night that we no longer have a big tree in the front yard providing shade, extensive home repairs, and hours of leaf-raking chores. After half of the bradford pear fell on our house a few months ago, we noticed it wasn't looking so healthy. Since then, a fairly large branch had started to split and was threatening the street where our neighbors park at least one of their dozen cars. It was time to put this tree out of its misery. We took some pictures to post, but they seem to be missing from the camera. This is unfortunate, but I think that they may have been exported to Mike's mom's computer. We will post them when we get them.
WARNING: The following content is basically a rant about recent sports events that have not made me happy. Feel free to stop reading at any time
In sports news, it has been two crappy weekends in football if you are a fan of the NC State Wolfpack or the Carolina Panthers. I am a fan of both, so I am a little pissed off. NC State's only win this season was the opener against Division 1-AA Appalachain State. Granted, they were the 1-AA national champions last year, but a lot of that talent graduated and it was a closer game than the score made it out to be. The last two games have been labled "upsets" (both losses) and this past one was just ugly. I know we lost three defensive players to the first round of the NFL draft, and 6 players overall, but dammit 6 turnovers in 2 games is unacceptable. Our offense has been crap since Philip Rivers left, even though there has been other talent that is capable of doing better.The Panthers just ruined my Sunday of football viewing by losing their second game (now 0-2) to the Vikings. Not that everything is his fault, but I hate Jake Delhomme. I especially hate his stupid commercials. I wish I could watch one game without seeing his stupid tougue hanging out of his mouth like a rabid dog. But more than Jake, I hate all the hype the Panthers got in the offseason about going to the Superbowl this year. They may still be able to get something going, especially when Steve Smith gets healthy, but as of now they are embarassing. I'll go ahead and call the Chicago Bears as one team that makes it to the Superbowl. I'll be sure to link back to this post in February.
Sorry for that big chunk of sports rant, but I was too lazy to make in into a rant. If you read this far, give yourself a pat on the back!
Comments
The Beach, China, and a Movie Review!
ByOctober 6th, 2006
I've been at the beach since Wednesday night dog and house sitting
while my aunt and uncle are cruising around the BVI's. Normally I
would say that the beach is a very unproductive work environment,
but I spend many hours at a time without human contact and the
weather has turned cold, so there's not much else to do other than
watch Poseidon and
write a review about it. To those of you who say "You're at the
beach, stop complaining" I say "You're right, I'll move on".
Willow has apparently been sidetracked during his journey to China (which I myself will embark on next week) due to a Typhoon that affected the entire air system in Japan. I assume he forgot to take Dave's phone number, so he had no way of contacting him to let him know that he would not be arriving on time, or at all in the 24 hours after he was supposed to arrive. Good work Mike!
On Tuesday, I will drive back to Raleigh, possibly back home to drop off the dog, and pack for China. The total flight time is about 18 hours. I would take my laptop to watch a movie, but the battery would not last long and then I have an excuse to do work while on vacation (boo!). I expect to spend a few dollars on drinks during my layover in Detroit so I can prepare to sleep as much as possible, but who knows what will happen.
Willow has apparently been sidetracked during his journey to China (which I myself will embark on next week) due to a Typhoon that affected the entire air system in Japan. I assume he forgot to take Dave's phone number, so he had no way of contacting him to let him know that he would not be arriving on time, or at all in the 24 hours after he was supposed to arrive. Good work Mike!
On Tuesday, I will drive back to Raleigh, possibly back home to drop off the dog, and pack for China. The total flight time is about 18 hours. I would take my laptop to watch a movie, but the battery would not last long and then I have an excuse to do work while on vacation (boo!). I expect to spend a few dollars on drinks during my layover in Detroit so I can prepare to sleep as much as possible, but who knows what will happen.
Comments
Ni Hao!
By Mike DalyNovember 11th, 2006
A lot has happened since my last update. Mainly, I went on a trip
to visit my big bro in Shanghai China. There is so much to write
about! So much that I don't really want to do that much writing.
I'll try to let the pictures do most of the talking and just write
about the most memorable parts.
The journey, part 1
I was supposed to fly from Detroit to Shanghai with a short stop in Tokyo. Some highlights of that trip:
New family
My new sister (in-law) Joka greeted me at the airport in Shanghai. Although I had met her before, it was before she and my brother got it on so I didn't get to know her very well at the time. However, I got to spend plenty of time with her in China and she is way cool. She hepled us get around and told us all sorts of interesting things about the country. She's a lot of fun and I wish we could hang out more. Thanks for everything!
The food
The food in China is fantastic! it is so delicious and very affordable. It helps that we had Joka helping us order everything. One of my favorite parts was that they always had fresh, delicious, organic fruit with their meals. I love fruit! Getting a plate of watermelon slices before a meal is awesome! There were so many delicious things that I can't list them all here. I tried many foods that are not common in the States such as cow tongue (tastes like steak), duck tongue (tastes like crap), chicken heart (like popcorn sized steak), intestines (I don't remember - I think I was drinking), and duck brain. Duck brain is a tasteless paste, it was disgusting.
I didn't see any stuff that you would see in Chinese restraunts in the states. It was all different. I especially liked dumplings. Especially these sesame dessert dumplings. Egg tarts are really good too. A common beer there is Tsing Tao - so good.
Transportation
Transportation around Shanghai was pretty awesome. It is very easy to get a Taxi, if you have a map, you can get anywhere pretty much without having to speak mandarin. Additionally, the city has many nice new subway lines. Using the machines to buy tickes is pretty easy, and it only costs the equivalent of 50 cents to use!
Early on I commented that we were in a relatively empty subway train when I said that there were more people sitting than standing. Wayne said that was a silly comment because there would always be more people sitting than standing. Ah, how naive. We had a fun experience in the subway when 3 subways worth of people had to crowd into one train. It was absurd, the thing was full to the brim of people squeezed up against each other. Nobody could move in any direction.
We took a 12 hour train ride to Beijing, which was way cool. It was the most comfortable night's sleep I had the whole time and was fun to stay up and watch the country side go by and hang out with Dave and Joka.
To top off our transportation experiences, Wayne and I took the maglev train back to the airport. It was only like 6 bucks each and got us there in 8 minutes. The train got up to a top speed of 180 miles an hour. Maglevs are awesome. I wish I could take one to work.
Beijing
We spent 3 days in Beijing, the capitol of China. It was a very cool place. There were also many opportunities to say my favorite Chinese phrase: 'Bu Yao!'. Some of the things we saw:
There were a lot of cool things in Shanghai as well:
On the way back Jody and I flew together. From Detroit to Raleigh, our plane was first delayed, then delayed again, then the boarded us and told us that there was no flight crew yet so we had to wait some more. Finally, they took the flight crew from another flight and got us home. The kicker is that our flight was scheduled to depart at 5 pm and the flight crew was not scheduled to be in detroit, so even if they had shown up (which they didn't), we would have been late. They scheduled our flight to be an hour late.
Well, that is all I'm going to say about it for now. It was a way cool experience. The best part was getting to hang out with Dave and Joka. I wish those guys would move back to Raleigh so we can have fun all the time.
The journey, part 1
I was supposed to fly from Detroit to Shanghai with a short stop in Tokyo. Some highlights of that trip:
- Due to bad weather in Tokyo, we had to land at a military base to refuel
- Had to sit in airplane for 18 hours
- Remaining leg of flight cancelled
- Stayed in hotel an hour from the airport and got assigned a roomate
- Waited in line for 12 hours next day (no kidding)
- Slept on Airport floor
- Took bus to other airport, then flew to other airport (new Kansai - very cool) and saw the Pokemon 747
- finally flew to Shanghai two days late
New family
My new sister (in-law) Joka greeted me at the airport in Shanghai. Although I had met her before, it was before she and my brother got it on so I didn't get to know her very well at the time. However, I got to spend plenty of time with her in China and she is way cool. She hepled us get around and told us all sorts of interesting things about the country. She's a lot of fun and I wish we could hang out more. Thanks for everything!
The food
The food in China is fantastic! it is so delicious and very affordable. It helps that we had Joka helping us order everything. One of my favorite parts was that they always had fresh, delicious, organic fruit with their meals. I love fruit! Getting a plate of watermelon slices before a meal is awesome! There were so many delicious things that I can't list them all here. I tried many foods that are not common in the States such as cow tongue (tastes like steak), duck tongue (tastes like crap), chicken heart (like popcorn sized steak), intestines (I don't remember - I think I was drinking), and duck brain. Duck brain is a tasteless paste, it was disgusting.
I didn't see any stuff that you would see in Chinese restraunts in the states. It was all different. I especially liked dumplings. Especially these sesame dessert dumplings. Egg tarts are really good too. A common beer there is Tsing Tao - so good.
Transportation
Transportation around Shanghai was pretty awesome. It is very easy to get a Taxi, if you have a map, you can get anywhere pretty much without having to speak mandarin. Additionally, the city has many nice new subway lines. Using the machines to buy tickes is pretty easy, and it only costs the equivalent of 50 cents to use!
Early on I commented that we were in a relatively empty subway train when I said that there were more people sitting than standing. Wayne said that was a silly comment because there would always be more people sitting than standing. Ah, how naive. We had a fun experience in the subway when 3 subways worth of people had to crowd into one train. It was absurd, the thing was full to the brim of people squeezed up against each other. Nobody could move in any direction.
We took a 12 hour train ride to Beijing, which was way cool. It was the most comfortable night's sleep I had the whole time and was fun to stay up and watch the country side go by and hang out with Dave and Joka.
To top off our transportation experiences, Wayne and I took the maglev train back to the airport. It was only like 6 bucks each and got us there in 8 minutes. The train got up to a top speed of 180 miles an hour. Maglevs are awesome. I wish I could take one to work.
Beijing
We spent 3 days in Beijing, the capitol of China. It was a very cool place. There were also many opportunities to say my favorite Chinese phrase: 'Bu Yao!'. Some of the things we saw:
- The Temple of Heaven - a huge circular pagoda in the center of a gigantic park
- The Forbidden City - an enourmous complex of ancient walls, courtyards, temples, and palaces. All built for one guy - the emperor
- The Summer Palace - as if a mini-city full of concubines wasn't enough for the emperor, he also got a mountain and lake full of gardens, sculptures, temples, theaters, bridges, and of course, more palaces
- The Great Wall - Probably doesn't need too much explaning. The interesting things here were that we took a bobsled back down the mountain when we were done, which was awesome, and when we visited a closed off section some locals tried to charge us and threatened us so we called the police. It was an interesting lesson in local culture and politics. I got a great picture of a guy getting pissed off and throwing his water bottle at me
There were a lot of cool things in Shanghai as well:
- Some really tall building - Wayne and I went up in it. We were high up. I forgot the name of it
- The Old Town - the ancient center of Shanghai. It had many old style buildings, a neat garden, the temple of the city god, a famous teahouse and tons of people to say 'Bu Yao' to
- People's Square - a large park in the heart of the city, it was pretty and had a cool city museum with a model of Shanghai that was larger than my house
- Go Karts - we went karting. Since there is no liability for the Kart place, the karts were extremely fast and we could play as rough as we wanted. There was much ramming and power sliding
- Acrobats - although they had some work to do on the artistic presentation side of things, there were some really amazing performances at the acrobat show
- The Fabric Market - a building packed with types of fabrics and tailors. Joka and I worked together to order a set of custom tailored matching Chinese style silk shirts
- Museum of Science and Technology - A museum with all sorts of interesting stuff. An exhibit on Hydrogen power, dancing robots, and a human versus robot archery contest. The robot beat Wayne, but was too scared to go up against me
- Skyscrapers - they go on as far as you can see for as far as you can travel in any direction
On the way back Jody and I flew together. From Detroit to Raleigh, our plane was first delayed, then delayed again, then the boarded us and told us that there was no flight crew yet so we had to wait some more. Finally, they took the flight crew from another flight and got us home. The kicker is that our flight was scheduled to depart at 5 pm and the flight crew was not scheduled to be in detroit, so even if they had shown up (which they didn't), we would have been late. They scheduled our flight to be an hour late.
Well, that is all I'm going to say about it for now. It was a way cool experience. The best part was getting to hang out with Dave and Joka. I wish those guys would move back to Raleigh so we can have fun all the time.
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The Holidays
ByDecember 16th, 2006
The Holidays are here again, and boy they sure did sneak up on me
this year. I can't say that I'm terribly excited about them this go
round, and I won't go into why, but aside from helping my grandma
put up her pre-lit Christmas tree - the lights were my favorite
part :( - the Christmas Dueling Monkey's menu is all the decorating
I've done. Today (the 16th) was the first time I've been out to do
any shopping, and it was, as expected, crappy.
On the bright side, we do get a couple of days off from work, which is always nice. Except that I have a lot to get done before the end of the year (I'm waiting on stuff to download, otherwise I wouldn't be doing this update) and that is why I'm working at 1:30 AM on a Sunday morning.
This has been a very short udpate, and most of it was me whining about the holidays not being so fun this time, so for that I apologize, but now sleep deprivation is setting in and I must call it a night.
On the bright side, we do get a couple of days off from work, which is always nice. Except that I have a lot to get done before the end of the year (I'm waiting on stuff to download, otherwise I wouldn't be doing this update) and that is why I'm working at 1:30 AM on a Sunday morning.
This has been a very short udpate, and most of it was me whining about the holidays not being so fun this time, so for that I apologize, but now sleep deprivation is setting in and I must call it a night.
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