Monthly Archives: December 2004

Today I went to the city with Chris and his parents to see Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway (their treat – THANK YOU!). I was really pleasantly surprised. I mean, Broadway shows are usually (go with me on this one) decent, but this one was really, really, good. In fact, it’s right up there in my favorite two Broadway shows that I’ve seen (the other one being Jekyll and Hyde).

I was even more pleasantly surprised to discover that Alfred Molina (Doc Ock in Spidey 2) was playing the lead role (he did a wonderful job, btw [whoda thunk he could sing?]). Ironically, this is the second Spidey actor I’ve seen in a theatrical performance, the first being Rosemary Harris (Aunt May), who I saw starring in a production in Princeton, NJ in 2002. I’m thinking I’m seeing a trend here, so when the next movie comes out I’d best be seeing Tobey Maguire playing Peter Pan or something :)

I got several low-quality pictures of the trip (mostly Times Square) in my moblog, including one slight act of civil disobediance (no photography of any sort in the theater).

We ate at a pretty good place in Times Square called Playwrights which had really good food (well, the chicken sandwich [which doesn’t appear on the menu in the presious link] and cake I had were really good, anyway) for cheap (relative to Manhattan) prices. If you’re ever in the neighborhood I’d recommend it over any of the “big-name” restaurants in the area.

I also had the interesting experience of riding a ferry for the first time in 13 years. With how much the ferry costs these days, I’m surprised anyone still uses the damn things, especially to commute. I mean sure, boats’r nice, but it’s like a tourist trap set up specifically for NJ natives (most of whom can’t rightly be called tourists to NYC). Use the PATH, people, and save your hard-earned(?) monies (in our case, with four people, it would have been ~$30 cheaper).

For Christmas, I got everything I asked for. Of course, this is hardly surprising because my dad likes to make shopping easy for himself by giving me a pile of money beforehand and letting me buy my own damn gifts, but I think it works out well for both of us :)

Mostly, I got games (Metroid Prime 2, Final Fantasy: Dawn of Souls, Forgotten Realms: Demonstone, Tron 2.0, and Doom 3), but I also got a kick-ass video card (how else do you expect me to play Doom 3?), Spider-man 2, and Shaun of the Dead. To my surprise, I got some other nifty swag for pre-ordering^* two of my games – a pewter Doom 3 demon figurine, and a Metroid Prime shirt (which is too large to be comfortable, but that comes with the territory when it comes to free geek swag). This has convinced me that I should pre-order more games, even if I’m only debating getting them, just to get more limited edition swag (hush, I don’t care if that’s their master plan – it’s swag man, swag!).

From my NJian friends I got penguins, Nintendo DS gear, some CDs I’ve been wanting, a geeky tshirt, and gum. On a mild tangent, after applying said Nintendo DS gear to my Nintendo DS, I have resigned myself to the fact that I’m not going to bother trading in my DS for a new one- I hardly ever even notice the dead pixels when I’m playing a game, so can’t justify the hassle. (Is anyone really surprised? My tenacity for slack is well known.)

Since I only brought the PS2 back with me this holiday (trying to be reasonable with limited car space and such), I’ve only gotten a chance to play Demonstone and Final Fantasy 1 so far. Demonstone has been fun, especially level 7 wherein you get to play as Drizzt (I’ve played that level more times than is probably healthy), and though I’m only ~4 hours into Final Fantasy, that game looks like it will be really enjoyable. I’m really impressed at the quiality of the remake, after only being really familiar with the NES version, having skipped previous incarnations of the remake. I’m a bit curious as to the truthfullness of the translation, however… I mean, c’mon, “Jolt tonic“? (Even better worse, you use it to wake an elf from a sleeping curse)

Other than that, my vacation so far has been pretty low-key. I brought just one of the books Chris got me back with me, figuring that since I usually don’t get a chance to read as much as I would like here (typically not even making it through one normal-sized book) that this would be more than sufficient. Of course this practically guaranteed that the one book I brought would not be enough (whether this is because I had more down time or that the book is simply much more interesting than the normal stuff I bring [or some combination of the above] is irrelevant) – I finished it yesterday, and am really wishing that I brought the other one “just to be safe”. Of course, if I had brought it you know that I wouldn’t have finished the first book, but now I’m just rambling, so I’ll stop this paragraph here.

I did play with my tripod a bit, trying to take cool artsy pics of the tree and stuff like Beth did during fake xmas, but I have no way to get them off my memory card at the moment. If they aren’t crap so much, I’ll post them after I go home at some point.

I don’t really have too many plans for the rest of the year, save Thursday I’m going to the city with Chris and his folks to catch a show and Friday I’m doing the New Year’s Eve thing at Peter‘s place. I would say that I’ll try to be better about posting more often, but that would probably be a lie so if you were smart and I should happen to say such a thing you’d take it with a grain of salt.

^* Apparently ordering Doom 3 two months after it comes out (conveniently after the linux binaries became available) constitutes a pre-order.

I am Queen of Slack. Or, at the very least, procrastination.

I finally wrote out my Xmas cards last night. There are not as many as I would like as I don’t have the address for at least three of the people I wanted to send them to, and as I am so good at procrastination I no longer had any time to track down addresses. Oh well, next year I guess.

Also, I think one of the people may have moved since I last had a valid address of theirs, but I’m kinda hoping there will still be a forwarding address in place.

And then…. we had no stamps. I conned nicely asked Chris to buy stamps and mail them today though, so if all goes well and mail gets delievered on the 24th some people may get them by Christmas.

It was so cold this morning that my hair froze.

I suppose that’s what I get for never bothering to dry my hair manually after getting out of the shower. :)

At least it’s a bit warmer now… -16° C.

I got:

• An iTrip mini from Beth and ctl
• Two more R.A. Salvotore anthologies from Chris
• The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists from Beth and ctl
• A tripod (and carrying case) from Chris
• Model dinosaurs, a candle, and twinkie-flavored lip gloss from Beth
• Superman And Other Cartoon Treasures from ctl
• Tickets to the Final Fantsy Symphony and a picture of an old motherboard I have not yet received from Chris

Also, Chris seems to really like the MP3 player (512 MB version) that Beth, Bobby, and I got him :)

Next: Turkey!

We loveses fakes xmas, hobbits!

As is typical, the turkey ($55/free range-organic) has not yet been put in the oven, nor is anyone else awake. Qué séra, séra; I’m not going to be the one complaining when we end up eating at 2 AM (again).

Elsa: Sorry you couldn’t make it this year!

Bobby: This is for you.

You may or may not have noticed, but my picture script finally has (what I hope is) a better name: UNG (UNG’s Not Gallery). Not that I have anything against Gallery, it’s just not for everyone. Neither is my script of course, but it may suit some subset of the people who don’t like Gallery, for whatever reason.

As soon as I get a few free minutes, I should go about submitting it to Freshmeat… (now that I don’t have any more excuses…)

Yeah, I think that’s the last course I’m gonna be taking for a while…..

Hopefully I get an extra point or two for the dribble I wrote in the margins, such as:

‘:(‘ =~ s/\(/)/g;

(which would more usefully[/verbosely] be written as the following, for those that do not know perl)

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

print "Turn that frown upside-down!\n";
my $face=":(";
print "$face\n";
$face =~ s/\(/)/g;
print "$face\n";

Or, more succinctly:

tekniklr@minips1:~ $ perl -e 'print "Turn that frown upside-down!\n"; $face=":("; print "$face\n"; $face =~ s/\(/)/g; print "$face\n";'
Turn that frown upside-down!
:(
:)

Lé sigh.

Hrmm… I should really get that first one (‘:(‘ =~ s/\(/)/g;) printed on a t-shirt…

Yes, I know I should really blog more, but does it help if I let everyone know I’m not dead yet? Okay.

To appease my own sense of guilt for not posting often enough, I’ll try to briefly talk about what’s been going on in Ithacaland. Y’know it’s ‘brief’, ‘cuz it’s in list format:

• We got new furniture at work. Now there are nine desks, where once there were three. It’s really not as crowded as it sounds- the room actually looks nicer, IMHO. Since the furniture selling people are incompetant, we got to get a day (mostly) off from work. I didn’t see anyone complaining.
• I’ve taken ‘SpaceOn’ up on his suggestion, and have obtained all of Black Books. I’m about halfway through, and am really quite enjoying it, though I still think that Spaced is a better show.
• I have an exam tomorrow, which, unless a miracle occurs between now and then, I will most likely fail. I took a personal day off from work today in an effort to study, but at best I’ve only completed two chapters and at worst even reviewing these chapters will not help me. Also, I’m still not quite sure when exactly the exam is, let alone where. There will be a study session soon, which will hopefully help.
• Beth unintentionally spilled the beans regarding one of Chris’ xmas presents for me. I think I’m posting this simply to say “Nyaah!” to anyone who cares and still reads this blog. Since that is the same week(end) as LinuxWorld, that bodes for a lot of driving in a very small amount of time.
• I am nearly done with my xmas shopping, which I completed entirely online. As long as one specific gift arrives before fake xmas on Saturday, and the remainder of them arrive before I leave next week; I’ll be all set.
• The snow seems to have arrived, and not a moment too soon, IMHO. Ithaca should have a white xmas, at the very least.
• I had Thai food for the first time ever yesterday, and it didn’t kill me. I didn’t hate it, either.
• I’ve been thinking about taking up walking the 2.2. miles to work daily, at least partially to achieve the illusion of getting some exercise. I’ve walked it twice this week already, though that was as much because I missed the bus as anything else.
• I’ve read more in the past week and a half than I think Chris has in the past year.
• Before today, I had nearly no cellphone receoption in my apartment. Today, I suddenly noticed I had full reception. Yay for new cellphone towers being turned on!