Tony and Yuki's wedding

The in-laws and my mom came down to visit this weekend for Tony and Yuki's wedding. It was a great wedding and trilingual! The best man, Frank, gave his speech in 3 languages -> english, mandarin, and japanese. I thought that was pretty cool. I wish I could speak all three of those languages.

Hooked on Far Cry 2

The good:

• A true next-gen gaming experience. The Dunia game engine = very nice eye candy. I really like the LOD, lighting effects, water effects and reflections, destruction of vegetation/environments, and the non scripted movement of african wildlifel.
• FC2 is more forgiving on your hardware than Crysis. I am running the game at 1920x1200 with "very high" settings and getting 30-40fps.
  
• Nonlinear, open world, sandbox ...but you always have a GPS so you're never aimlessly running around.
• Non scripted enemy AI but...(see bad below)
  
• Weapons have a solid feel and recoil as you would expect. I -love- sniping!
• Weapons jam - especially the ones you pick up left over from the enemy AI. it can be an annoyance but it's a plus to me since it makes the game more challenging. You never know when you're gonna be in a really tough spot!

The bad:

• AI can be outright dumb.
• After you clear out an enemy guard post and leave for like 10 min and come back, the same post respawns baddies again. wtf?
• Enemy can take massive hits in the chest and still be limping - they must be superhuman.
• Buddy missions don't offer that much incentive for completion.
  
• A LOT of driving and/or boating. Going from mission to mission can be repetitive and tedious.
• The requirement for regularly getting meds to treat your malaria is lame and adds nothing to further your character or the game IMO.
• Night and day cycle is cool but night time graphics aren't as rich. Enemy AI does not seem to react less at night either.
  

I know I have more bads than goods but overall the strength of the good outweighs the bad for me. I'm hooked!

Company year end shutdown and travel restriction

My company just recently mandated a week long shutdown between X-mas and new years.

It's obvious that these are cost-cutting moves but this is the first time in my 8 years here that we've had a mandatory shutdown and what is also interesting to me is the relatively short notice. So this tells me,

1) Our executives are trying really hard to cut costs in order to save jobs.

or

2) Our executives are really unsure of how deep this recession is or how long this recession will last and we are really in a desperate situation before a broad-based layoff.

Company travel has also been heavily restricted. Because of the travel restriction, I won't be flying up to the bay area for a (long?) while. The ban on travel is not all bad. In fact, in many ways it's a good thing. More green and it forces us to "eat our own dog food." Not that we don't already as it is but it forces us to accelerate adoption of our "virtual" and "collaborative" technology even more so that we can later brag about the cost savings to our customers -> they then "oooo" and "aahhh" and in turn buy more of our gear resulting in our stock price soaring to unprecedented levels -> I can then retire early and the Mrs. and I ride off into the sunset. Umm...yah.

Star Trek 11 ("Star Trek 0") trailer

We also got to check out the exclusive Star Trek 11 trailer shown right before Quantum of Solace (and it was in crisp DLP!) I guess some guy bootlegged this one as it is not on the movie sites just yet. There are a number of familiar faces that are going to be in this movie!

- Syler - I mean, Zachary Quinto, is going to be playing a good guy now .. Spock!
- Simon Pegg as Scotty !
- John Cho as Sulu !
- Karl Urban as 'Bones' McCoy !
- Wynona Ryder as Amanda Grayson.
- Jennifer Morrison as Kirk's mom.
- Eric Bana as 'Nero' (bad guy)
- Leonard Nimoy as Old Spock.

This new Star Trek reboot looks wicked cool. I love the sense of urgency in the trailer's music. This one might get a midnight showing from me next May. I really enjoyed J.J. Abrams work on Cloverfield and MI: 3 so here's hoping the Star Trek franchise get some redemption from the mediocre 'Next Generation' films.


update 11/17/08: New trailer in HD is released here Ahhh ... it is much better in HD.

Quantum of Solace

Just came back from it. I think a person's reaction to Quantum of Solace will have a lot to do with how he/she felt about Paul Greengrass' Bourne movies. I personally loved Supremacy and Ultimatum. Quantum is not as emotionally resonant however. I think Rotten Tomatoes is spot on for this one.

We saw it at our local Krikorian in Redlands. I even called the theater yesterday to find out which showings had were on the big screen. "Theater #11." Cool. It turns out their theater #11 also has the Christie 2K DLP projector. So we were able to watch 007 in the biggest theater room in the house as well as in digital. It was nice. As I've mentioned in a previous post, I love DLP in commercial theaters. It makes going to the movies fun again.

Fallout 3

Lately I have been pretty immersed in Fallout 3. I have never been a fan of RPG type games but there are a number of standout elements of this game that sucked me in and have managed to keep me playing. First, the graphics are just flat out amazing. I love the bleak visuals and the attention to detail. The world is huge and because the visuals are so gorgeous, it makes exploration actually fun. There are some moments that are truly epic and you just want to stand there and soak in the landscape. I've always had a prejudice against RPG type games because I've always felt the exploration part required way too much time and going through the menu systems seemed like such a chore. While the exploration does take longer than a linear first person shooter, there is a good compass "GPS" device that works well and the menu system is actually fairly straightforward. The storyline is interesting and has that "choose your own adventure" piece in which the choices you make affect the future outcome of your character. What has been kind of overwhelming for me is when you gain experience points and you have the options to enhance specific skills of your character. I have a hard time knowing what I should choose so I often just guess. There probably is no right or wrong though. What really made me give this game a try is the fact that you can play Fallout 3 like a first person shooter. You can toggle between first person or third person view.

I would not be surprised if Fallout 3 reaches that "2008 Game of the Year" status. It really is one of those special games to experience if you're a PC gaming fan (or console fan). I wouldn't go as far to say that am I now an RPG convert but I am very glad I got into this game and that my perceptions around RPGs are now very different.

"Star Wars" - an a capella tribute to John Williams

This is awesome. I was grinning ear to ear.

John Williams is indeed the man but so is this guy.

Obama

While watching Obama's victory speech last night, I thought to myself "Will Obama Girl be invited to the inaugural address?"

But seriously, I also thought about JFK's 1961 inauguration speech, the turbulent times back then, and the current tough times today. And although I was not even born yet, I wondered what it must have felt like for Americans at the time. And last night, you could see all that renewed hope in the faces of so many Obama supporters. Myself included. Yes, you can agree or disagree with Obama, JFK parallels - real or media hype? but if the "inspirational rhetoric"works as intended, then I don't see that as necessarily a bad thing. It was refreshing to hear Obama come out straight in level setting expectations, "There will be setbacks and false starts .. government can't solve every problem but I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face.." Just thinking of Obama himself reminded of one of my favorite scenes from Oliver Stone's film "Nixon,"

Nixon: Do you miss Cuba, Manolo?
Manolo Sanchez: Yes, Mr. President.
Nixon: We let you down, didn't we? Your people.
Manolo Sanchez: That was Mr. Kennedy, sir.
Nixon: You don't think he was a hero?
Manolo Sanchez: [shrugs] He was a politician.
Nixon: Did you cry when he died?
Manolo Sanchez: Yes.
Nixon: Why?
Manolo Sanchez: I don't know. He made me... see the stars.
Nixon: [deep in thought] How did he do that?

Dell UltraSharp 2408WFP in da house!

I've been in the market for a Dell 24" Ultrasharp widescreen and I've been tracking pricing on the Dell for quite a long time now. They've been stubbornly in the upper $600 range for what seems like an eternity and that was just way too costly. When the price finally dropped to the lower $500 range, I started to get on the fence.

Me: "Hmmm. The NEC (my 8+ year old 20" CRT) takes up so much desk space. I am not maximizing my new PC! But man, it's $500 ! "

So I decided to seek counsel from some friends. Let's call Friend #1 the Angel-on-the left-shoulder and Friend #2 the Devil-on-the-right shoulder :-)

Friend #1: "your stocks are down, and you guys want a new house......"

-and-

Friend #2: "you just upgraded your computer, right?
Friend #2: you're in need for a monitor upgrade."
.
.
Friend #2: "i do think that you are doing yourself a disservice by upgrading your box and not a display.
Friend #2: you aren't realizing your full potential!"

Could not argue with either. At the end of the day, the Devil prevailed. Darn you Friend #2 ! :-)

What I like about the 2408WFP
- Desktop space recovery. My arms can now rest on the desk. My wrists are saved.
- Matted screen. If the Ultrasharp had a glossy, reflective screen it would have been a deal breaker. It does not bother me that plasma can have some glare but reflective LCDs bother the heck out of me.
- Bright. Much brighter than my CRT and uniform.
- Colors are vivid from the S-PVA panel. But right out of the box, the colors are way oversaturated. I'll use my colorimeter later on to see if I can correct the colors without killing the brightness too much. I never owned an IPS panel so I'm not sure if they are that much better but I think the added premium of a S-PVA over a TN panel is worth it for me.
- 1920x1200 native resolution with gaming is absolutely stunning. Fallout 3 (above) on the PC is simply breathtaking.
- Sharpness. Much sharper than my CRT. Makes a huge difference on games.
- Viewing angle much better than I expected.
- Build quality. I am anal about this. For whatever reason, I think the triangular base is darn cool.
- Built in USB and flash card reader.
- No input lag detected so far. I have the A01 version which supposedly fixed this known issue.