That was incredible... and guest.

I find it really difficult to blog about movies, books, and tv shows, because I always worry that I'm going to spoil stuff for people who read these blogs. Usually, this isn't much of a problem because I purposely try my very best to live well behind the times. In my opinion, it's a good strategy. Be it movies, games, technology, books, etc, I try to read/view/enjoy long after everyone else is done with them because it saves me money. But since I haven't seen them yet, it's new to me. I can enjoy every bit of everything my friends have already enjoyed at a fraction of the cost. Of course, there are some obvious downsides such as the time I went to a video rental store with a friend and we tried to pick out a movie. The big problem was that he had seen just about everything in the store already. I had seen less than 10% of that. I could basically walk up and grab anything I thoguht was interesting and just rent it. The problem was that each time I picked something up, he said he had already seen it.

The thing is, I occasionally do see something new for some reason or other. That's when I worry that I'll blab about something I shouldn't have. In this case though, the vast majority of people I know have seen The Incredibles already. I guess the only reason I worry is because I wouldn't normally see it for maybe another year or so.

So for the rest of this post, note that there will be spoilers, so read at your own risk.

I really felt Pixar and Disney did a great job once again. Although the animation was great and the plot was neat, I have to say I was really imperssed by all the characters and how true-to-life some of them were. Granted, Elastigirl did become a very sterotypical mom, and Mr. Incredible did become the sterotypical middle class father, I really liked the kids. I'm certain that I've been in a situation where if the given object of my affection turned to look at me, I'd quickly look away so as not to creep her out. Imagine if I could just turn invisible instead. Or when I knew that I was the best at something but it was because I had some sort of unfair advantage (note: this doesn't happen often), I hated to have to hold back and not try.

What I really have to commend them for is showing that the characters didn't just defeat evil because they had powers. They actually used their powers creatively! I mean the power boat that wasn't really a power boat was a great idea. Admittedly, it was something that most people would have thought of, but in many other shows, the main characters fail to make creative use of their powers. For example, take the Generation One Transformers. Skywarp could teleport. Unfreakingbelievable. Did he use this power to his advantage? Sort of. Not really. If I were Skywarp, I'd teleport into autobot headquarters, blast away, and teleport out. I'm sure there are more creative uses that I can't imagine at the moment, but they definitely did not make full use of their abilities.

My favorite character has definitely got to be Frozone. He was so hilarious. The opening interview with him was great, and the scene where he "just needs his drink of water" was awesome too. It's too bad they didn't have more of him, but I guess he must have spent most of the movie being told how lucky he was to be with his wife... by his wife. My favorite line (other than the one being referred to by the title of this post) was definitely "I'm your wife! I'm the greatest good you're ever gonna get!".

If you haven't seen this movie, I highly recommend it. If you're an evil bad guy and you haven't seen this movie, you probably should or you might run the risk of monologuing. After all, they're super heroes... what could happen?

Go Go Igo!

It's amazing what anime can do to a person. Until I watched Initial D, I drove my car from point A to point B. In fact, I still do except that the difference is that now I live in the GTA, everyone drives faster and more aggressively. As a result, I often feel the urge to push my civic more than I would in a small town. Admittedly, I do that out of necessity, but who knows how much longer it would have taken me to start doing as the Romans if I hadn't seen the show?

Similarly, I get the same feeling when I watch the anime that has recently taken over my after-work life: Hikaru No Go. Admittedly, I probably don't have the patience to play Go anymore, but just watching this show makes me want to know enough of the strategy to see why the moves made in the show are as significant as they are.

Go is a reasonably popular board game in Japan. I first learned to play way back when I was very young, but I was terrible. I didn't even play my first game until years later (possibly junior high or high school). And to nobody's surprise, I was slaughtered. The rules are simple, but the strategy and skill required to play at a reasonable level is higher than many games I've played.

People often ask me what the show is about. I usually say "It's about a guy named Hikaru who plays Go". Really, it's more than that. It's also about all the people around Hikaru. Each one has his or own story that keeps me intrigued. Each of them have their own goals and ambitions and I feel that's what really adds so much to the story.

Without further ado, I had best be getting back to watching the show.

Wasn't it supposed to be the final one?

Gotta love pessimism. If I recall correctly, Squaresoft was on the verge of going out of business in the mid to late 1980's, so they assumed that the RPG they were working on was going to be their last. As a result, they cleverly named it Final Fantasy. And wouldn't you know it? The game sold better than hotcakes. Maybe it was the catchy title? I certainly can attest that any pessimism so far on my part has not resulted in my having made millions of dollars.

Oh well, at least I got to play this great classic. In fact, I seem to replay this classic on a regular basis for some odd reason. I have probably played through the original Final Fantasy game 5-10 times, the playstation remake once, and now I've just started the Gameboy Advance remake entitled Dawn of Souls. That means by the time I finish Dawn of Souls, I'll have finished this game anywhere from 7-12 times. Seeing as I didn't own a Nintendo (or any other console that this game was made for) until the age of 10 and as I am 24 at the time of this writing, that's a 14 year window that I've been playing and replaying this game in. On average, I've played this game anywhere between once every year to once every two years. That's pretty scary.

Admittedly, it's not that long of a game, but the graphics are far from spectacular, ditto for the music, plus with the mindless level ups required as per the unwritten rules of console RPG-making seemingly state, I don't logically understand the appeal. Yet I might be on my 12th time through.

At least I have an excuse this time. A friend of mine is playing this for the first time, so I figured I play as well (that whole peer pressure thing works wonders I tell you). Also, there have been some really neat changes from the previous versions to this version. One of the most important changes is the magic system. For those who may be unaware, you used to have a maximum of 8 spell points for each of the 8 levels of magic. Every spell cost a spell point from its own level, and points could not be converted from one level to another. Now you have MP and each spell costs a different amount of MP. There are still 8 levels of spells, but magic levels are now unlocked at specific experience levels. Another huge change is that there are new dungeons to explore and new items to find. In my opinion, it's worth playing again. It's like the time I played Link's Awakening on Gameboy, only to replay its reincarnation Link's Awakening DX not too long after just because it had a new dungeon.

I guess another big reason I play this game again and again is to try out different parties. Between fighter (now warrior), thief, black belt (now monk), red mage, white mage, and black mage, there are plenty of combinations to try.

This time, I decided to try a party of four white mages. I'm starting to regret that decision. I never thought a game could be this tedious. After I got the boat, I found the natural offense and defense of the white mage was just awful. At least with every other class, the fights were over quickly. Admittedly, I can cast ruse (now blink) on my characters a few times to make them all but invincible to physical attacks, but actually beating the enemies was like breaking down a brick wall with a chisel. The Astos fight was ridiculous. He couldn't hurt me at all, while I couldn't do more than 10 damage per round or so to him with each character (though I usually did 1 damage). And he's got over 400 HP...

And by the way, I also hear they made the thief significantly better so I guess I'll be playing through yet another time...

Mr. Tsunami

Mr. Tsunami
Originally uploaded by alifromca.

To many, December 31st is simply the day before the new year, the time to reflect on what you've done the over the last while, and the last chance to finalize resolutions for the 1st of January. As for me, I see Decemeber 31st for what it truly is; it's the last possible day for me to spend my annual $50 company team lunch budget or lose it.

This year, we went to the Keg. Since I had not used a penny of my budget all year, I sincerely doubted I could have spent the entirety at a decently-priced establishment. I browsed the menu and found that it had only one page to it. I was greatly disturbed by this lack of variety, but I looked over my limited options anyway.

The descriptions for the items did not include the quantity, and I think I ended up asking the waitress how large each steak was. I tried my best to do some quick price-performance calculations in my head. At this point, the waitress pointed out that we had the option to buy the large-sized version of each steak. I have to say, I really get annoyed by places that don't list everything they serve... especially when their menu is only 1 page long. Would it really kill them to tell us the following in each entry?
1) Name of item
2) Description of item
3) Portion size(s) of item
4) Price(s) of item

I get similarly annoyed with real estates advertisements that leave out key information as well, but that's another story. Finally, after the waitress had finished listing all the information I sought, she decided to let us know that the special of the day was an 8-ounce pepper steak with a side for $16. The sad part was that this may very well have been the best deal they were offering (though I can't guarantee that because I was not able to remember the price-performance values of each and every steak previously listed for each size).

I thought quickly and carefully about the situation and decided that an 8-ounce steak was not going to cut it, so I took the only sensible course of action: I ordered two.

If you look carefully at the photo that should accompany this article, you might be able to see that there are two small steaks on my plate rather than one moderately-sized steak.

At this point, all my dinner companions decided my order gave them the license to poke fun at me all lunch long. The most popular names and comments included (in no particular order):
1) The waitress asked if I would like two desserts.
2) A teammate suggested that maybe the waitress should give me two knives.
3) Someone called me Mr. Tsunami because it was theorized that I had jumped into the ocean and caused the tsunami.
4) You know how most restaurants give out candy with the bill? The Candy to Customer ratio was greater than 1:1. I doubt it was a coincedence.

The waitress came back and told us that she was just kidding about the two dessert joke, two 8-ounce steaks only added up to a mere 16 ounces, and customers frequently ordered steaks of that size or greater. When she left, one of my friends stated that the only reason she said that was for business reasons. If she really thought that it wasn't a big deal, she wouldn't have said anything.

Oh well, the good news is that the food was not bad and someone actually brought something to take pictures with. After seeing the pictures, I think we all agreed that the two orders on the same plate just didn't do the order justice. Next time, we'll try something else. Now as far as the tsunami jokes go, all I can say is "When you're this big, they call you Mister."

Post Holiday Stress Disorder

I think George Carlin was right when he decided that "Shell Shock" was a more efficient term than "Post Tramatic Stress Disorder". But regardless of what you call it, I find it a challenge to go back to a routine involving working after having just taken a vacation from it. I mean given the option between:
1) Doing absolutely nothing all day for several days and getting paid for it and
2) Working all those days for 7+ hours per day for the same money,
which option would you pick?
<sarcasm> Ooh, ooh, pick option 2, pick option 2! </sarcasm>
If I ever find whoever it was that came up with the idea of paid vacation, I'm taking him or her out for ice cream.

The worst part about returning to your routine is that it often involves struggling in an activity that has been neglected for the entire duration of the vacation. In my case, it's badminton. I played for the first time in roughly two weeks today.
<understatement> Boy, was I rusty. </understatement>
In fact:
1) I was running out of breath very quickly
2) I made it to the shuttle on an even lower frequency than I'm used to
3) My accuracy when attempting to place the shuttle was worse than Shaq at the free throw line (no offense Shaq, you're still my favorite centre in the league... when you dominate the paint and win a bunch of games, who cares if you can't hit all your free throws?)
4) The power on my smash was lower than usual
5) The water fountain had a lower than usual perceived output level

Admittedly, I lose practice in everything faster than pretty much anyone I know. I tried to play Star Fox for the Super Nintendo recently. When I was younger, I would be ashamed if I didn't get a score over 90% for just about every level in the game... 95% for the easier levels. Now, I'm happy just to get through the levels. I think my average score was between 60% and 75%, with the highest being between 80% and 90% on the easiest level in the game. It's certainly not like riding a bike (which I haven't done in over 5 years and am not completely confident in doing either).

They say when you take vacation time from work you have to work really hard before the vacation so that you can leave at all and you have to work hard when you get back. I'm not sure who "they" are, but they're right - especially if you work for a company that has monthly business cycles and you return right around the busiest portion of the cycle. But I guess it could be worse. There could be no hockey this season... oh wait. I've also noted that after the Christmas / New Year's holidays, there aren't any civic holidays for a while. Maybe it's time to move to Europe...

WPT

Community: K 10 9 8 2 (No more than 2 cards are the same suit)
Me: 7 3 suited
Victim... er, friend: 6 5 suited
Pot Size: Both all in (both hoping for the straight and/or flush I guess)

Wow. That was fun. Too bad the next three or four hands in a row involved me getting stuff like 2 7 not suited, but it was fun to win an all in on what was so close to being a split pot. It's been a few months now that the world poker tour has been the big lunchtime talk at work. There was a while that the noon hour card players were playing "screw your neighbor", and whenever we got to the 2 card round, you'd hear a chorus of either "fold", "check", or "all in".

I mean they even have official WPT kits that include chips, cards, and a handy carrying case. It even has a special chip marked "Dealer" so you know who the dealer is. Unless you have more money than you can possibly spend, I can't justify buying this kit. The chips and cards can be bought inexpensively just about anywhere, so as long as you can deal with your cards not having the words "World Poker Tour" on the back, you'll save a heck of a lot of money. The carry case is not exactly exciting, and I'm sure there are many other ways to keep track of who the dealer is without requiring one person to hold on to the "Dealer" chip.

It's definitely an interesting show to watch on Sunday afternoons, but I find I can only watch for so long before apathy kicks in. The most infuriating part is watching someone completely fool his/her opponent into commiting a lot of chips with a weak hand, then losing to the sucker because of sheer fluke. I saw one hand that came out like:
Community: 2 8 8 J
Player 1: A A
Player 2: 4 4

P1 suckers P2 into going all in, and the river is a 4. The worst part is that one of the other players had a 4 and nobody else had an ace. P2 had less than a 5% chance of winning and got insanely lucky. I felt bad for P1 because he lost shortly after, but felt a sense of vindication when P2 got knocked out next. But then again, I guess if you had a sure thing, it wouldn't be called gambling.

So far, the only problem I have with 1 on 1 is that if you have a great hand and your opponent has crap, you often can't take advantage of it. Goading the opponent into commiting more chips only works if they have a good hand and you have an even better hand and you play it just right. When they have crap and they fold at any sign of you not also having crap, it's tough. When you have lots of opponents and you get a great hand, there's a better chance that at least one of them will play you. Also, when you have lots of opponents, you get to fold for free a bunch of times. In 1 on 1, you're either the small blind or the big blind, so you're out chips every hand unless you win the pot.

All in all, I'm not much of a poker player. I think I ended up going bankrupt 4 times to my opponent's 2. I find the game fun to play in moderation, but strangely entertaining on television. Maybe I'll just watch the pros and see what happens.