Thanksgiving Summary

Finally back in town, and had a great Thanksgiving. Here’s the lowdown:

• The travel thing wasn’t too bad. I was surprised how few people were at the airport, and suspect that the outrageous airfares had something to do with it. Barely any traffic on the roads as well.
• Turkey this year was awesome. Free range bird + day of marinating + cheesecloth covering + butter and sauce basting every 30 minutes = juicy and delicious. We somehow ended up with three pies that needed eating, yum.
• Not that many people were out on Black Friday. I got some clothes and grabbed some old PS2 games: Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, NBA Live 2k5, and Soul Caliber 2.
  • The NBA game did not live up to expectations. Graphics were not nearly as good as I anticipated, although the voice work was excellent. Gave up after my brother and I got owned as the Houston Rockets against the Atlanta Hawks on Rookie setting. Although I enjoyed throwing it down as Yao Ming (and like a billion blocks, mwahahaha), any game that has Tony Delk exploding for over 30 points is not realistic. What the heck does the triangle button do on offense? It was supposed to be some super move, but all it ever did was cause your player to turn the ball over. The pain was eased by the fact that this game was free.
  • Star Ocean seemed ok, but it was falsely advertised as a 1-2 player game. I was really hoping for beautified Tales of Destiny-type game, but the only part of Star Ocean that is 2-player is this unlockable arena. Battle system was too hard to really get into in just a few days. I was tickled that the main character learned to fight by playing video games all the time.
  • Soul Caliber 2 was by far the best of the games purchased. I’d never played SC before, but I did play a lot of Tekken Tag Tournament, and I was pleased to find that they were somewhat similar. Discovered that Maxi was the SC equivalent of Eddie Gordo. I ended up practicing with Talim, since her style was the most similar to Ling Xiaoyu in TTT. At first I had some trouble against long-range opponents, but I still got pretty far in the strangely enjoyable Weapon Master Mode. Unlocked Talim’s Kaleido Star costume, woot.
  • Played some more Final Fantasy X-2. Haha, that game is so silly. Laid the smackdown on Shinra in Sphere Break. Fear my math skillz, n00b!
• Played some basketball against my brother. He’s close to my height now, but he plays defense like a matador. The jumper felt good, but the basketball was mad worn.
• Went to the driving range. Haven’t hit a golf ball in years, but did alright with the irons. I was too scared to use the drivers, after an incident 3 years ago when I sent the head flying off of the shaft. At some point my dad got really good at driving, because he was hitting some really nice straight shots a very far distance. He was even headshotting trees that he aimed at. I think he must be using some kind of golf hack.
• Missed Grey’s Anatomy. This was the saddest part of the trip. I’m going to have to find the torrent or something now, since Bunky says it was a really good episode. I realized I loved this show when they accidentally set a woman’s heart on fire during surgery. That was hella sweet (don’t worry, she lived through it).
• Had quail for the first time. It sorta tasted like duck.

Older 2003 Original Art

I suppose this was an especially important milestone, back in February 2003:

Got a WACOM tablet and I really like it! It was kinda hard to use at first, but now I love it! Didn’t really plan out this pic too much, since I just needed an idea to test out the gidget. I really like how you can have a separate layer now just for some light blue sketch lines and trace the outline on another layer without worrying about clean up. It’s really great because I no longer have to spend so much time making the lineart really dark and clean because no scanning is involved! The greatest impact, however, turned out to be the tablet’s effect on coloring. It’s so much easier and much more fun now! Woot, this tablet is ub3r l337!

For sure, the tablet learning curve seemed impossibly steep at first, but nowadays it feels pretty natural. I still like the background and the strange finger pointing.

Making Pittsburgh Safer

If I can’t board a plane with a pen knife, then other passengers shouldn’t be allowed to board with nipple rings. Apparently, the Pittsburgh TSA agrees.

Movies Lie?

According to this intriguing study, you cannot just shoot a padlock off with a sidearm, the way they do in the movies. Your best bet is to lug around a shotgun (which also can pierce ballistic resistant glass, with the right slugs). The summary at the bottom of the page:

Lessons learned:

1. “How hard is it to shoot off a lock?” Answer: Very hard.

2. Pistols won’t shoot a lock off or even penetrate the lock.

3. Pistols are pistols and rifles are rifles. Enough said.

4. I now understand why our troops are often seen carrying “breeching shotguns” on their backs and a rifle in their hands. Shotguns will blow a lock off. Rifles will blow holes through a lock, but will not reliably shoot one off.

5. The rifles went through the locks with ease. It is obvious that you could “knaw” off the lock, little by little with a rifle, but a shotgun does it with one shot.