I am home.
And it's good to be back. 
Operation Silver Flag was basically a two-week vacation. Not for everyone, but for the Comm folks, definitely. I spent probably eight hours a day playing on my new Nintendo DS. (Anyone have one of those? Be happy to trade game recommendations!) I made a good friend there who was a far more knowledgeable DS guru than I; he showed me some of the newest games on his DS and explained the art and science of DS hacking. (The easiest way is to just order a CycloDSEvolution chip which gets popped into the DS like a regular game. The chip is about half again the size of a postage stamp; the storage module that holds your games and stuff is about the size of your pinky fingernail and stores a gigabyte of stuff. Nice!)
When I wasn't busily engaged by Ace Attorney or Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, I was either learning about satellite and radio dishes or giving Russian lessons to the rest of the class. People get surprisingly excited to learn that their names have a Ж, a Ф, or a Л in them when written in Cyrillic. I also helped one guy compile a short Russian phrasebook. Mostly I think they wanted to impress all of the Russian strippers around Panama City, but knowledge for knowledge's sake = good, right?
I was able to arrange my travel such that I had significant layovers in Atlanta in both directions, so I was able to powwow with my parents! We caught up on family news, I regaled them with military anecdotes, and on my way back here, my mom handed over my new iPhone! It's super shiny. I'm finding some annoying software bugs, but nothing game-breaking and nothing that future software updates shouldn't be able to fix. iPhooooone. *pets it*
And now for a complete subject chage...Star Trek Online! YES! New developer, new site, new screenshots, even a gameplay-footage trailer!! WHEEEEEE! :D :D I am seriously psyched for this game. It's not due out for a couple more years, but Cryptic has already out-performed the old developer, Perpetual Entertainment, in terms of sheer results. World of Warcraft, you're on notice!
And just in case this post hasn't covered enough different subjects, this snippet from the MegaTokyo Blog is too good not to quote. Who knew that gagh was actually invented by the Japanese??
Live octopus is a pretty simple meal, overall. You take a young octopus, cut its tentacles off, throw some sesame oil on it and bring it out to your customer while the octopus' special nerve clusters continue to cause movement long after being severed. The fun comes in trying to move the still-writhing, convulsing tentacles from the plate to your mouth.
Here are some tips on snaring the slippery tendrils: first, don't let the tentacle go suckers down. It will latch on to your plate and complicate matters greatly. Second, it's hard to pick them up with chopsticks, so don't be afraid of looking silly (you're eating wiggly octopus tentacles, ferchrissake, there's no way to look dignified) and picking them up with a spoon. Alternately, you can sort of nudge your chopsticks against the suckers, wait for your morsel to latch on, and then bring it into your mouth. Try to chew a little bit - it's not a pleasant experience to have the suckers try to latch on to your throat, but it IS pretty fun to have them attach to your lips or the inside of your mouth. Finally, make sure to get over your inevitable case of the giggles before you start eating. It's no fun trying to chew and swallow while you're laughing, especially if the meal feels like it's resisting consumption.
Dom goes on to link a YouTube video, but his is kind of lame. Try this Max-X video instead, if you're not put off your food easily.
Operation Silver Flag was basically a two-week vacation. Not for everyone, but for the Comm folks, definitely. I spent probably eight hours a day playing on my new Nintendo DS. (Anyone have one of those? Be happy to trade game recommendations!) I made a good friend there who was a far more knowledgeable DS guru than I; he showed me some of the newest games on his DS and explained the art and science of DS hacking. (The easiest way is to just order a CycloDSEvolution chip which gets popped into the DS like a regular game. The chip is about half again the size of a postage stamp; the storage module that holds your games and stuff is about the size of your pinky fingernail and stores a gigabyte of stuff. Nice!)
When I wasn't busily engaged by Ace Attorney or Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass, I was either learning about satellite and radio dishes or giving Russian lessons to the rest of the class. People get surprisingly excited to learn that their names have a Ж, a Ф, or a Л in them when written in Cyrillic. I also helped one guy compile a short Russian phrasebook. Mostly I think they wanted to impress all of the Russian strippers around Panama City, but knowledge for knowledge's sake = good, right?
I was able to arrange my travel such that I had significant layovers in Atlanta in both directions, so I was able to powwow with my parents! We caught up on family news, I regaled them with military anecdotes, and on my way back here, my mom handed over my new iPhone! It's super shiny. I'm finding some annoying software bugs, but nothing game-breaking and nothing that future software updates shouldn't be able to fix. iPhooooone. *pets it*
And now for a complete subject chage...Star Trek Online! YES! New developer, new site, new screenshots, even a gameplay-footage trailer!! WHEEEEEE! :D :D I am seriously psyched for this game. It's not due out for a couple more years, but Cryptic has already out-performed the old developer, Perpetual Entertainment, in terms of sheer results. World of Warcraft, you're on notice!
And just in case this post hasn't covered enough different subjects, this snippet from the MegaTokyo Blog is too good not to quote. Who knew that gagh was actually invented by the Japanese??
Live octopus is a pretty simple meal, overall. You take a young octopus, cut its tentacles off, throw some sesame oil on it and bring it out to your customer while the octopus' special nerve clusters continue to cause movement long after being severed. The fun comes in trying to move the still-writhing, convulsing tentacles from the plate to your mouth.
Here are some tips on snaring the slippery tendrils: first, don't let the tentacle go suckers down. It will latch on to your plate and complicate matters greatly. Second, it's hard to pick them up with chopsticks, so don't be afraid of looking silly (you're eating wiggly octopus tentacles, ferchrissake, there's no way to look dignified) and picking them up with a spoon. Alternately, you can sort of nudge your chopsticks against the suckers, wait for your morsel to latch on, and then bring it into your mouth. Try to chew a little bit - it's not a pleasant experience to have the suckers try to latch on to your throat, but it IS pretty fun to have them attach to your lips or the inside of your mouth. Finally, make sure to get over your inevitable case of the giggles before you start eating. It's no fun trying to chew and swallow while you're laughing, especially if the meal feels like it's resisting consumption.
Dom goes on to link a YouTube video, but his is kind of lame. Try this Max-X video instead, if you're not put off your food easily.