Chilling out in Paris with Christophe

I had a very nice reunion with a friend of mine who was my penpal in high school, Christophe.? We met each other for the first time face to face two years ago when I came to France.? Then he came to US a month later and visited me.

Heat waves has really hit hard in Paris.? Temperatures were abnormally high in Paris for the past few days.? I’ve been sweating like crazy, and my clothes have been turning into yucky wet clothes.? I’ve been pouring down bottles worth of water down my throat.? Anyways,hermes belts, at least this is for only a few days of the summer time unlike Atlanta where it is hot as hell for weeks.

Then we went to Picasso Museum.? It’s a nice small museum, but I felt this museum just simply housed a collection of Picasso’s least greatest artwork.? Even if I felt that his artwork at this museum were not my favorite, many pieces were still a worthwhile seeing such as his photography work.? His photography work were quite fascinating.? He took a flashlight and swiveled around his surrounding space and took a picture of himself.? He left the timer on for so long that we can see drawings of light on the picture.? How cool!

We originally planned to go to Versailles, but we were all too tired to take a long train ride there, and we just wanted to chill out in Paris.? So, we just walked around Saint Germain des Pres and Marais.

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What’s Going On

,hermes belts

So I’ve been back for just one week, and already there’s about a million things going on.

First off, I’ve been formally invited to participate in a panel discussion this coming April (on the 18th, my birthday!) for an event being held by SIGGRAPH and the IGDA. I’ll pass along more info as it materializes, of course.

… This fake Hiroshi Yamauchi interview that was being passed around like it was real…

Also, it’s just so darn cute! When I was playing as a protocol droid (that’s the same kind of robot that C-3PO is, for you non Star Wars geeks reading) the other player, playing as Liam Neeson, struck me with a lightsaber, taking out an arm and a leg and causing me to hop around. My Nick Mag companions and I also screamed with excitement at once.

Next week is another game night at the gameLab offices. In addition to beer, pizza, and board games, there’s a new game from the folks at gameLab that everyone is going to get the chance to playtest. Neat!

Also next week, EA is in New York City to show off a bunch of new titles for the PSP. This will be my first chance to handle the unit, so I’m pretty psyched (but not as much as my editor at Nick Mag, who seems about a hundred times more excited!).

… G4TechTV has formally announced the end of TechTV (what the forces behind G4 did was so pathetic)…

… There was another rumor floating around that Halo would appear on the Gizmondo (come on now)…

Meanwhile on the Jersey side of things, I’ve been invited to the next NJ IGDA meeting, which takes place this weekend. I’ll be going with a Nelson, who’s also been invited to show some cell phone related piece of gaming that he’s developed (you might also recall Nelson being the same guy that I’m doing my next game with).

Plus the deadline for my submission for the next True Porn is now exactly one month away! Believe it or not, I’m still going to try and do something, regardless if I make the due date. In that case, I’ll simply have something to sell if I end up going to APE with MK this upcoming April, though I’m still on the fence with attending since it conflicts with this year’s I-CON, which I’m still slated to talk at.

I may as well mention that LucasArts was in town on Tuesday with some new Star Wars titles, which was no big surprise. But the real surprise was how totally awesome the new Star Wars Lego game is. I kid you not, it was easily one of the most fun to play Star Wars games that I’ve every played. One obviously needs to remember that the game is intended for little kids, but regardless, the action was fast and fun, the puzzle related elements were very well implemented, and the multiplayer features are hella fun.

Also, shortly before my Washington trip, at the Large Animal Christmas party, I was asked to help become a coordinator for the new online component of the NY IGDA, so I’ve finally joined up and am already working on some possible ideas to help stir up activity.

… There’s a Dance Dance Revolution game starring Mario coming out soon.

… Someone has already created a PSP media management tool for OS X (and yes, despite not having a PSP, I’ve already downloaded it)…

And back to video games, I believe there’s another Gamers Nite Groove going on tonight, but I haven’t received confirmation from Job yet. I might attend, or I might just opt for staying home, since all the games I bought while in Washington has finally arrived (yes!). Then there’s the task of getting caught up in all the game related news I’ve missed out on (which at this point seems so daunting, I’m almost dreading it, as crazy as that sounds). But thus far, I know that…

… Bungie has released the entire Marathon series (which are the precursor to Halo) as freeware…

… Plus they have a new show called “Girls Gone Wired” which I already know is going to just make me very, very angry…

As for non-game related activities, I’ve been busy putting the final touches on that book proposal, and thank God it’s almost finally finished. It’s taken much longer than expected, though my overly hectic schedule is the main culprit.

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Why Can’t Things Be Just… You Know… Simple

EDIT: Sorry, but its already claimed. It?s going to Joe a.k.a Isfet!

Anyway, last night was movie night. Saw an episode of Monty Python (Can you believe that MK has hardly ever seen an episode?! Just Holy Grail I think.), Stage Beauty, a flick from 2006 starring Claire Danes and Billy Crudup, about the very first female actor ever, back when only men were in plays, even doing female parts, because it was the law, and the latest Chris Rock stand-up special, which was really good. His viewpoints on various topical items were dead-oon, especially the political ones, to the degree that I found myself getting rather depressed. Mostly because Rock, like many other public comedic figures, like Jon Stewart, do such an amazing job of enlightening the public, by pointing out everything that’s wrong with our government, yet most of the “fans” out there, so act just as outraged, actually never bother to go out there and vote.

Earlier today, I posted my Mail transfer problem on six different forums, in hopes that someone out there might be able to shed some light as to why it was happening and if there are any possible solutions. And despite going to some of the best resources on the web for Mac related help… MacWorld, MacAddict, ResExcellence, GAF, YayHooray, and even the official Apple tech forums, I gotten barely any information, let alone just a response. I knew things were bad when the first response, which was almost an hour after first putting the problem out there on YayHooray, was “um, i can’t follow your post cuz i’m stoned, but have you…” and the question posed didn’t make a damn bit of sense. I got one other response on ResExcellence, and a few more on YH, and the consensus there seems to be: it seems that Apple just changed the way Mail works, and there’s no real going back. Fuck.

Took a cab home so I could get to bed as soon as possible, since once again, I’m sick and all. And what time did I actually go to sleep? Close to 4 in the morning. And why? Because of my goddamn Mac, or course…

So what I then had to do was REINSTALL TIGER YET AGAIN (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) so I could access my email (I had some really important messages to send and follow-up on). After that was done, I was pissed, and became determined to rid of Tiger as fast as possible, but since I didn’t have an extra external hard drive to back everything up (which I had borrowed from the work the day prior), I had to then put everything on my own FireWire drive, but since there wasn’t enough room, I had to then decided what non-essentail files to throw away. I ended up getting rid of a bunch of movies and some shows called Puppets Who Kill, none of which I had even gotten the chance to see, and even though I doubt I ever would have, it was still annoying. But the process of backing stuff on my FireWire drive, then making bigger files smaller so I could put them on my iPod, which I also had to erase, as well as the time it took to just wait for stuff to move, was taking forever, and before I knew it, I had to get up for work in about three hours, and I hadn’t even gotten the chance to start wiping out my Mac’s HD before installing Panther, so I said fuck it. All that time and energy wasted.

Anyway, its gonna be a really busy next few days, so I probably won’t get a chance to update till after theNew York ComicCon this weekend, where I’ll be on the floor with the new Unlucky mini on-hand, for selling and trading. Hopefully the indie comics folks there will fare well and not be totally drowned out by the big publishers, and all the anime, movie, video game, and toy folks. And hopefully, I’ll be in good enough shape to attend.

Well, I’m still sick. Actually, its getting worse, and I’m afraid that its going to turn into a full-blown flu. I should be taking it easy, but I really haven’t had the chance, or at least haven’t been allowing myself to.

In the end, there are four discs. The first contains the original game (I think). The second includes different game modes, like the online component, plus the original NES/MSX Metal Gear games (I think). There there’s a third disc which has all the cut-scenes assembled together to form an actual movie (I think). And finally, a fourth “bonus” disc which has a behind the scenes, making-off documentary (I think)

Also not helping today is the fact that I can’t access my webmail. God damn does 1&1 ever suck (hence why I need my Mac Mail so badly).

As you might recall, I wiped out the drive and got Panther back on in the morning, and everything was running super smooth. But when I tried checking my email late last night, I couldn’t. As described previously, what I normally do is back up the one preference file Mail has, plus a folder that actually contains the mailboxes, and reapply it in the spots they belong after I’ve reinstalled the OS (which I’ve done about 30 times already on my machine alone). Then when you start up Mail after the reinstall, everything’s there, like nothing even happened. But this time it didn’t work… none of my inbox messages, or sent mail was present. My archived messages (I get tons of email, and I save all the important stuff, so I back everything up) were also missing, but I was actually able to import those, via a manual process in the program. But since I back stuff up at the end of the month, all my February emails were gone.

So all of a sudden, I had to make all these calls to EBs and GameStops in Manhattan (and most folks will know that I hate dealing with either place) in a desperate attempt to find a store that was still offering the LE package. But I did find one, so I had to rush on over and put my money down before they ran out. And that store in particular is one in which I’ve had some pretty big issues in the past, and now I must put my faith in them that nothing gets messed up. Instead of just putting down $5, I paid for one copy in full (not that it truly guarantees anything, but just in case it gets down to who paid for their upfront or not, which has happened I hear). Though I also put down an additional $5 for another copy, for anyone I know who isn’t getting fucked by this situation but fill find out too late.

First off was the Metal Gear Solid 3 Subsistence cluster-fuck that blew up yesterday afternoon. Long story shot, many people, including myself, have been long waiting for the Snake Eater re-release, which was to include a slew of new modes and insanely awesome extras, which many were afraid would be Japanese exclusives, so we were all relieved to discover that it would be coming State-side as well. The thing is, no one really knew what exactly we were getting, and how to get them; then came announcement that much of the content would be available as a pre-order bonus, so everyone relaxed. But many folks, including myself, didn’,hermes belts;t realize that there were two separate packages…

EBGames and GameStop offered two packages: the regular edition and a limited edition, the latter being $10 more. But no one really knew what was in each (the retail sites were definitely not very clear on the subject), so many simply sat back and waited for the details. But all of sudden from out of no where, its revealed that they decided to stop taking orders for the LE package online, and everyone flipped out when they learned that the third disc, which was the one that everyone wanted, was what was lost, meanwhile the fourth, again so called “bonus” disc (that no one was really excited over) was still coming out with all the other “regular” pre-order. So those who sat back and waiting, like myself, got screwed over. As for brick and mortar shops, they were still offering the LE package, but it depended on the store.

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Sunday in Petaluma

After the show I met Roy Rogers and got to ask him a few questions about that great soundtrack, Hot Spot – featuring Roy Rogers,hermes belts, Miles David, John Lee Hooker etc.

My friends have this fine company and were bringing a few bottles of wine. I would have liked to say hello to them… but am glad they were able to leave wine for me anyway.

Later we discovered that the box office apparently made a mistake and gave After Show Passes to strangers instead of my friends who were on the list. As a result the strangers (((who seemed nice))) were brought to the dressing room – everybody kept wondering whose guests they were – and my friends weren’t able to come back.

Sell-out show at Mystic theater last night. Our performance felt good and it was fun.

Stevo posted this and this.

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Monte Carlo Nights

The first set was recorded for broadcast.

Radiomontecarlo.net : Monte Carlo Nights
Last night at the Blue Note I did an interview with Nick, the Nightfly between my sets. We met for the first time in 1994, I believe. He mentioned that next year his program will be twenty years old and I answered that I recorded “Nouveau Flamenco” twenty years ago next year… Time is like climbing a mountain. We take one little breathless step at a time,hermes belts, but at intervals we look back and are amazed at the view back down the valley… Twenty years – almost half of my life. A long time or not time at all… :)

I wish I’d speak Italian.

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Did you feel anything

We have a Long Bet that states ???Large Hadron Collider will destroy Earth.??? And you can watch the video above of what that looks like.,hermes belts

(Via Long Views)

The ???First Beam??? will occur at 9:30AM at CERN, which will be 2:30AM here in Santa Fe.

Nope, I didn’t feel a thing. Shouldn’t Earth be destroyed by now? September 10 – check. Almost 9AM – check. No, I think we are safe. At least until the end of the Mayan Calendar in 2012. :)

The end is nigh
On Wednesday morning September 10th, the very excited and optimistic scientists turn on the Large Hadron Collider outside Geneva???

Direct link to the YouTube vid depicting the end of this world.

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Monday Evening

A photo from this evening’,hermes belts;s bike ride:

Local Upaya news: A special addition to Genpo Roshi’s weekend will be a celebratory concert with Ottmar Liebert on Saturday, August 27, at 7:30pm

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Louis Vuitton Handbags Speedy 30 Fits Simple Sport

Louis Vuitton Handbags Speedy 30 is a damier canvas handbag with natural oxidizing cowhide leather trimmings whose interior pocket has great space for your all kinds of makeup items. Raven Simone has handed a fiver to the valet outside the book release party for Chelsea Handler. The whole collection which is designed by Takashi Murakami is really very beautiful,hermes belts, and a lot of people have worn them. And there are some disadvantages you should notice if you really like this collection as the bag will look flat if there are not many things packing in and in another case the bag will bend in the middle if it is filled up.

The Speedy 30 has continued the speedy style and there are many colorful logos participate in. the pink fabric lining and zip-top closure with padlock has made it look very elegant. PopBee remembered that in the campus many CBC has the same favored dressing that is a pink Juicy Conture sports clothes and a little Louis Vuitton Speedy. At that time we only know that if the clothes can suit the body well then it is just OK to put on and the charm of LV speedy 30 has not brought into play. As we have grow old the Speedy’s charm has began to reveal. The success of speedy doesn’t lie in the truth that it is not so glam that the other LV style, even the simple sportswear can highlight the glorious of the speedy 30.