I'm trying to take this novel-writing thing seriously, rather than having it just be another lofty, unchecked task on my lifelong resolutions list like running a four-minute mile, learning a foreign language, or visiting all seven continents. And taking it seriously means that I'm trying to hold off putting black to white for as long as I can, so as to give myself a fighting chance that the ink I spill won't prove insulting to the tree whose pulp now sits in my printer's feed-tray. I don't want that tree to have died in vain, nor do I want to end up one of those whiny unpublished writers you see on message boards who can't get published, but think it's because they don't know know anyone, rather than because -- gasp! -- what they wrote might not be any good.
I realized pretty quickly last week that the aspiring novelist of my teenage years was probably, in some ways, a bit more capable than the thirtysomething version sitting behind the desk today. Eight years of strategy guide writing prefaced by a year of technical writing and six years in college and graduate school doing research in the sciences has left me with a bit more of an analytical mind than I used to have. I've expelled most of the adjectives and adverbs that I once knew and I learned to write in shorter, some might say, choppier sentences. In fact, you could even say that nearly all of the writing I've done over the past fifteen years has purposely run counter to the old writer's axiom of show don't tell. The purpose of a strategy guide is to tell; showing equates to spoilers. It's time to stretch this writer's creative legs and crack open that thesaurus that's been sitting on the shelf, barely touched for the past ten years.
All is not hopeless though. I have a topic, I've mapped out the plot -- it's an adventure-thriller and that's all I'll say -- and I've already come up with names for the characters and begun work on character profiles. The King County Library System is currently gathering up a half-dozen books for my research and I spent an hour last night on O-Net, the government's occupational information network, doing some extra research on job tasks/requirements for my protagonist and one other character. The goal is to have a detailed outline and all character profiles completed, along with quite a bit of research, before I head to my isolation-cabin in Winthrop on the tenth. It helps that I've been mulling this plot over in my head for three years and have been to the location where the story is set.
Of course, every author has to do this sort of groundwork before beginning their tale. The fact that the last time I've written fiction was back around the same time I was making my first early attempts at unhooking a girlfriend's bra doesn't bode well. And though I can't say I gave up the former for the latter, I'd bet on my talents at removing undergarments before I would lay coin on my ability to referee troublesome characters with interesting dialogue. And I know this. That's why I've spent the past few days studying the craft. And man do I hate using pretentious words like that.
My first step was to quickly re-read Bob Mayer's "The Novel Writer's Toolkit", then set to scavenging all of the writing articles on Suite 101. This raised more questions than yielded answers, but at least it left me somewhat aware of where my weaknesses would be: beginnings, characters, and dialogue. Oh, that's all?
This brought me to Barnes and Noble where I quickly read the "Characters & Points of View" book by the Writer's Digest over coffee and decided it didn't warrant a purchase -- it wasn't different enough from Mayer's book that I already owned. Instead, I picked up the outstanding book "Hooked" by Les Edgerton and proceeded to read, highlight, flag, and take notes from all 240 pages over the next 18 hours -- with some time thrown in for playing Rock Band and the honing of my aforementioned skills at taking off woman's underwear.
"Hooked" is an entire book devoted to perfecting the beginnings of short stories and novels through the use of dozens of examples of successful stories. Not only does Edgerton really do a great job of conveying what should and shouldn't appear in the opening sentences from a technical and stylistic point of view, but the lengthy Q&A he conducts with a number of literary agents and editors in the back of the book really adds some heft to what he's saying. And the drumbeat throughout the entire book is that you essentially have one or two paragraphs to grab the agent's attention, or you're thrown into the rejection pile. This really hit home: one agent said her relatively small agency receives up to 1500 manuscripts to read every month and according to Edgerton, 90% of manuscripts being written are fiction but publishers only devote 20% of their printing schedule to fiction. The competition is extremely fierce. If the first sentence or two don't immediately grab the reader's attention, you haven't got a chance.
So "Hooked" was great, but I also picked up "Plot & Structure" and "Dialogue", both published by the Writer's Digest. These are more technique books, both of which include some short exercises and plenty of examples. It does feel a bit like I'm back in college taking a creative writing course (which I never did, so I don't really know what that would feel like, but I can guess) but I can already feel the benefits in the way I think about my story as I lay in bed at night.
One last thing: I've decided to give myself some daily homework. I've created a form in Excel that I'll be using to deconstruct the opening chapter from some comparable books in the library or on my bookshelf so that I can better see how each of the techniques Edgerton spoke about in "Hooked", if any, are being put to use. I'm trying to go back and re-read some of my favorites with a more analytical eye to see what the pacing was, how the story began, when the inciting incident was, how long each scene was, and so on and so forth.
I think I'll start with "Water for Elephants" and "Life of Pi", two of my favorite books that I've read in recent years.
But first I need to play a little more Rock Band.
Oh, and for those keeping score at home, the answers are: 1) 4:10, 2) three years to pass two and don't remember anything, and 3) 2 of 7. In other words, a strike-out so far.
Guidebook Giveaway: Bioshock (again)
We updated the guidebook I wrote last year for Bioshock to include the new PS3 content (namely, the plasmids and tonics that were previously available as DLC for Xbox 360). I received a bundle of the books the other day -- they're otherwise identical to the version we published last year -- and decided to go ahead and make the book available to the first three people to request a copy.
So, if you live in the USA or Canada and are just getting into the whole Bioshock swing of things, then go ahead and email me your name and address and I'll get a copy out to you right away. This is one of my best works (not to mention the folks at BradyGames did a fantastic job with the design) and, well, the game is one of the best I've ever played.
Golden Day at Greenwater
Finally got back on the bike last Thursday night for a frosty trip around the Thrilla in Woodinvilla course. The light on my NiteRider Rage went dead halfway through the ride, potentially leaving me with 10 miles to ride by LED headlamp if not for Doug C. lending me his 6-volt helmet light to finish the ride at a normal speed (he had an additional handlebar-mounted light). Doug's light wasn't nearly as bright as the HID I typically use, but it was dramatically better than the alternative. Doug reminded me that he has Mondays off so we agreed to get together for a ride today down in Greenwater, near (but not in) Mt. Rainier National Park.
We couldn't have picked a better day. Bright blue skies, bone-dry trails, an empty trailhead, and perfect, low light illuminating the fall colors on the trail. We parked at FR 73 (Sun Top Road) and rode up the Skookum Flats Trail, across Highway 410 to the White River Trail and did and out-and-back up to Corral Pass Road before returning all the way back down the White River Trail.
I slammed the brakes as we were descending back to Highway 410 from the Palisades Trail to take advantage of the light hitting this grove of vine maples. I snapped a couple photos of Doug riding this section then went down the trail so he could get a shot of me coming back up.
We couldn't have picked a better day. Bright blue skies, bone-dry trails, an empty trailhead, and perfect, low light illuminating the fall colors on the trail. We parked at FR 73 (Sun Top Road) and rode up the Skookum Flats Trail, across Highway 410 to the White River Trail and did and out-and-back up to Corral Pass Road before returning all the way back down the White River Trail.
I slammed the brakes as we were descending back to Highway 410 from the Palisades Trail to take advantage of the light hitting this grove of vine maples. I snapped a couple photos of Doug riding this section then went down the trail so he could get a shot of me coming back up.
Yours truly on the White River Trail.Investment Advice
Thanks to my biking buddy Doug Carroll for passing this along.
- If you had purchased $1000.00 of shares in Delta Airlines one year ago, you would have $49.00 today.
- If you had purchased $1000.00 of shares in AIG one year ago, you will have $33.00 today.
- If you had purchased $1000.00 of shares in Lehman Brothers one year ago, you will have $00.00 today.
- But, if you had purchased $1000.00 worth of beer one year ago, drunk all the beer, then turned in the aluminum cans for a recycling fund, you will have received $214.00. Based on the above, the best current investment plan is to drink heavily and recycle.
This plan is what is known as the 401(Keg).
Dilemma Resolved
Thanks to everyone who posted or emailed suggestions as to how I should spend my down time. As is often the case, Kristin agreed to listen to me ramble on and on about not wanting to waste the opportunity, then she kindly nudged me in the proper direction. As she always does.
So what I decided to do was to spend the next two weeks at home, taking care of some chores around the house, playing Rock Band 2 and Fallout 3, and getting out on the bike. I've also begun work on the synopsis and character profiles for the novel I've been dreaming up for the past three years. I even put a few hours in this morning on the project and have begun the research I need to flesh it out. This helps keep me busy and productive while I stick close to home in case a project shows up that needs my immediate attention.
It's also important that I do accomplish as much of the preliminary work on the novel as I can these next couple weeks because on November 10th, I'll be heading to a tiny cabin outside of Winthrop, WA (no phones, no television) to spend four nights alone, working on the novel without distraction. The Methow Valley is one of my favorite places to be, and the cabin is right near a small lake and some dirt roads and bike trails, so I expect I'll be able to get a nice brain-clearing ride or hike in each morning then settle in for a productive day of writing. The cabin is only a couple miles outside of town and has a fridge and stove so I'll be able to make my own meals and will likely only need to go to town each day to call Kristin, assuming I don't get any cell service near the lake. I booked the cabin today, there are only two and since it's between the summer and winter peak seasons, the owner expects I'll have the property to myself and he agreed to put a table in the room for me.
So that's it. I'll end up missing the release of Gears of War 2 and will have to catch up with my friends on Xbox Live when I get back, but I think it will be worth it. Thanks for helping me come up with something to do.
So what I decided to do was to spend the next two weeks at home, taking care of some chores around the house, playing Rock Band 2 and Fallout 3, and getting out on the bike. I've also begun work on the synopsis and character profiles for the novel I've been dreaming up for the past three years. I even put a few hours in this morning on the project and have begun the research I need to flesh it out. This helps keep me busy and productive while I stick close to home in case a project shows up that needs my immediate attention.
It's also important that I do accomplish as much of the preliminary work on the novel as I can these next couple weeks because on November 10th, I'll be heading to a tiny cabin outside of Winthrop, WA (no phones, no television) to spend four nights alone, working on the novel without distraction. The Methow Valley is one of my favorite places to be, and the cabin is right near a small lake and some dirt roads and bike trails, so I expect I'll be able to get a nice brain-clearing ride or hike in each morning then settle in for a productive day of writing. The cabin is only a couple miles outside of town and has a fridge and stove so I'll be able to make my own meals and will likely only need to go to town each day to call Kristin, assuming I don't get any cell service near the lake. I booked the cabin today, there are only two and since it's between the summer and winter peak seasons, the owner expects I'll have the property to myself and he agreed to put a table in the room for me.
So that's it. I'll end up missing the release of Gears of War 2 and will have to catch up with my friends on Xbox Live when I get back, but I think it will be worth it. Thanks for helping me come up with something to do.
Rock Band 2
After three solid days spent playing Rock Band 2, I'm reluctant to even refer to it as a videogame anymore. It's practically its own unique medium of entertainment, not unlike "television" or "movies" or "books". Sure, it does require the owning of a videogame console in order to use it, but to label it a game is almost insulting. Rock Band 2 is virtual reality, only with plastic instruments instead of goofy-looking goggles and space suits.
I fully expect home-stages to begin replacing home-theatres as the next must-have accoutrement for lifestyle living. Imagine: a small raised stage with some colored floodlights, and four flat-panel monitors set up down low so as to not block the band's view of the crowd. Throw in a bar in the back corner, a small dance area near the stage, some surround sound speakers, and voila! The ultimate set-up for hosting Rock Band Parties.
The thing about Rock Band 2 isn't just the ability to "play" so many great songs (with new ones released weekly) but that there are so many different ways to go about playing the game. You can form a band and do an offline Tour individually, you can have local friends join you, you can hop online and invite complete strangers to join you. Or you can join others bands. There are daily Battles of the Bands in different disciplines (drums, guitar, bass, vocals) keeping things fresh at all times, not to mention a slew of challenges that allow you to progress through an increasingly difficult array of songs. Best of all, as you buy new songs they automatically get added to the mix for each of the modes. And there are the various practice and trainer modes that help to actually teach you how to play the drums.
Having skipped the release of the original Rock Band, I must say that it's great to be back with a Harmonix-made music game. I was trying to play a lot of Guitar Hero 3 and Guitar Hero: Aerosmith to get ready for RB2's release and the note charts and chaotic fluctuations in difficulty really got me down. I never felt like I was getting better at the game, but rather some songs I could play really well and others I couldn't play at all. Not so with RB2. I've yet to encounter a single note chart that I would consider "obnoxious" and the gradual increase in difficulty from song to song and difficulty mode to difficulty mode is not only perfectly balanced, but it's actually helping me become a better player. In just three short days, I've increased my skill to the point of being able to 5-star a good number of easier songs on the Hard setting on guitar, and even some of the intermediate songs if I'm playing bass.
Another thing they got right with RB2 is the price for the downloadable content. There are complete albums for sale, there are various sizes of song packs, and best of all, every song can be purchased individually for the equivalent of $2 each. Considering the level of care that goes into creating the four separate tracks for each song for each of four difficulty settings, I have no problem shelling out the 160 MS points per song.
My sister and her fiance picked up RB2 on Tuesday night and after they got it all set up, we jumped online together. I was on bass, my sister on guitar, and her fiance on drums. What a great time. My sister and I each had a headset on and could talk while we were playing and had Kristin not have had such a crazy day at work, she would have picked up the mic to take over for vocals. But even with just the three of us mucking around on Quick Play mode, it was a blast. Sure, online gaming has been around for a decade or so now, but not like this. To be able to hold a jam session with family members three thousand miles away is just too great for words. Naysayers continue to call gaming an isolationist pursuit and some continue to point and laugh at the fake musicians playing Rock Band and Guitar Hero, but I can think of no other form of entertainment that brings people together quite like these games do. Going to the movies? Watching television? No thanks. I'm in the band now.
I fully expect home-stages to begin replacing home-theatres as the next must-have accoutrement for lifestyle living. Imagine: a small raised stage with some colored floodlights, and four flat-panel monitors set up down low so as to not block the band's view of the crowd. Throw in a bar in the back corner, a small dance area near the stage, some surround sound speakers, and voila! The ultimate set-up for hosting Rock Band Parties.
The thing about Rock Band 2 isn't just the ability to "play" so many great songs (with new ones released weekly) but that there are so many different ways to go about playing the game. You can form a band and do an offline Tour individually, you can have local friends join you, you can hop online and invite complete strangers to join you. Or you can join others bands. There are daily Battles of the Bands in different disciplines (drums, guitar, bass, vocals) keeping things fresh at all times, not to mention a slew of challenges that allow you to progress through an increasingly difficult array of songs. Best of all, as you buy new songs they automatically get added to the mix for each of the modes. And there are the various practice and trainer modes that help to actually teach you how to play the drums.
Having skipped the release of the original Rock Band, I must say that it's great to be back with a Harmonix-made music game. I was trying to play a lot of Guitar Hero 3 and Guitar Hero: Aerosmith to get ready for RB2's release and the note charts and chaotic fluctuations in difficulty really got me down. I never felt like I was getting better at the game, but rather some songs I could play really well and others I couldn't play at all. Not so with RB2. I've yet to encounter a single note chart that I would consider "obnoxious" and the gradual increase in difficulty from song to song and difficulty mode to difficulty mode is not only perfectly balanced, but it's actually helping me become a better player. In just three short days, I've increased my skill to the point of being able to 5-star a good number of easier songs on the Hard setting on guitar, and even some of the intermediate songs if I'm playing bass.
Another thing they got right with RB2 is the price for the downloadable content. There are complete albums for sale, there are various sizes of song packs, and best of all, every song can be purchased individually for the equivalent of $2 each. Considering the level of care that goes into creating the four separate tracks for each song for each of four difficulty settings, I have no problem shelling out the 160 MS points per song.
My sister and her fiance picked up RB2 on Tuesday night and after they got it all set up, we jumped online together. I was on bass, my sister on guitar, and her fiance on drums. What a great time. My sister and I each had a headset on and could talk while we were playing and had Kristin not have had such a crazy day at work, she would have picked up the mic to take over for vocals. But even with just the three of us mucking around on Quick Play mode, it was a blast. Sure, online gaming has been around for a decade or so now, but not like this. To be able to hold a jam session with family members three thousand miles away is just too great for words. Naysayers continue to call gaming an isolationist pursuit and some continue to point and laugh at the fake musicians playing Rock Band and Guitar Hero, but I can think of no other form of entertainment that brings people together quite like these games do. Going to the movies? Watching television? No thanks. I'm in the band now.
Skate and Destroy
You have to forgive me a diversion into the topic of skateboarding for a moment. You see, this is the first autumn since 2000 that I haven't been assigned to work on a strategy guide for the latest installment in the long-running Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series of games. And the reason for that is simple: Neversoft is taking the year off. Presumably to retool the franchise in response to the surprise success of EA's SKATE. Or maybe because they just needed a year off. Or because Guitar Hero: World Tour required all hands on deck. I don't know, but I hope it's really because they're actually working on the sequel to Gun. But I doubt it.
Regardless, even though I don't skate (I used to) and was starting to tire a bit from the annual updates, I do feel like a part of me is missing this year. It's not an exaggeration to say that I actually owe the foundation of my career as a guidebook writer to that franchise. The Pro Skater games -- and their various spin-offs featuring Mat Hoffman, Kelly Slater, and Shaun Palmer -- were my bread and butter when I started out. The writing sample I submitted to BradyGames way back in the summer of 2000 was for the "The Mall" level in the original Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. My good fortune came calling shortly after when the author writing the guidebook for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 summoned all of his games-journalism professionalism and included such helpful tips as "If you can't do this, then you must suck" in the manuscript. Ummm, yeah. That was the last book he ever wrote for BradyGames and the next summer I was not only assigned THPS3, but also THPS2X and the aforementioned Palmer and Hoffman games. And then more of the same every year thereafter.
Right time. Right place.
So anyway, you can understand why I naturally begin to think about skateboarding this time of year. Every year. I came across this video tonight while browsing the web and I have to say that is one of the most graceful and brilliant pieces of action sports filmography I've ever seen. It's the intro for the video Fully Flared and it is absolutely mesmerizing.
Regardless, even though I don't skate (I used to) and was starting to tire a bit from the annual updates, I do feel like a part of me is missing this year. It's not an exaggeration to say that I actually owe the foundation of my career as a guidebook writer to that franchise. The Pro Skater games -- and their various spin-offs featuring Mat Hoffman, Kelly Slater, and Shaun Palmer -- were my bread and butter when I started out. The writing sample I submitted to BradyGames way back in the summer of 2000 was for the "The Mall" level in the original Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. My good fortune came calling shortly after when the author writing the guidebook for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 summoned all of his games-journalism professionalism and included such helpful tips as "If you can't do this, then you must suck" in the manuscript. Ummm, yeah. That was the last book he ever wrote for BradyGames and the next summer I was not only assigned THPS3, but also THPS2X and the aforementioned Palmer and Hoffman games. And then more of the same every year thereafter.
Right time. Right place.
So anyway, you can understand why I naturally begin to think about skateboarding this time of year. Every year. I came across this video tonight while browsing the web and I have to say that is one of the most graceful and brilliant pieces of action sports filmography I've ever seen. It's the intro for the video Fully Flared and it is absolutely mesmerizing.
Fable 2 Guidebook Winners
Thanks to everyone who sent an entry in for the Fable 2 LE Guidebook Giveaway. Nearly everyone got 8 or 9 of the questions correct. The only one people routinely struggled with had to do with the list of vices you can and can't do in Albion. The only one in the list I provided that was impossible in the game was doing drugs. Also, I decided to accept both "Big Blue Box" and "Lionhead Studios" for the second part of the question about Simon and Dene Carter.
That said, the winner of the LE version of the guidebook is Shon Browley. Congratulations.
Signed copies of the standalone Signature Series edition of the guide will also be going out to Debbie, Elmer, and Aubrey. So please email me your mailing addresses so I can get these in the mail to you right away. Thanks again for reading.
That said, the winner of the LE version of the guidebook is Shon Browley. Congratulations.
Signed copies of the standalone Signature Series edition of the guide will also be going out to Debbie, Elmer, and Aubrey. So please email me your mailing addresses so I can get these in the mail to you right away. Thanks again for reading.
Guidebook Giveaway: Fable 2
Just wanted to post a reminder about the Fable 2 guidebook giveaway and LE version contest below. (scroll down two posts).
I'll have additional giveaways over the next couple of weeks for the Gears of War 2 guidebooks and also for the PS3 version of my Bioshock book.
I'll have additional giveaways over the next couple of weeks for the Gears of War 2 guidebooks and also for the PS3 version of my Bioshock book.
RTW Big-Ticket Transportation
So Kristin and I spent some more time talking about the trip and decided that I needed to basically accomplish three things with regards to planning before I could really start delving into the details. First, I needed to work out the major transportation routes and costs. Second, I need to explore any packaged/guided trips we'll end up booking. Lastly, we need to figure out where we'll want to do some volunteer work and for how long. So, armed with my new homework assignment, I spent the latter part of last week mapping out the "big ticket transportation" costs for our RTW trip and believe I not only succeeded in gaining a lot of knowledge on various transportation networks throughout the world -- did you know you could take a 2-night ferry from Shanghai to Osaka? -- but managed to further fine-tune our working itinerary and come up with a present-day total cost for transportation, which I then increased by 15% to account for inflation and to give us a buffer.
There were a few sites that were of incredible assistance in accomplishing this task, but none more than www.seat61.com. The creator of this website started out by detailing how to get from London to all-points in the world accessible by train. The site then branched out to include very helpful, detailed information for train, bus, and ferry travel the world over. The site includes photos of the trains, maps of train lines for each country, simple schedules, and even some estimates on fares and how to go about booking your tickets. If you have any interest in overland travel, then bookmark that site right now. It's a treasure trove of user-friendly information.
Having spent two full days poring over maps, triple-checking numerous airfare rates, and comparing all sorts of connections and routes, I did finally nail down (at least for now) all of the major transportation expenses that we'll have. This process did ultimately cause me to rule out one or two places I had planned for us to go, but also allowed us to add some others. It will also be a bit more focused and allow for longer stays in particular regions.
So, if you're curious in the specifics, please do keep reading. This will very likely be the last post I make on the topic for several months as, quite honestly, I was exhausted from all the research I did on Thursday and Friday and, well, the trip isn't for 4 to 5 years.
*Prices are current-day per-person rates. Airfare rates were best available via www.kayak.com. I imagine lower-cost fares via consolidators are possible when the time comes, but I'd rather over-budget than short-change ourselves.
1) Alaska Ferry: 15-day pass ($929)
2) Trans-Canada Train: 12 days of travel in 30 pass ($879)
3) Flight: Newark, NJ to Dublin, Ireland airfare ($350)
4) Eurail Pass: 4 country 8 days in 2 months ($559)
5) Flight: Casablanca, Morocco to Nairobi, Kenya airfare ($626)
6) Flight: Nairobi, Kenya to Cairo, Egypt ($408)
7) Flight: Tel-Aviv, Israel to Istanbul, Turkey ($230)
8) Eurail Pass: 5 country 10 days in 2 months ($688)
9) Flight: Vienna, Austria to Delhia, India ($520)
10) Flight: Round-trip Delhi, India to Kathmandu, Nepal ($140)
11) Flight: Delhi, India to Bangkok, Thailand ($175)
12) Flight: Jakarta, Indonesia to Sydney, Australia ($501)
13) Flight: Sydney, Australia to Christchurch, New Zealand ($107)
14) Flight: Auckland, New Zealand to Santiago, Chile ($1194)
15) Flight: Lima, Peru to Miami, FL ($268)
There are indeed a few changes to the plan from the post I made recently about the 12 legs of the journey.
For starters, we'll not be taking a trans-atlantic cruise or freighter. The lone trans-atlantic cruiseship is currently the Queen Mary 2 and it is, how shall I put this, not exactly designed with backpack-travelers in mind. There simply won't be enough room in my backpack for a tuxedo. It also seems that the freighter travel ships stick to slightly warmer waters by the end of October and the few direct routes between NYC and England were no longer being followed. As for adding Ireland to the list, it's much cheaper to fly into Dublin than London or Edinburgh.
In Africa, I learned that overland travel between Kenya and Ethiopia is not at all very fun. The lone road that leads through northern Kenya to the border town of Moyale is considered the "worst road in Africa" and, quite frankly, the sites in Ethiopia don't interest me enough to make flight there. But with each unfortunate discovery, a hidden gem is discovered. For example, there is a train that runs from Nairobi to Mombassa, that goes straight through the heart of Tsavo National Park. Yes, that Tsavo. Not only is that one of my all-time favorite movies, but I'm also a big fan of this book that, among other things, chronicles doing that journey on foot (no thanks).
Thanks in no small part to Seat61.com, I discovered that my wish to travel from Egypt to Jordan and onward to Israel is indeed possible. There is a ferry that takes travelers across the Red Sea to Aqaba, Jordan and, at least based on message board posts at www.bootsnall.com and at Lonely Planet's site, Jordan is a fantastic place to travel through. So while I'm not a religious person, I have to say that I am definitely excited about seeing the ancient sites of the Holy Land in Jordan and Israel.
A couple other points of note. We didn't have any plans to head towards west-central modern Europe, but flying to Delhi is vastly cheaper out of Vienna, Austria than it is out of Budapest, Hungary so the plan will be to train travel from Istanbul through Greece and Bulgaria and Croatia up to Hungary and then over to Austria. Also, along those lines, it's far cheaper to do a round-trip flight between India and Nepal and to then fly one-way to Thailand, than it is to fly directly from Kathmandu to Bangkok. Like, nearly a thousand dollars cheaper.
Our trip took a major turn off the expected plan from a few weeks ago after studying the maps of southeast Asia train service and comparing flights from different cities to New Zealand. In short, although I was very excited to find direct train service between Hanoi, Vietnam and Beijing, China (not to mention the ferry between Shanghai and Osaka), flying from Tokyo down to either Sydney, Australia or Auckland, New Zealand was just way too expensive. So, instead, we decided to leave China and Japan for our eventual Trans-Siberian railway trip and follow the trains south to Kuala-Lumpur, Malaysia, and work our way down through Java to Bali. We had no plans to visit Australia, but it's much more affordable to fly to Sydney and then jump over to NZ than it is to fly direct, so we'll be spending at least a few days in Australia.
Lastly, flights leaving Lima, Peru to just about anywhere are very expensive, even just to Mexico City or even nearby Panama City so we believe we're going to conclude the main portion of the trip in Peru after spending an extended amount of time in Chile and Argentina. We expect we'll need to decompress and ease back into mainstream American life, not to mention figure out what our next move will be. It just so happens flights from Lima to Miami are very cheap. What better way to soak it all in and cap off the trip than by sipping fancy drinks on a beach in Florida. And at that point, we'll just be a long train ride from what I'm sure will be a long-anticipated reunion with family in New Jersey.
Sidenote: One of the places I really wanted to visit at the end of the trip was Cuba. Canada's number one travel destination can't be all that bad, and I've heard nothing but great stuff about Havana. Unfortunately, "big brother" doesn't even allow an American to search for the price of flights to Havana online. I tried to check the fares from Lima to Havana on kayak.com and instead I got a message about the State Department forbidding travel there for Americans. Ridiculous.
There were a few sites that were of incredible assistance in accomplishing this task, but none more than www.seat61.com. The creator of this website started out by detailing how to get from London to all-points in the world accessible by train. The site then branched out to include very helpful, detailed information for train, bus, and ferry travel the world over. The site includes photos of the trains, maps of train lines for each country, simple schedules, and even some estimates on fares and how to go about booking your tickets. If you have any interest in overland travel, then bookmark that site right now. It's a treasure trove of user-friendly information.
Having spent two full days poring over maps, triple-checking numerous airfare rates, and comparing all sorts of connections and routes, I did finally nail down (at least for now) all of the major transportation expenses that we'll have. This process did ultimately cause me to rule out one or two places I had planned for us to go, but also allowed us to add some others. It will also be a bit more focused and allow for longer stays in particular regions.
So, if you're curious in the specifics, please do keep reading. This will very likely be the last post I make on the topic for several months as, quite honestly, I was exhausted from all the research I did on Thursday and Friday and, well, the trip isn't for 4 to 5 years.
*Prices are current-day per-person rates. Airfare rates were best available via www.kayak.com. I imagine lower-cost fares via consolidators are possible when the time comes, but I'd rather over-budget than short-change ourselves.
1) Alaska Ferry: 15-day pass ($929)
2) Trans-Canada Train: 12 days of travel in 30 pass ($879)
3) Flight: Newark, NJ to Dublin, Ireland airfare ($350)
4) Eurail Pass: 4 country 8 days in 2 months ($559)
5) Flight: Casablanca, Morocco to Nairobi, Kenya airfare ($626)
6) Flight: Nairobi, Kenya to Cairo, Egypt ($408)
7) Flight: Tel-Aviv, Israel to Istanbul, Turkey ($230)
8) Eurail Pass: 5 country 10 days in 2 months ($688)
9) Flight: Vienna, Austria to Delhia, India ($520)
10) Flight: Round-trip Delhi, India to Kathmandu, Nepal ($140)
11) Flight: Delhi, India to Bangkok, Thailand ($175)
12) Flight: Jakarta, Indonesia to Sydney, Australia ($501)
13) Flight: Sydney, Australia to Christchurch, New Zealand ($107)
14) Flight: Auckland, New Zealand to Santiago, Chile ($1194)
15) Flight: Lima, Peru to Miami, FL ($268)
There are indeed a few changes to the plan from the post I made recently about the 12 legs of the journey.
For starters, we'll not be taking a trans-atlantic cruise or freighter. The lone trans-atlantic cruiseship is currently the Queen Mary 2 and it is, how shall I put this, not exactly designed with backpack-travelers in mind. There simply won't be enough room in my backpack for a tuxedo. It also seems that the freighter travel ships stick to slightly warmer waters by the end of October and the few direct routes between NYC and England were no longer being followed. As for adding Ireland to the list, it's much cheaper to fly into Dublin than London or Edinburgh.
In Africa, I learned that overland travel between Kenya and Ethiopia is not at all very fun. The lone road that leads through northern Kenya to the border town of Moyale is considered the "worst road in Africa" and, quite frankly, the sites in Ethiopia don't interest me enough to make flight there. But with each unfortunate discovery, a hidden gem is discovered. For example, there is a train that runs from Nairobi to Mombassa, that goes straight through the heart of Tsavo National Park. Yes, that Tsavo. Not only is that one of my all-time favorite movies, but I'm also a big fan of this book that, among other things, chronicles doing that journey on foot (no thanks).
Thanks in no small part to Seat61.com, I discovered that my wish to travel from Egypt to Jordan and onward to Israel is indeed possible. There is a ferry that takes travelers across the Red Sea to Aqaba, Jordan and, at least based on message board posts at www.bootsnall.com and at Lonely Planet's site, Jordan is a fantastic place to travel through. So while I'm not a religious person, I have to say that I am definitely excited about seeing the ancient sites of the Holy Land in Jordan and Israel.
A couple other points of note. We didn't have any plans to head towards west-central modern Europe, but flying to Delhi is vastly cheaper out of Vienna, Austria than it is out of Budapest, Hungary so the plan will be to train travel from Istanbul through Greece and Bulgaria and Croatia up to Hungary and then over to Austria. Also, along those lines, it's far cheaper to do a round-trip flight between India and Nepal and to then fly one-way to Thailand, than it is to fly directly from Kathmandu to Bangkok. Like, nearly a thousand dollars cheaper.
Our trip took a major turn off the expected plan from a few weeks ago after studying the maps of southeast Asia train service and comparing flights from different cities to New Zealand. In short, although I was very excited to find direct train service between Hanoi, Vietnam and Beijing, China (not to mention the ferry between Shanghai and Osaka), flying from Tokyo down to either Sydney, Australia or Auckland, New Zealand was just way too expensive. So, instead, we decided to leave China and Japan for our eventual Trans-Siberian railway trip and follow the trains south to Kuala-Lumpur, Malaysia, and work our way down through Java to Bali. We had no plans to visit Australia, but it's much more affordable to fly to Sydney and then jump over to NZ than it is to fly direct, so we'll be spending at least a few days in Australia.
Lastly, flights leaving Lima, Peru to just about anywhere are very expensive, even just to Mexico City or even nearby Panama City so we believe we're going to conclude the main portion of the trip in Peru after spending an extended amount of time in Chile and Argentina. We expect we'll need to decompress and ease back into mainstream American life, not to mention figure out what our next move will be. It just so happens flights from Lima to Miami are very cheap. What better way to soak it all in and cap off the trip than by sipping fancy drinks on a beach in Florida. And at that point, we'll just be a long train ride from what I'm sure will be a long-anticipated reunion with family in New Jersey.
Sidenote: One of the places I really wanted to visit at the end of the trip was Cuba. Canada's number one travel destination can't be all that bad, and I've heard nothing but great stuff about Havana. Unfortunately, "big brother" doesn't even allow an American to search for the price of flights to Havana online. I tried to check the fares from Lima to Havana on kayak.com and instead I got a message about the State Department forbidding travel there for Americans. Ridiculous.
Guidebook Giveaway: Fable 2 Limited Edition
My trusty editor Christian overnighted me a couple of copies of the Limited Edition version of my guidebook for Fable 2 today and one of you will be the lucky beneficiary of his kind gesture.
I spent a considerable amount of time and energy into putting this guidebook together and am very proud of the end result. This Signature Series guidebook is 260 pages long and trust me when I say that it covers everything there is to know about Fable II and is definitely one of the top 3 books I've written -- and I've authored over 70 of these things now. Also, the Limited Edition version which I'm giving away comes bundled in a soft-bound folio with the 112 page Fable II Art Book. BradyGames only prints a limited number of these and they retail for $30 each. I'm keeping one of them (obviously) but I'm putting the other up for grabs.
Since this is a bit of a special giveaway, I want to make sure that it goes to someone who is definitely a fan of the game. So I'm giving you a quiz. Answer each of the questions below between now and 12:00pm PST on Tuesday and email them to me. The person with the most correct answers will win the LE version of the guidebook which I will ship out on Tuesday (USA & Canada only, please). Three runner's up will receive the standalone version of the guidebook without the art book once I receive them. The questions cover Fable, Fable II, and Fable II: Pub Games.
Answer as many of the following questions as you can and send your responses here.
1) What was the name of the Hero's hometown in the original Fable?
2) What is the name of the continent on which the story takes place?
3) Name the talking stone doors hidden across the land.
4) Name the three games in Fable II: Pub Games.
5) Fable wasn't the original name for this game. What was it?
6) Who is your companion in Fable II?
7) Peter Molyneux is the big name behind the game, but there are a pair of brothers heavily involved in the development of the game. Who are they and what company do they work for?
8) Which of the following is not possible in Fable 2: Marriage, murdering innocents, adultery, homosexual sex, having children, getting drunk, doing drugs, sex with multiple partners, or same-sex marriages.
9) Bonus weaponry and clothing modeled after a famous character in another videogame franchise is available in the Fable 2 collector's edition. What game are these from?
10) Name a major villain in either Fable or Fable 2.
Good luck!
What I've Been Playing
Home from my brief four-day trip to NJ and presently without a project to work on (that reprieve will end when Fed-Ex shows up this afternoon), left me with quite a bit of time to game. And get my game on, I have done. I've commented on a couple of these in the past, but if you missed it or just want another, later opinion, keep reading.
King Kong
Okay, this was a launch game that I picked up used last year when I was writing a chapter on how to score 10,000 Gamerscore in 2 weeks. I finally got around to finishing the game on Monday and, frankly, it wasn't as bad as a lot of people would have you believe. Simple? Yes. Ugly? Yes. Repetetive? You betcha. But there was something oddly compelling about it. All you need to know about the game is experienced in the first 60-90 minutes, but for some reason I continued to play. Okay, I admit it, it's a very easy source of 1000 Gamerscore and I just finally wanted to get it over with. I can't say I was all that entertained.
Penny Arcade: Episode 1
If you know the full run-on-sentence long title of this game, then I doubt I need to tell you anything you haven't already figured out by playing it. Upon finishing up King Kong on Monday, I booted back up the Penny Arcade game in hopes of finally finishing it. I did. It took me a little bit of time to get back into the swing of the game -- hadn't played since May -- but I wanted to get up to speed before Episode 2 comes out. I'm on the fence about this one. My initial enjoyment from it came from it being something completely different, very funny, and because I loved the narrator. Not unlike King Kong, however, you soon realize that you see this game's entire bag of tricks before the halfway point as well and the only thing pulling you forward is your own desire to complete the game. The story is transparent and the gameplay rather limiting. That said, when Penny Arcade is funny (a rarity these days), they're really funny. I'm going to give Episode 2 a try when it releases in the coming weeks because it's going to be $5 cheaper than the first (1200 MS points instead of 1600) and because the Achievements list for Episode 2 lead me to believe that there are several new gameplay elements being worked in. Following the entire series to the conclusion is certainly not a given at this point. Episode 2 had better be good.
Assassin's Creed
For some reason, rather than throw in one of my unopened games, I decided to try and finish up Assassin's Creed. Why, I have no idea. I so badly want to like this game, but the constant repetition of gameplay and the fact that the three major cities (Acre, Jerusalem, and Damascus) all look nearly identical in the game makes it really hard to want to go on. I was at least hoping that moving between cities and their districts would feel like unlocking a new level, but it's not. Everything looks the same. And everything I do is the same. I climb steeples, I dive into hay, and I fight. I hold the R Trigger to wait for an attacker to make his move, then I tap the X Button to counterattack. Mix in the occasional pickpocket and repeat ad nauseum. In hindsight, the only part of the game that really stuck out beyond the first 45 minutes was the criss-crossing of the Kingdom on horseback but that became old too and now I just fast-travel wherever I need to go. As a completionist, it's very hard for me to purposely avoid searching for the hidden gems stuck deep inside the seat cushions of a game, but the extra collect-a-thoning involved in this game is so boring and tedius that I have no interest in it. I never thought I'd say it, but I've even grown bored with even the sweeping panoramas viewed from atop the tallest towers in the Holy Land. How that is possible, I don't know.
Age of Booty
Finally something to celebrate. This just released this morning on XBLA for 800 MS points ($10) and I am really, really enjoying it. It's a team-based real-time strategy game in the most simple and addictive of forms. Teams of 2 or 4 sail around a hexagonal-based ocean and compete to capture towns and resources. Use resources to either upgrade your ship (speed, armor, cannons) or to upgrade the town so it can better defend itself. Merchant ships drop curses that you can use to pilfer extra resources from your opponents or to even blow up their ships or trap them in a whirlpool. There are 21 single player challenges (some are very hard), a full-featured Map Editor mode so you can load up your own personal maps, and of course online multiplayer. Two players can play on the same television sitting side by side, provided you're on the same team. The game is very easy to understand by skimming the in-game controls and manual and by playing the first two or three single player challenges (scroll down for the easy ones). The single-player challenges suffer a bit on account of the heavy reliance on the A.I.-controlled ships being impossible to communicate and organize a strategy with, but fortunately you can play online with real humans and coordinate tactics with. That is, assuming they are using the microphones. Of the matches I've played online so far, only one of them featured other people communicating well. The difference is huge, so please have your microphone ready and talk it up with your fellow booty-grabbers (Ha!) as it will really make the game much easier to enjoy.
Here's the official trailer for Age of Booty. Send me an invite if you ever want to play.
King Kong
Okay, this was a launch game that I picked up used last year when I was writing a chapter on how to score 10,000 Gamerscore in 2 weeks. I finally got around to finishing the game on Monday and, frankly, it wasn't as bad as a lot of people would have you believe. Simple? Yes. Ugly? Yes. Repetetive? You betcha. But there was something oddly compelling about it. All you need to know about the game is experienced in the first 60-90 minutes, but for some reason I continued to play. Okay, I admit it, it's a very easy source of 1000 Gamerscore and I just finally wanted to get it over with. I can't say I was all that entertained.
Penny Arcade: Episode 1
If you know the full run-on-sentence long title of this game, then I doubt I need to tell you anything you haven't already figured out by playing it. Upon finishing up King Kong on Monday, I booted back up the Penny Arcade game in hopes of finally finishing it. I did. It took me a little bit of time to get back into the swing of the game -- hadn't played since May -- but I wanted to get up to speed before Episode 2 comes out. I'm on the fence about this one. My initial enjoyment from it came from it being something completely different, very funny, and because I loved the narrator. Not unlike King Kong, however, you soon realize that you see this game's entire bag of tricks before the halfway point as well and the only thing pulling you forward is your own desire to complete the game. The story is transparent and the gameplay rather limiting. That said, when Penny Arcade is funny (a rarity these days), they're really funny. I'm going to give Episode 2 a try when it releases in the coming weeks because it's going to be $5 cheaper than the first (1200 MS points instead of 1600) and because the Achievements list for Episode 2 lead me to believe that there are several new gameplay elements being worked in. Following the entire series to the conclusion is certainly not a given at this point. Episode 2 had better be good.
Assassin's Creed
For some reason, rather than throw in one of my unopened games, I decided to try and finish up Assassin's Creed. Why, I have no idea. I so badly want to like this game, but the constant repetition of gameplay and the fact that the three major cities (Acre, Jerusalem, and Damascus) all look nearly identical in the game makes it really hard to want to go on. I was at least hoping that moving between cities and their districts would feel like unlocking a new level, but it's not. Everything looks the same. And everything I do is the same. I climb steeples, I dive into hay, and I fight. I hold the R Trigger to wait for an attacker to make his move, then I tap the X Button to counterattack. Mix in the occasional pickpocket and repeat ad nauseum. In hindsight, the only part of the game that really stuck out beyond the first 45 minutes was the criss-crossing of the Kingdom on horseback but that became old too and now I just fast-travel wherever I need to go. As a completionist, it's very hard for me to purposely avoid searching for the hidden gems stuck deep inside the seat cushions of a game, but the extra collect-a-thoning involved in this game is so boring and tedius that I have no interest in it. I never thought I'd say it, but I've even grown bored with even the sweeping panoramas viewed from atop the tallest towers in the Holy Land. How that is possible, I don't know.
Age of Booty
Finally something to celebrate. This just released this morning on XBLA for 800 MS points ($10) and I am really, really enjoying it. It's a team-based real-time strategy game in the most simple and addictive of forms. Teams of 2 or 4 sail around a hexagonal-based ocean and compete to capture towns and resources. Use resources to either upgrade your ship (speed, armor, cannons) or to upgrade the town so it can better defend itself. Merchant ships drop curses that you can use to pilfer extra resources from your opponents or to even blow up their ships or trap them in a whirlpool. There are 21 single player challenges (some are very hard), a full-featured Map Editor mode so you can load up your own personal maps, and of course online multiplayer. Two players can play on the same television sitting side by side, provided you're on the same team. The game is very easy to understand by skimming the in-game controls and manual and by playing the first two or three single player challenges (scroll down for the easy ones). The single-player challenges suffer a bit on account of the heavy reliance on the A.I.-controlled ships being impossible to communicate and organize a strategy with, but fortunately you can play online with real humans and coordinate tactics with. That is, assuming they are using the microphones. Of the matches I've played online so far, only one of them featured other people communicating well. The difference is huge, so please have your microphone ready and talk it up with your fellow booty-grabbers (Ha!) as it will really make the game much easier to enjoy.
Here's the official trailer for Age of Booty. Send me an invite if you ever want to play.
Travels in Iran
Where else in the United States would nearly one thousand people attend a Tuesday night slideshow presentation about travelling in Iran, and give a standing ovation at the end? Just another reason why I love living in the Seattle area.
Kristin and I attended Rick Steves' presentation about Iran last night. The idea behind his trip to Iran came from the members of the United Nations Association, Seattle Chapter who wanted to try and do something that would stick out amongst all the saber rattling that was going on this past spring. So Steves set about getting his film crew together to head to Iran for a 12-day trip with the goal being to peel back the layers of politics and stereotypes and reveal the human side of the Iranians. Or as he put it, "to at least try to get to know the people we might end up bombing."
Those who think Ahmadinejad's words and feelings about the US are echoed by the minds of the 70 million Iranians would be surprised to hear that Rick was received warmly by Iranians of all ages, and that the citizens of Iran don't spend their time hating the US and Israel; they spend their time worrying about work, going to school, buying groceries, paying the rent, and everything else we all consume our days with. Yes, the theocratic government of Iran does have numerous anti-American/Israel murals on the sides of the buildings and does pay for much anti-western signage throughout the city of Tehran (home to 14 million). But the people of the country were not so different than you and I. They just want to fall in love, raise a family, and get a good job just like us. It would be impossible to talk about Iran without talking a bit of politics, but not to condemn or agree with opinions held by our leaders in Washington (certainly not to agree), but to offer what may be an explanation for some of the beliefs.
The crew didn't spend the entire trip in Tehran (oddly enough, a city that Rick compared to Vancouver, BC in appearance and cosmopolitan traits). They traveled south to Esfahan, to Shiraz, and Persepolis as well. The photos were very impressive. The architecture, the mosques, and especially the faces in the crowd were all very beautiful. Persepolis was one of the main sites during the Persian Empire and was on the level of Athens, Cairo, or Rome in terms of ancient sites.
The presentation ended with a rousing standing ovation not only for the slideshow, but to also commend Rick Steves for the hour-long PBS special that will be aired in January in over 100 cities around the country. Activism through eductation. I had the fortune of sitting next to an Iranian-American couple who were overjoyed at seeing someone from this country finally set out to humanize the Iranian people and make an effort to show the people of the USA, basically, that there is no reason for these citizens to die. That bomb-bomb-bombing Iran does have consequences. Some of the Iranian-American couples stood up to comment on several things that Rick didn't get to see, such as the people of Iran gathering to light candles and say prayers for the victims of 9/11. That he didn't get to truly feel the hospitality and cooking skills of the people because of his whirlwind tour. And one also expanded on some of Rick's comments about Iranian-American relations with regard to the Shaw and Khomeini.
Rick put together a 45-page journal designed to be a companion to his upcoming show on PBS. I'll post a reminder about the show in January, when it's set to air. In the meantime, Rick will be giving another presentation near Everett, Washington on November 8th.
You can watch a preview for the PBS show on Iran right here. There is also a lot of F.A.Q. style blurbs at that link that can offer up some answers to your Iranian curiosity.
Kristin and I attended Rick Steves' presentation about Iran last night. The idea behind his trip to Iran came from the members of the United Nations Association, Seattle Chapter who wanted to try and do something that would stick out amongst all the saber rattling that was going on this past spring. So Steves set about getting his film crew together to head to Iran for a 12-day trip with the goal being to peel back the layers of politics and stereotypes and reveal the human side of the Iranians. Or as he put it, "to at least try to get to know the people we might end up bombing."
Those who think Ahmadinejad's words and feelings about the US are echoed by the minds of the 70 million Iranians would be surprised to hear that Rick was received warmly by Iranians of all ages, and that the citizens of Iran don't spend their time hating the US and Israel; they spend their time worrying about work, going to school, buying groceries, paying the rent, and everything else we all consume our days with. Yes, the theocratic government of Iran does have numerous anti-American/Israel murals on the sides of the buildings and does pay for much anti-western signage throughout the city of Tehran (home to 14 million). But the people of the country were not so different than you and I. They just want to fall in love, raise a family, and get a good job just like us. It would be impossible to talk about Iran without talking a bit of politics, but not to condemn or agree with opinions held by our leaders in Washington (certainly not to agree), but to offer what may be an explanation for some of the beliefs.
The crew didn't spend the entire trip in Tehran (oddly enough, a city that Rick compared to Vancouver, BC in appearance and cosmopolitan traits). They traveled south to Esfahan, to Shiraz, and Persepolis as well. The photos were very impressive. The architecture, the mosques, and especially the faces in the crowd were all very beautiful. Persepolis was one of the main sites during the Persian Empire and was on the level of Athens, Cairo, or Rome in terms of ancient sites.
The presentation ended with a rousing standing ovation not only for the slideshow, but to also commend Rick Steves for the hour-long PBS special that will be aired in January in over 100 cities around the country. Activism through eductation. I had the fortune of sitting next to an Iranian-American couple who were overjoyed at seeing someone from this country finally set out to humanize the Iranian people and make an effort to show the people of the USA, basically, that there is no reason for these citizens to die. That bomb-bomb-bombing Iran does have consequences. Some of the Iranian-American couples stood up to comment on several things that Rick didn't get to see, such as the people of Iran gathering to light candles and say prayers for the victims of 9/11. That he didn't get to truly feel the hospitality and cooking skills of the people because of his whirlwind tour. And one also expanded on some of Rick's comments about Iranian-American relations with regard to the Shaw and Khomeini.
Rick put together a 45-page journal designed to be a companion to his upcoming show on PBS. I'll post a reminder about the show in January, when it's set to air. In the meantime, Rick will be giving another presentation near Everett, Washington on November 8th.
You can watch a preview for the PBS show on Iran right here. There is also a lot of F.A.Q. style blurbs at that link that can offer up some answers to your Iranian curiosity.
The Long Walk
I mentioned this book by Slavomir Rawicz last week when Kristin gave it to me as a birthday gift and now that I'm a mere three dozen pages from finishing it, I have to say, in no uncertain terms, that it is one of the most amazing stories I've ever read. And I cannot imagine forgetting the details of this impossible story any time soon, if ever. No, the magnitude of the author's struggle to escape from a Siberian prison camp will probably be something I remember forever.
Originally published in 1956, "The Long Walk" is the autobiographical telling of Slavomir Rawicz's unfortunate time in Russia. He was a Polish soldier in World War II, fighting the Germans as a member of a cavalry division. When he returned home to his village on the border near Russia, he was apprehended at once. The Russians were convinced he was a spy. He spent 18 months in Russian prisons, suffering brutal interrogations and forced to live in conditions fit for neither rats nor roaches. He is eventually sentenced to 25 years of hard labor in Siberia.
His journey to Siberia took place in winter and not only included several weeks on an uninsulated train car packed with dozens of other prisoners, but also an 1100 mile trek northward, as a member of a chain-gang, through three Siberian blizzards. For forty days, through the dead of winter, they marched from the southern tip of Lake Baikal to Yakutsk, just south of the Arctic Circle. No gloves. No hat. Canvas shoes without socks.
He and six others eventually fled the prison camp and journey southward -- on FOOT! -- out of Siberia, through Mongolia, across the Gobi Desert, through the Himalaya, and all the way to the Indian Ocean and freedom.
To help you envision the route they took, I traced out a rough approximation on Google Maps. The line is over 3000 miles long.
View Larger Map
The first third of this book will leave you shaking your head in disbelief at the savage cruelty humans can inflict on one another. The rest of the book is an incomparable testament to the human will to be free and its ability to endure the harshest of conditions. It's also about the limitless generosity that exists within compassionate strangers. In the span of a hundred pages you will hear a first-hand account of the very worst and best we humans have to offer.
It is impossible to read this book and not think it fabricated, but it's not. It's real. It is also impossible to read this book and ever again feel justified in thinking you have it tough or that quitting a difficult task would ever be truly necessary. What these men went through is so far beyond what rational people would consider possible, it just boggles the mind.
This is sure to be a tale that's details occupy a space in my memory for decades to come.
Get your copy here.
Originally published in 1956, "The Long Walk" is the autobiographical telling of Slavomir Rawicz's unfortunate time in Russia. He was a Polish soldier in World War II, fighting the Germans as a member of a cavalry division. When he returned home to his village on the border near Russia, he was apprehended at once. The Russians were convinced he was a spy. He spent 18 months in Russian prisons, suffering brutal interrogations and forced to live in conditions fit for neither rats nor roaches. He is eventually sentenced to 25 years of hard labor in Siberia.
His journey to Siberia took place in winter and not only included several weeks on an uninsulated train car packed with dozens of other prisoners, but also an 1100 mile trek northward, as a member of a chain-gang, through three Siberian blizzards. For forty days, through the dead of winter, they marched from the southern tip of Lake Baikal to Yakutsk, just south of the Arctic Circle. No gloves. No hat. Canvas shoes without socks.
He and six others eventually fled the prison camp and journey southward -- on FOOT! -- out of Siberia, through Mongolia, across the Gobi Desert, through the Himalaya, and all the way to the Indian Ocean and freedom.
To help you envision the route they took, I traced out a rough approximation on Google Maps. The line is over 3000 miles long.
View Larger Map
The first third of this book will leave you shaking your head in disbelief at the savage cruelty humans can inflict on one another. The rest of the book is an incomparable testament to the human will to be free and its ability to endure the harshest of conditions. It's also about the limitless generosity that exists within compassionate strangers. In the span of a hundred pages you will hear a first-hand account of the very worst and best we humans have to offer.
It is impossible to read this book and not think it fabricated, but it's not. It's real. It is also impossible to read this book and ever again feel justified in thinking you have it tough or that quitting a difficult task would ever be truly necessary. What these men went through is so far beyond what rational people would consider possible, it just boggles the mind.
This is sure to be a tale that's details occupy a space in my memory for decades to come.
Get your copy here.
Grant Approved!
I'll let the good folks at BBTC, err, Evergreen make a more detailed official announcement to the supporters, but the grant proposal I had written (with some help) for the South Fork Snoqualmie Road-to-Trail Conversion project was approved and awarded maximum funding ($75,000) through the National Recreational Trails Program.
The project is heavily reliant on cooperation with the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust and the National Forest Service, but securing the grant money and the volunteer committment from mountain bikers was essential for turning this road decommissioning project to a road-to-trail conversion project.
Glad to see the funding will be there. The finished project is still quite some time off (this is just phase 1) but I'm happy to say that the Resource Conservation Office obviously agreed with the case we presented. I spent a considerable bit of time getting the grant proposal together this summer. Nice to see it not go for naught.
The project is heavily reliant on cooperation with the Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust and the National Forest Service, but securing the grant money and the volunteer committment from mountain bikers was essential for turning this road decommissioning project to a road-to-trail conversion project.
Glad to see the funding will be there. The finished project is still quite some time off (this is just phase 1) but I'm happy to say that the Resource Conservation Office obviously agreed with the case we presented. I spent a considerable bit of time getting the grant proposal together this summer. Nice to see it not go for naught.
How Not to Enter the 21st Century
I doubt even Jeff Foxworthy himself would have thought to do this.
I was back in New Jersey this past weekend and one of the many highlights of my trip was seeing my mother's new HDTV. She and my step-father had wrung every last static-filled, distorted image they could out of a 25-year old tube television and had finally figured an upgrade was needed. My mother's house is quite small and she likes big furniture so this doesn't leave a whole lot of room for things like televisions. Or people, for that matter, but that's another story for another time. Also, this is probably a good time to point out that my step-father is a bit of a redneck and my mother, well, she's not exactly a fan of contemporary design. Probably the main reason they kept using that old tube television of theirs was because of the wooden cabinet it came in. She hates these newfangled silver and black plastic television frames.
Nevertheless, the time had come to upgrade and they picked out a rather nice Sharp LCD that is, I'm guessing about a 32-inch widescreen. It's a nice tv with a good picture, but it's really hard to hear it. Even with the volume turned up to maximum, it can be very hard to hear.
I think it's because of where they put it...
I was back in New Jersey this past weekend and one of the many highlights of my trip was seeing my mother's new HDTV. She and my step-father had wrung every last static-filled, distorted image they could out of a 25-year old tube television and had finally figured an upgrade was needed. My mother's house is quite small and she likes big furniture so this doesn't leave a whole lot of room for things like televisions. Or people, for that matter, but that's another story for another time. Also, this is probably a good time to point out that my step-father is a bit of a redneck and my mother, well, she's not exactly a fan of contemporary design. Probably the main reason they kept using that old tube television of theirs was because of the wooden cabinet it came in. She hates these newfangled silver and black plastic television frames.
Nevertheless, the time had come to upgrade and they picked out a rather nice Sharp LCD that is, I'm guessing about a 32-inch widescreen. It's a nice tv with a good picture, but it's really hard to hear it. Even with the volume turned up to maximum, it can be very hard to hear.
I think it's because of where they put it...
Like I said, she really likes dem old-timey wooden tv cabinets.
Into Thick Air
I'm just about done reading Jim Malusa's book "Into Thick Air: Biking to the Bellybutton of Six Continenents" and I'm actually a bit unsure how I feel about the book. There's no doubt his two-wheeled journeys in Australia, Russia, Djiboutti, Argentina, Jordan, and the United States were the things only a man with big dreams and tremendous confidence would undertake, but there was always something under the surface that rubbed me the wrong way about this book. It could be that Malusa's overuse of the passive tense slowly grated on me or maybe it was the simple fact that the stories he told weren't as interesting as I had hoped. Maybe I just wished I was reading another book by Willie Weir?
It didn't help that the book started off with Malusa's journey across the heartland of Australia. Aside from a few colorful locals and an approaching tropical storm, there didn't seem to be much that interested him. I'm sure the landscape didn't offer much for him to wax poetic about, but considering how many miles he rode and the remoteness of his trip, it was quite dull. His frequent complaining about trying to get set up with a modem to provide online updates to the Discovery Channel didn't help matters. The story lacked the adventure I, and perhaps the author, expected and as a result if wasn't rather enjoyable.
The book certainly picks up a bit after that initial foray across Australia. His second jaunt took him Egypt and into Jordan to pedal to the Dead Sea. This was an interesting tale, mostly for the people he met along the way and the polical hurdles he had to jump in being allowed into Egypt with a satellite phone. Still, it's odd that so much time would be spent discussing his techno-gear required by the Discovery Channel, but next to no discussion of cycling gear. Not that I care what brand of bicycle he was riding, or what gearing he was using, but would-be bicycle tourers are always interested in hearing an experienced cyclist's tips for bike transport and security. In fairness, Weir's book "Spokesongs" offered precious little info about this either so maybe I'm in the minority for wanting it.
Malusa does seem to grow both as a traveler and a writer during his journeys and the quality of the storytelling was much improved by the time his trips through Russia and the Patagonia region of South America came about. I especially appreciated his ability to work so much local history into the text. And his ability to describe the Patagonian beauty -- and semi-miserable weather -- definitely made me that much more excited about our own upcoming trip to that same area of the world.
In fairness, the book actually spans nearly a decade in Malusa's life, the birth of two children, and thousands of miles of pedaling. Is it not permissable to allow him to grow from chapter to chapter? In hindsight, my initial reaction to the book was certainly different than my final opinion. It took far longer than I expected, but I was eventually looking forward to crawling into bed just so I can read some more about his travels in Djiboutti and then finally, to Death Valley -- along a stretch of road that I remember vividly from my own trip to that fabulous hole in 2002.
It takes a while to hit its stride, but if you're interested in world travel , particularly by bicycle, then I suggest you pick it up. If for no other reason than to get another piece of evidence in support of the kindness of strangers and the erroneous nature of so many of the perceived dangers in travel off the beaten path.
Buy the book here.
It didn't help that the book started off with Malusa's journey across the heartland of Australia. Aside from a few colorful locals and an approaching tropical storm, there didn't seem to be much that interested him. I'm sure the landscape didn't offer much for him to wax poetic about, but considering how many miles he rode and the remoteness of his trip, it was quite dull. His frequent complaining about trying to get set up with a modem to provide online updates to the Discovery Channel didn't help matters. The story lacked the adventure I, and perhaps the author, expected and as a result if wasn't rather enjoyable.
The book certainly picks up a bit after that initial foray across Australia. His second jaunt took him Egypt and into Jordan to pedal to the Dead Sea. This was an interesting tale, mostly for the people he met along the way and the polical hurdles he had to jump in being allowed into Egypt with a satellite phone. Still, it's odd that so much time would be spent discussing his techno-gear required by the Discovery Channel, but next to no discussion of cycling gear. Not that I care what brand of bicycle he was riding, or what gearing he was using, but would-be bicycle tourers are always interested in hearing an experienced cyclist's tips for bike transport and security. In fairness, Weir's book "Spokesongs" offered precious little info about this either so maybe I'm in the minority for wanting it.
Malusa does seem to grow both as a traveler and a writer during his journeys and the quality of the storytelling was much improved by the time his trips through Russia and the Patagonia region of South America came about. I especially appreciated his ability to work so much local history into the text. And his ability to describe the Patagonian beauty -- and semi-miserable weather -- definitely made me that much more excited about our own upcoming trip to that same area of the world.
In fairness, the book actually spans nearly a decade in Malusa's life, the birth of two children, and thousands of miles of pedaling. Is it not permissable to allow him to grow from chapter to chapter? In hindsight, my initial reaction to the book was certainly different than my final opinion. It took far longer than I expected, but I was eventually looking forward to crawling into bed just so I can read some more about his travels in Djiboutti and then finally, to Death Valley -- along a stretch of road that I remember vividly from my own trip to that fabulous hole in 2002.
It takes a while to hit its stride, but if you're interested in world travel , particularly by bicycle, then I suggest you pick it up. If for no other reason than to get another piece of evidence in support of the kindness of strangers and the erroneous nature of so many of the perceived dangers in travel off the beaten path.
Buy the book here.
Traveling in Iran
The Rick Steves Program will provide an introduction to an American audience about Iran (Persia) and its current people. Rick led a film crew to that country in the month of June 2008 for 10 days. He believes travel is a necessary tool to break down cultural barriers and potentially reduce violent conflict in our world -- more than ever. UNA Seattle and National office of UNA-USA were instrumental in Rick securing the required visa in order to initiate and complete his trip to Iran. A Rick Steves PBS special on Iran is slated to premiere nationally in January 2009. Presented by the United Nations Association of Seattle.
Rick is giving a slideshow and lecture about this recent trip to Iran next Tuesday, October 14th, in Seattle from 7:30 to 9:30pm. Tickets are available here.
What has 12 Legs and Takes Years to Save For?
Kristin finally admitted to me a few weeks ago that despite having had the summer off from school, she hadn't given much thought to the round-the-world trip we're saving for on account of being intimidated by the scale. Geography and international sites and cultures aren't high on the list of things she's knowledgeable of and she basically would look at the world map in our hallway with a deer-in-the-headlights stare. We can't all know everything, and there's plenty else she knows that I don't, so we spent a few hours a couple weeks ago breaking down our tentative bare-bones itinerary into 12 legs or "chapters" so we can both gain a better grasp on what we're trying to do and where we're trying to do it. This not only forced us to be a bit more reasonable about the number of countries we can visit (sadly, everywhere is out of the question... at least for this trip) but we also delved deeper into the notes and knowledge that I've been compiling and started to allow real-world factors like weather and expenses take their rightful place in the forefront of our planning minds.
When we first shook on it last September and, after years of talking about it, decided to start saving and planning to spend a year (or longer) travelling the world, we had just $1600 in our travel savings account. We devised a savings plan, stuck to it, and after the first year are up to a bit over $5000. I'm happy to report we're even a whopping $90 ahead of schedule. You laugh, but that's a few extra nights in a hostel or a week's worth of food in Egypt. Granted, the schedule is 5 years long and we're only about one-tenth to where we'll ultimately need to be, but our monthly deposits go up another $50 every 6 months and the amount should grow substantially from year to year. Not to mention Kristin's recent decision to take the bus to/from work each day is going to save us over $1200 a year between gas, maintenance, and a drop in car insurance. And both cars will be paid off next spring. Yes, I think we're well on our way to being able to follow the savings plan.
But what about those 12 chapters. Well, I'll tell you. For starters, we're very adamant about starting the trip with an early September ferry trip to Alaska. Preferably, right after Labor Day so we won't have to compete with the cattle coming off the cruiseships in Ketchikan and Sitka. Another reason for starting in September is that we want to hit Europe in the off-season. Less crowds, higher native:tourist ratio, and lower costs. Continuing around the world, we end up hitting many of the places we really want to visit, mostly, at the better time of year. Kilimananjaro during the migrations, Nepal during prime trekking season, southeast asia before monsoon season, etc., etc.
Anyway, here's what we came up with for a very rough, very preliminary, high-level itinerary. We'll be spending the next few years making notes of the places we want to make our "home base" in each country and what, if any, specific adventure-style trips we'd want to embark on, aside from the aforementioned climbing Kilimanjaro and Annapurna trekking in Nepal (another one just might be bike-touring in New Zealand).
1) Alaska, Canada, Family Farewell in NJ
Sept: 4-5 weeks
2) UK, France, Spain, and Portugal
Oct-Nov: 5-6 weeks
3) Morocco
Nov: 2 weeks
4) Tanzania, Kenya, and Ethiopia
Dec-Jan: 4-6 weeks
5) Egypt, Jordan, and Israel
Jan: 2-3 weeks
6) Greece, Turkey, Croatia, and Slovenia
Feb: 4-5 weeks
7) Northern India and Nepal
Mar-Apr: 4-6 weeks
8)Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia
Apr-May: 5-6 weeks
9) China and Japan
June: 4-5 weeks
10) New Zealand and Micronesia
July: 4-5 weeks
11) Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Bolivia
Aug-Sept: 6-8 weeks
12) Central America, Mexico, Caribbean
Oct-Nov: 4-6 weeks
So that's the basic aerial view of the plan. I'm sure it's bound to change as time goes by, but we needed to narrow things down a bit so we can be more productive in our research. I'm sure the more outdoorsy of you will no doubt pick up on the favoring of places with an abundance of natural sights and attractions and less so those with little more than old buildings (although I'm very excited about Scotland). We're still considering an extended volunteer stint in either Kenya or Nepal, but we've taken the scalpel to the map and eliminated the Trans-Siberian railway adventure for this trip on account of cost and the difficulty in getting a Visa for Russia and Mongolia while away from your home country. It can very well change in the next few years, but right now visas for Russia are very difficult to get if already on the road for half a year. We also decided to skip Italy, Germany and much of central Europe on account of cost. Likewise for Australia.
We expect that this itinerary will also allow us to make do with english and a smattering of local phrases and key words (e.g. please, thank you, excuse me, where is the bathroom?) at least until we hit South America. We know enough about Central and South America though to know to expect few english speakers in the lower western hemisphere (at least outside of Western-owned hotels and restaurants, which we'll be trying mightily to avoid) so we're planning on spending at least 1-2 weeks in an immersive language school once we get there. Even just two weeks of intense language training should help make independent travel through Latin America much easier and far more enjoyable.
It's all a long, long time from now, but I can't wait and neither can Kristin. It's hard to believe a year has already passed since we first talked about it, but it's been a good year. A productive year. A year that brings us that much closer to a journey of a lifetime.
In the meantime, a couple in a similar situation as us living in Oregon is hitting the road this week. I never met them, but I'm certainly going to be following along with their blog postings as they spend the next 12-15 months traveling the world. Follow along with me right here.
When we first shook on it last September and, after years of talking about it, decided to start saving and planning to spend a year (or longer) travelling the world, we had just $1600 in our travel savings account. We devised a savings plan, stuck to it, and after the first year are up to a bit over $5000. I'm happy to report we're even a whopping $90 ahead of schedule. You laugh, but that's a few extra nights in a hostel or a week's worth of food in Egypt. Granted, the schedule is 5 years long and we're only about one-tenth to where we'll ultimately need to be, but our monthly deposits go up another $50 every 6 months and the amount should grow substantially from year to year. Not to mention Kristin's recent decision to take the bus to/from work each day is going to save us over $1200 a year between gas, maintenance, and a drop in car insurance. And both cars will be paid off next spring. Yes, I think we're well on our way to being able to follow the savings plan.
But what about those 12 chapters. Well, I'll tell you. For starters, we're very adamant about starting the trip with an early September ferry trip to Alaska. Preferably, right after Labor Day so we won't have to compete with the cattle coming off the cruiseships in Ketchikan and Sitka. Another reason for starting in September is that we want to hit Europe in the off-season. Less crowds, higher native:tourist ratio, and lower costs. Continuing around the world, we end up hitting many of the places we really want to visit, mostly, at the better time of year. Kilimananjaro during the migrations, Nepal during prime trekking season, southeast asia before monsoon season, etc., etc.
Anyway, here's what we came up with for a very rough, very preliminary, high-level itinerary. We'll be spending the next few years making notes of the places we want to make our "home base" in each country and what, if any, specific adventure-style trips we'd want to embark on, aside from the aforementioned climbing Kilimanjaro and Annapurna trekking in Nepal (another one just might be bike-touring in New Zealand).
1) Alaska, Canada, Family Farewell in NJ
Sept: 4-5 weeks
2) UK, France, Spain, and Portugal
Oct-Nov: 5-6 weeks
3) Morocco
Nov: 2 weeks
4) Tanzania, Kenya, and Ethiopia
Dec-Jan: 4-6 weeks
5) Egypt, Jordan, and Israel
Jan: 2-3 weeks
6) Greece, Turkey, Croatia, and Slovenia
Feb: 4-5 weeks
7) Northern India and Nepal
Mar-Apr: 4-6 weeks
8)Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia
Apr-May: 5-6 weeks
9) China and Japan
June: 4-5 weeks
10) New Zealand and Micronesia
July: 4-5 weeks
11) Argentina, Chile, Peru, and Bolivia
Aug-Sept: 6-8 weeks
12) Central America, Mexico, Caribbean
Oct-Nov: 4-6 weeks
So that's the basic aerial view of the plan. I'm sure it's bound to change as time goes by, but we needed to narrow things down a bit so we can be more productive in our research. I'm sure the more outdoorsy of you will no doubt pick up on the favoring of places with an abundance of natural sights and attractions and less so those with little more than old buildings (although I'm very excited about Scotland). We're still considering an extended volunteer stint in either Kenya or Nepal, but we've taken the scalpel to the map and eliminated the Trans-Siberian railway adventure for this trip on account of cost and the difficulty in getting a Visa for Russia and Mongolia while away from your home country. It can very well change in the next few years, but right now visas for Russia are very difficult to get if already on the road for half a year. We also decided to skip Italy, Germany and much of central Europe on account of cost. Likewise for Australia.
We expect that this itinerary will also allow us to make do with english and a smattering of local phrases and key words (e.g. please, thank you, excuse me, where is the bathroom?) at least until we hit South America. We know enough about Central and South America though to know to expect few english speakers in the lower western hemisphere (at least outside of Western-owned hotels and restaurants, which we'll be trying mightily to avoid) so we're planning on spending at least 1-2 weeks in an immersive language school once we get there. Even just two weeks of intense language training should help make independent travel through Latin America much easier and far more enjoyable.
It's all a long, long time from now, but I can't wait and neither can Kristin. It's hard to believe a year has already passed since we first talked about it, but it's been a good year. A productive year. A year that brings us that much closer to a journey of a lifetime.
In the meantime, a couple in a similar situation as us living in Oregon is hitting the road this week. I never met them, but I'm certainly going to be following along with their blog postings as they spend the next 12-15 months traveling the world. Follow along with me right here.
Definitely Not Fantastic
Upon re-reading yesterday's post I realized, much to my literary horror, that I used the word fantastic at least half a dozen times. Since I have a reputation of unadulterated laziness to uphold, I'm going to refrain from any editorial swapping of synonyms and simply blame my repetition on the sugar high from the cake, which I ate one-third of for breakfast yesterday.
In other news, I believe I finally figured out why I always put on 10 pounds in the fall. Hmmm...
But what is most certainly not fan.., err, excellent is my experience with the new action-RPG Hinterland. After hearing many positive things about Tilted Mill's new city-building action-RPG hybrid, I decided to give in and download it. So I installed Valve's online delivery service Steam, resurrected my account from when Half-Life 2 was the sparkling NKOTB, and promptly downloaded the aforementioned Hinterland for $20. I love me some action-rpg, Diablo-clones and the PC is certainly the tool best suited for playing them.
When you can play them, that is.
Steam installed effortlessly, but despite several hours -- yes hours -- of troubleshooting with Hinterland, I have yet to even manage to see a title screen. I've read message boards, I've installed the new patch (the game only released on Tuesday, but there's already a patch), I updated Nvidia drivers, and I even rolled-back my DirectX drivers. Nothing. The only solace I can take in my predicament is that the game is currently unavailable through Steam -- perhaps the developers finally put it back in the oven to finish cooking? As one person in my shoes had posted on their message board yesterday, "I didn't pay $20 to be part of your beta test."
Amen, brother.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is why PC gaming has yielded so much ground to videogame consoles. I'm not the most computer-literate person out there, I know this, but I do know the basic tricks to get a game to run and I'm not necessarily new to this -- I have played PC games on and off for over 12 years. Some of my favorites of all time are PC-exclusives. But I don't want to have to close every background application to play a game. I don't want to have to download and update and roll-back drivers to play a game. And I sure as hell don't want to have to dive into my router's configuration and mess with port-forwarding settings just to play a game. This shouldn't be necessary.
But this is where the format is headed. Hinterland doesn't exist on a disc. You can't even just download the executable file from the developer's site. No, you have to use Steam, the front-end online delivery service. This is all fine and good when everything works the way it should, but what about when it doesn't? Is the problem with the game? Is it with Steam? How am I to know? I can tell you what I do know, I won't be trying this again, that's what. It's just not worth it.
I just want to buy the game, install it, and play it.
The Xbox 360 allows me to do this. The Nintendo DS allows me to do this. And I trust that even the PS3, Wii, and PSP would work this way as well if I had them in my possession.
The PC as a games machine is something for people with far more tinkering-time on their hands than I have. Fortunately, PC-exclusives are few and far between these days. Fortunately, indeed.
In other news, I believe I finally figured out why I always put on 10 pounds in the fall. Hmmm...
But what is most certainly not fan.., err, excellent is my experience with the new action-RPG Hinterland. After hearing many positive things about Tilted Mill's new city-building action-RPG hybrid, I decided to give in and download it. So I installed Valve's online delivery service Steam, resurrected my account from when Half-Life 2 was the sparkling NKOTB, and promptly downloaded the aforementioned Hinterland for $20. I love me some action-rpg, Diablo-clones and the PC is certainly the tool best suited for playing them.
When you can play them, that is.
Steam installed effortlessly, but despite several hours -- yes hours -- of troubleshooting with Hinterland, I have yet to even manage to see a title screen. I've read message boards, I've installed the new patch (the game only released on Tuesday, but there's already a patch), I updated Nvidia drivers, and I even rolled-back my DirectX drivers. Nothing. The only solace I can take in my predicament is that the game is currently unavailable through Steam -- perhaps the developers finally put it back in the oven to finish cooking? As one person in my shoes had posted on their message board yesterday, "I didn't pay $20 to be part of your beta test."
Amen, brother.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is why PC gaming has yielded so much ground to videogame consoles. I'm not the most computer-literate person out there, I know this, but I do know the basic tricks to get a game to run and I'm not necessarily new to this -- I have played PC games on and off for over 12 years. Some of my favorites of all time are PC-exclusives. But I don't want to have to close every background application to play a game. I don't want to have to download and update and roll-back drivers to play a game. And I sure as hell don't want to have to dive into my router's configuration and mess with port-forwarding settings just to play a game. This shouldn't be necessary.
But this is where the format is headed. Hinterland doesn't exist on a disc. You can't even just download the executable file from the developer's site. No, you have to use Steam, the front-end online delivery service. This is all fine and good when everything works the way it should, but what about when it doesn't? Is the problem with the game? Is it with Steam? How am I to know? I can tell you what I do know, I won't be trying this again, that's what. It's just not worth it.
I just want to buy the game, install it, and play it.
The Xbox 360 allows me to do this. The Nintendo DS allows me to do this. And I trust that even the PS3, Wii, and PSP would work this way as well if I had them in my possession.
The PC as a games machine is something for people with far more tinkering-time on their hands than I have. Fortunately, PC-exclusives are few and far between these days. Fortunately, indeed.
Love, Chaos, and Dinner
Yesterday was my birthday -- thank you -- and it featured many of the same things I've come to look forward to every October first. It begins with a pre-dawn wakeup so I can have breakfast with Kristin before she goes to work, then moves on to a crusty-eyed opening of gifts that I'm too asleep to show proper appreciation for. The day consists primarily of me doing a whole lot of nothing, and always culminates with a giant slab of marzipan-covered raspberry and cream layer cake from Nielsen's Bakery in Seattle. This is my seventh birthday on the west coast and that cake has been the star attraction at every one of them -- we even brought it on an overnight mountain biking trip in 2005.
So yesterday was a fine day spent doing a little bit of work, some research for our RTW trip, and playing plenty of Pure. Kristin had gotten me a 16-year old bottle of Scotch and the book, "The Long Walk" by Slavomir Rawicz for gifts. I had never heard of the book, originally published in 1956, but it's a first-person account of Slavomir's flight across thousands of miles on foot from a Siberian labor camp in 1940. It sounds incredible and came highly recommended, she tells me.
But that wasn't all she had planned. Unbeknownst to me, she had also arranged for us to go to Teatro Zinzanni with friends of ours. The best way to describe Teatro Zinzanni is that it's a dinner-theatre with a heavy dose of audience participation (or, in my case molestation, but more about that later) and some impressive Cirque du Soleil-styled acrobatics. I had always wanted to check it out, but for one reason (the cost) or another (didn't want to go alone) we never did. In a word, it was fantastic and I'm really glad we went.
For starters, the food was fantastic. I'm told famed Seattle chef Tom Douglas designed the menu and every piece of the five-course meal was fantastic. Perfect serving size, excellent choice of paired wines and beers, and great service. You can see last night's menu right here -- I had the tuna. So the food was great, but I really need to back up and describe the setting. We're in a circular dining room with a luxurious high-brow "circus" feel to it. I know that makes no sense, but if you imagine velvet instead of vinyl and feather boas and masks instead of bulbous noses and suspenders, you should get the gist. The performance took place right in the center of the dining room floor, within feet of the tables and everyone is seated in a circle around the room so that they're facing the center.
So yesterday was a fine day spent doing a little bit of work, some research for our RTW trip, and playing plenty of Pure. Kristin had gotten me a 16-year old bottle of Scotch and the book, "The Long Walk" by Slavomir Rawicz for gifts. I had never heard of the book, originally published in 1956, but it's a first-person account of Slavomir's flight across thousands of miles on foot from a Siberian labor camp in 1940. It sounds incredible and came highly recommended, she tells me.
But that wasn't all she had planned. Unbeknownst to me, she had also arranged for us to go to Teatro Zinzanni with friends of ours. The best way to describe Teatro Zinzanni is that it's a dinner-theatre with a heavy dose of audience participation (or, in my case molestation, but more about that later) and some impressive Cirque du Soleil-styled acrobatics. I had always wanted to check it out, but for one reason (the cost) or another (didn't want to go alone) we never did. In a word, it was fantastic and I'm really glad we went.
For starters, the food was fantastic. I'm told famed Seattle chef Tom Douglas designed the menu and every piece of the five-course meal was fantastic. Perfect serving size, excellent choice of paired wines and beers, and great service. You can see last night's menu right here -- I had the tuna. So the food was great, but I really need to back up and describe the setting. We're in a circular dining room with a luxurious high-brow "circus" feel to it. I know that makes no sense, but if you imagine velvet instead of vinyl and feather boas and masks instead of bulbous noses and suspenders, you should get the gist. The performance took place right in the center of the dining room floor, within feet of the tables and everyone is seated in a circle around the room so that they're facing the center.
Me, Kristin, Katrina, and AllanOur table was on one of the aisles, right near one of the ramps leading "backstage". I was seated on the end which meant that I was continuously receiving attention from the performers and service staff (performers in their own right, to an extent) as they walked by.
We were there for the show "Quest for a Queendom" which featured a number of comedic performers and acrobatists from around the world and, also quite the Queen from the Seattle area as well. There was a fair bit of audience participation involved as the Queen's flamboyant tranny of a man-servant set out to find a new consort for the Queen. Later in the night, the cross-dressing Manchester decided he would become Queen -- and he chose me to be his new conquest. Earlier in the night he had stopped alongside our table, unbuttoned my shirt and proceed to rub my chest hair. I was a good sport so I guess he figured he'd be able to use me later in the show.
And used me he did.
I was center-stage for at least fifteen minutes, being slowly, deliberately, prodded, poked, and treated like the slab of man-meat Manchester was looking for. And little by little, he transferred his costume to me. First the frilly lace fan. Then the enormous 15-pound wig/hat. Then the enormous ballroom dress. Lastly some makeup. The audience was howling. Kristin was doubled-over laughing as hard as she ever did in her life. Manchester had unbuttoned my shirt, pulled the shoulders down over my arms and paraded me in a circle while rubbing my chest and grabbing my ass. What could I do but play along and have fun? So I gave him seductive glances, I held his hand, and when beckoned near, I ran as daintly as I could without spilling the hat, and leapt into his arms. It went on for a while and I even got to make some jokes that he'd repeat in the microphone. Each one got a huge laugh and I'm pretty sure they were laughing both at me and with me. Hell, I was laughing at me too.
Finally, Manchester and I were given the Queen's blessing and permitted to elope. We drank celebratory glasses of wine, arm in arm with the Queen, then paraded off stage to where a photo was taken of me, the Queen and Manchester. I then got to go back on stage again and take a couple of bows. Upon being instructed to bow towards my wife, Manchester took the opportunity to get in one more solid two-handed squeeze of my ass.
Come for the food, stay for the sodomy.
I'm going to regret this for years, but here's a look at what these heathens did to me.
Queen, Queen, and QueenIn spite of the abuse I had taken, we had a fantastic time and I highly recommend Teatro Zinzanni to anyone who doesn't mind a bit of risque humor. It's definitely not a place that's very kid-friendly and you should dress up a bit for it. But if you have a special occasion coming up, and have plenty of room on your Visa, then get reservations and enjoy. The show was well-choreographed with dinner service and we were in the theatre for 4 full hours of entertainment (absolutely fantastic singing and music by the way) and food. When you factor in the five-course meal and entertainment and the length of time you're there, the $100/pp charge is actually quite a good deal. On the other hand, the photos, wine, beer, and mixed drinks hit our foursome for an additional $240 so consider yourself warned.
Guidebook Giveaway: Dragon Quest IV
Can you believe I actually forgot about a book I wrote earlier this year? It's true. I finished up my work on the strategy guide for Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen back in April, but the game only just released in the past week or two. I thought the box of books on my doortstep were for Tales of Vesperia (still haven't gotten them yet, so if you want a copy, shoot me an email) but lo and behold, they were for this Nintendo DS remake of one of the more beloved old-school RPGs to come along.
Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen is a remake of Playstation remake of a Super Nintendo game and although you might think the gameplay couldn't possibly age well, you'd be mistaken. This is probably the only genre that doesn't turn to vinegar with time. The gameplay is classic Japanese-style 2D role-playing, but unlike most games in the genre, this one is almost 5 stories in one. Each of the first four chapters chronicle a few days in the life of completely separate people, living on different continents. It's not until the fifth and final chapter when you take control of the main Hero/Heroine and begin to thread the other characters into your quest to, say it together with me, save the world from forces of evil. Naturally.
It's actually a really good game with plenty of side-quests and mini-games to go along with the main story. If you have a Nintendo DS and missed out on this game from days gone by, then I definitely recommend picking it up. Sure, I'm a bit biased, but having never played any of these old-school games back when I was in school, I'm glad to have gotten the opportunity now.
I'll be giving away four signed copies of the guidebook to the first people to email me an interesting anecdote about old-school gaming. I'll post any particularly interesting messages here.
Pure
As much as I enjoy simulation-quality racing games, I can't help but think that software like Pure is precisely what the medium of videogames was designed for. Racing exotic supercars around real-world race tracks is all fine and good, but you can see others do it for real on television. Heck, with the right amount of money (and insurance) you can do it yourself with little training. And it would be incredible. But if not for videogames, how would we ever know what it might be like to drive an ATV off a cliff hundreds of feet in the air, over a river, while performing a backflip? It's this blending of unabashed absurdity with extremely realistic environments that, in my opinion, makes Pure something not only rare, but also very special.
Pure is certainly not a perfect game, and it can no doubt be frustrating to play, but try as I might to nitpick at it, I only need launch my machine off the first towering vista before a smile creeps across my face. The ground disappears, a bird flies by, and the landing area appears to be a quarter of a mile away. My rider is hanging onto the rear fenders, stretched out like superman behind the ATV. It's surreal. I laugh out loud at the insanity while being mesmerized at the actual quality of what it is I'm seeing. The vertigo-inducing heights to which you can leap with your ATV are clearly the hook of the game and it's obvious that Black Rock, the developer behind Pure, put a massive amount of resources into making it as jaw-dropping a moment as they could. There are a dozen ways in which these massive leaps of death could have proven lame or gimmicky, but Black Rock avoided every pitfall. The result is a highly polished collection of seconds that yield a sensation few other games, if any, can even approach.
The game isn't all about the jumps though. Each of the courses has a number of braided paths snaking through it and battling it out in the mud against the 16 other racers on this tight and twisty courses is indeed an enjoyable experience. The complexity and length of the tracks is something I wasn't quite prepared for. Each course has several shortcuts -- typically narrower, exposed, paths with a high degree of risk -- that you can use to shave tens of seconds off your lap times and finding these is half the challenge. There are dozens of jumps of varying shapes and sizes in each course and perhaps the game's biggest challenge to the racer is to not try and bust a huge air off every little whoop-de-doo.
I mentioned that I didn't feel the game was perfect and so I should mention a few of the gripes i have. For starters, the structure of the single player "World Tour" is ripped straight from the days of the Playstation One. It's nothing but a list of events. A checklist if you will. Place high enough in one group of events to unlock the next set of events. There is no freedom, no sense of being involved in any meaningful career, and certainly nothing that has you feel like you're on a tour. It's a checklist plain and simple... and dated.
Another grievance I have is with the stated customization. The game is marketed as having over a hundred thousand different customizations you can perform to build your ATV. And this is true. There are literally dozens of parts that you have to select from ranging from handlebars to seats to fenders to engines and grips. There are two problems with the way the game handles this though. Although it's nice that you can quick-pick a "race" or "trick" part from each category to build your ATV that much faster, you unlock new parts by completing events, seemingly at random and most of the parts are purely cosmetic and offer no performance enhancement. Othertimes, you're given a choice of upgrading one of three parts on your current ATV. Personally, I would have preferred a system that awards prize money and allows you to buy new parts to your choosing. Not only can you not "quick-add" the new upgraded part to your bike in the reward screen (you have to go back to the ATV build screen) but you have no idea how many subsequent upgrades may come available, nor when, thus making your selection rather arbitrary. Each bike has ratings for top speed, acceleration, handling, boost, and trick ability and acquiring parts to make a bike specific to racing or tricking is important. Unfortunately, I feel like earning new parts is akin to reaching into a grab-bag. Fortunately, you can scrap and build new ATVs as often as you like.
So the event structure and customization options need tweaking, but really, other than a lackluster soundtrack, there is nothing else I can even think of criticizing this game for. The variety and complexity of the courses, the trick system, and the three event types (full race, sprint, and freestyle mode) make this a really enjoyable game and definitely one of the best racing games I've played this year. In fact, I can't ever recall playing anything like this at all. Pure takes the off-road racing of Sega Rally Revo, stretches out the courses and adds the verticality and arsenal of tricks not seen since snowboarding games like SSX. And the graphics, my oh my, does this game look gorgeous.
Now if only they could get the damn Leaderboards to stop crashing the console.
We're told a patch is on the way...
For a second opinion, check out this video review from the folks at Gametrailers.com
Pure is certainly not a perfect game, and it can no doubt be frustrating to play, but try as I might to nitpick at it, I only need launch my machine off the first towering vista before a smile creeps across my face. The ground disappears, a bird flies by, and the landing area appears to be a quarter of a mile away. My rider is hanging onto the rear fenders, stretched out like superman behind the ATV. It's surreal. I laugh out loud at the insanity while being mesmerized at the actual quality of what it is I'm seeing. The vertigo-inducing heights to which you can leap with your ATV are clearly the hook of the game and it's obvious that Black Rock, the developer behind Pure, put a massive amount of resources into making it as jaw-dropping a moment as they could. There are a dozen ways in which these massive leaps of death could have proven lame or gimmicky, but Black Rock avoided every pitfall. The result is a highly polished collection of seconds that yield a sensation few other games, if any, can even approach.
The game isn't all about the jumps though. Each of the courses has a number of braided paths snaking through it and battling it out in the mud against the 16 other racers on this tight and twisty courses is indeed an enjoyable experience. The complexity and length of the tracks is something I wasn't quite prepared for. Each course has several shortcuts -- typically narrower, exposed, paths with a high degree of risk -- that you can use to shave tens of seconds off your lap times and finding these is half the challenge. There are dozens of jumps of varying shapes and sizes in each course and perhaps the game's biggest challenge to the racer is to not try and bust a huge air off every little whoop-de-doo.
I mentioned that I didn't feel the game was perfect and so I should mention a few of the gripes i have. For starters, the structure of the single player "World Tour" is ripped straight from the days of the Playstation One. It's nothing but a list of events. A checklist if you will. Place high enough in one group of events to unlock the next set of events. There is no freedom, no sense of being involved in any meaningful career, and certainly nothing that has you feel like you're on a tour. It's a checklist plain and simple... and dated.
Another grievance I have is with the stated customization. The game is marketed as having over a hundred thousand different customizations you can perform to build your ATV. And this is true. There are literally dozens of parts that you have to select from ranging from handlebars to seats to fenders to engines and grips. There are two problems with the way the game handles this though. Although it's nice that you can quick-pick a "race" or "trick" part from each category to build your ATV that much faster, you unlock new parts by completing events, seemingly at random and most of the parts are purely cosmetic and offer no performance enhancement. Othertimes, you're given a choice of upgrading one of three parts on your current ATV. Personally, I would have preferred a system that awards prize money and allows you to buy new parts to your choosing. Not only can you not "quick-add" the new upgraded part to your bike in the reward screen (you have to go back to the ATV build screen) but you have no idea how many subsequent upgrades may come available, nor when, thus making your selection rather arbitrary. Each bike has ratings for top speed, acceleration, handling, boost, and trick ability and acquiring parts to make a bike specific to racing or tricking is important. Unfortunately, I feel like earning new parts is akin to reaching into a grab-bag. Fortunately, you can scrap and build new ATVs as often as you like.
So the event structure and customization options need tweaking, but really, other than a lackluster soundtrack, there is nothing else I can even think of criticizing this game for. The variety and complexity of the courses, the trick system, and the three event types (full race, sprint, and freestyle mode) make this a really enjoyable game and definitely one of the best racing games I've played this year. In fact, I can't ever recall playing anything like this at all. Pure takes the off-road racing of Sega Rally Revo, stretches out the courses and adds the verticality and arsenal of tricks not seen since snowboarding games like SSX. And the graphics, my oh my, does this game look gorgeous.
Now if only they could get the damn Leaderboards to stop crashing the console.
We're told a patch is on the way...
For a second opinion, check out this video review from the folks at Gametrailers.com
Time with the PS3... Finally
Well I finally have some hands-on experience with a PS3 outside of a conference/expo environment and I have to say that there is now officially, zero chance of me ever buying one. In fact my exact words to Kristin were, "Please kick me in the head if you ever catch me buying a PS3."
This isn't to say that the machine doesn't have a lot of great features, it does do myriad things and probably does most of them pretty well. And aside from being dust-magnet black, the console is dead-sexy to look at. One of the finest pieces of aesthetic tech design I've ever seen. It's almost Apple-esque in its sense of style (aside from the aforementioned dust visibility issue that plagued the PS2) but also far more masculine a product than Apple would ever dare create.
So no, the design and capability isn't what I find so repulsive. What has me swearing off the PS3 for good is its controller and its interface. First the controller. While it is nice to have a controller in hand with a directional pad that actually feels good and works the way it should (Microsoft has yet to figure this out, even though Nintendo, Sony, and Sega seemed to have over a decade ago), the Thumbsticks feel just like they always have -- way too flimsy, and too close together. I've always hated the way they felt in my hand and now, after two years of pure X360 usage, I can't go back. Then there is the new R2 and L2 Buttons that aren't triggers, yet aren't exactly buttons either. Instead, they're some sort of half-breed that feels excruciatingly unresponsive, spongy, and has the added side-effect of your fingers falling off when used in a hurry. The controller does feel much more solid than the Dualshock 2 that came with the PS2, so it at least has that going for it. I have snapped Dualshock 2's in my hands out of frustration on several occasions, and while the Dualshock 3 isn't as solid as an X360 controller, it does feel quite a bit stiffer.
But then there's the interface. I used to own a PSP. Other than being painful to hold and having a ridiculous interface, I thought it was a really nifty piece of tech. Well, the PS3 uses that same interface as the PSP, but now it has twice as many options and sub-menus on it. It's such a convoluted mess that it's enough to give a seasoned gamer like me a headache. I can't imagine how a casual consumer would ever feel comfortable with such a chaotic array of options. Sony did throw everything into the PS3 -- including the kitchen sink -- but they left sorting through it all up to you.
Xbox Live is down today because of server maintenance in preparation for the new fall makeover. As great as the Xbox interface was and as fantastically easy as Xbox Live is to maneuver, it had outgrown its initial design and Microsoft is releasing a massive update that redesigns the entire front-end of the interface. For free. To put it rather bluntly, Sony would need about 10 overhauls just to get to where Xbox Live and the Xbox 360 interface is before their fall overhaul.
The PS3's interface is so uninviting that I actually thought it was special to the test system that I have here. I had to go online and check with others and look for screenshots just to see what the retail system's interface was to make sure I wasn't just seeing a rudimentary featureset that wasn't at all indicative of real-world conditions. Turns out, other than an extra option or two buried in a sub-menu, there's really nothing different at all between the test system and the retail version.
And, quite frankly, I find that horrifying.
This isn't to say that the machine doesn't have a lot of great features, it does do myriad things and probably does most of them pretty well. And aside from being dust-magnet black, the console is dead-sexy to look at. One of the finest pieces of aesthetic tech design I've ever seen. It's almost Apple-esque in its sense of style (aside from the aforementioned dust visibility issue that plagued the PS2) but also far more masculine a product than Apple would ever dare create.
So no, the design and capability isn't what I find so repulsive. What has me swearing off the PS3 for good is its controller and its interface. First the controller. While it is nice to have a controller in hand with a directional pad that actually feels good and works the way it should (Microsoft has yet to figure this out, even though Nintendo, Sony, and Sega seemed to have over a decade ago), the Thumbsticks feel just like they always have -- way too flimsy, and too close together. I've always hated the way they felt in my hand and now, after two years of pure X360 usage, I can't go back. Then there is the new R2 and L2 Buttons that aren't triggers, yet aren't exactly buttons either. Instead, they're some sort of half-breed that feels excruciatingly unresponsive, spongy, and has the added side-effect of your fingers falling off when used in a hurry. The controller does feel much more solid than the Dualshock 2 that came with the PS2, so it at least has that going for it. I have snapped Dualshock 2's in my hands out of frustration on several occasions, and while the Dualshock 3 isn't as solid as an X360 controller, it does feel quite a bit stiffer.
But then there's the interface. I used to own a PSP. Other than being painful to hold and having a ridiculous interface, I thought it was a really nifty piece of tech. Well, the PS3 uses that same interface as the PSP, but now it has twice as many options and sub-menus on it. It's such a convoluted mess that it's enough to give a seasoned gamer like me a headache. I can't imagine how a casual consumer would ever feel comfortable with such a chaotic array of options. Sony did throw everything into the PS3 -- including the kitchen sink -- but they left sorting through it all up to you.
Xbox Live is down today because of server maintenance in preparation for the new fall makeover. As great as the Xbox interface was and as fantastically easy as Xbox Live is to maneuver, it had outgrown its initial design and Microsoft is releasing a massive update that redesigns the entire front-end of the interface. For free. To put it rather bluntly, Sony would need about 10 overhauls just to get to where Xbox Live and the Xbox 360 interface is before their fall overhaul.
The PS3's interface is so uninviting that I actually thought it was special to the test system that I have here. I had to go online and check with others and look for screenshots just to see what the retail system's interface was to make sure I wasn't just seeing a rudimentary featureset that wasn't at all indicative of real-world conditions. Turns out, other than an extra option or two buried in a sub-menu, there's really nothing different at all between the test system and the retail version.
And, quite frankly, I find that horrifying.
At Least We're Not in North Korea
Ugh, I get so mad sometimes...
Anyway, after taking a deep breath or two (and placing hundreds of callouts on 36 maps), I alt-tabbed back to the 'net and came across a posting on Kotaku to a collection of photos from a North Korean arcade.
There are a million and one reasons to pity the poor, oppressed, average citizens of North Korea, but these photos really go a long way to showing you just how trapped-in-time that country really is.
Take a look at the rare entertainment arcade in Pyongyang right here.
Anyway, after taking a deep breath or two (and placing hundreds of callouts on 36 maps), I alt-tabbed back to the 'net and came across a posting on Kotaku to a collection of photos from a North Korean arcade.
There are a million and one reasons to pity the poor, oppressed, average citizens of North Korea, but these photos really go a long way to showing you just how trapped-in-time that country really is.
Take a look at the rare entertainment arcade in Pyongyang right here.
Father Damien to be a Saint
Back in February of 2007 I made a post about the book I was reading titled The Colony. The book provided the history of the Molokai leprosy colony in Hawaii and was a fascinating, troubling, and informative telling of Hawaii's infamous leper colony and the policies that lead to its creation and ultimately its closure (although several patients still live there to this day). You can read my post about the book here.
Anyway, Father Damien, a priest who went to work at the colony in the late 1800s and lived his life with the patients and took care of them, is about to be proclaimed a saint by the Catholic Church. This will no doubt increase the amount of tourism in the area, something that is very much restricted on Molokai. And for good reason, as the land is considered sacred ground. I'll be honest and admit that I have been interested in visiting Kalaupapa ever since learning of the colony during my first visit to Hawaii in 1996 and the book only piqued my interest further. That said, it is indeed a tricky situation the Hawaiians and the National Park Service find themselves in. Balancing increased tourist demands and the need to protect sacred ground while simultaneously preserving the extreme remoteness of the area.
You can learn about Father Damien, his "miracle" (required for Sainthood), and get in-a-nutshell history of Kalaupapa right here at Yahoo.
Anyway, Father Damien, a priest who went to work at the colony in the late 1800s and lived his life with the patients and took care of them, is about to be proclaimed a saint by the Catholic Church. This will no doubt increase the amount of tourism in the area, something that is very much restricted on Molokai. And for good reason, as the land is considered sacred ground. I'll be honest and admit that I have been interested in visiting Kalaupapa ever since learning of the colony during my first visit to Hawaii in 1996 and the book only piqued my interest further. That said, it is indeed a tricky situation the Hawaiians and the National Park Service find themselves in. Balancing increased tourist demands and the need to protect sacred ground while simultaneously preserving the extreme remoteness of the area.
You can learn about Father Damien, his "miracle" (required for Sainthood), and get in-a-nutshell history of Kalaupapa right here at Yahoo.
Operation Nice
Very cool site my sister just forwarded to me: Operation NICE!
It's essentially a collection of ideas, stories, and videos on how to be a bit nicer to everyone and how, in doing so, you'll make your own life a bit less stressful. Can't argue that.
One of the posts on the site is about a guy in Sydney, Australia who started a "Free Hugs" campaign. Watch the video and have a free smile... and a nice weekend.
Don't you love it when people go out of their way to be nice? Like when someone waits to hold the door for you. Or when a stranger waves you into a line a traffic. Or even when a coworker shoots you a friendly smile along with a "have a nice day." If everyone was a little bit nicer to the folks they encountered each day, perhaps the world would be a more pleasant place. Operation NICE was initiated to remind you that a little NICE goes a long way.
It's essentially a collection of ideas, stories, and videos on how to be a bit nicer to everyone and how, in doing so, you'll make your own life a bit less stressful. Can't argue that.
One of the posts on the site is about a guy in Sydney, Australia who started a "Free Hugs" campaign. Watch the video and have a free smile... and a nice weekend.
Something Sweet
Couldn't help but smile reading this in the paper today.
It's a story about a guy who surprised his wife of 50 years with a restored 48 Plymouth Coupe that is identical to the one they drove on their honeymoon back in 1958.
What can I say? I'm a sucker for happy old-couple stories. Read the full article at Seattle Times right here.
It's a story about a guy who surprised his wife of 50 years with a restored 48 Plymouth Coupe that is identical to the one they drove on their honeymoon back in 1958.
Sure it was the same model, and the same baby-blue color as the one they drove to Coeur d'Alene on Dec. 30, 1958, to get married. There was the same winged emblem painted on it.
Indeed, the more she inspected this car, the more it reminded her of their first car. "Oh my gosh, Max, Bonnie, you've got to see it. It's just like ours! It even has the same name as the car we had when we got married!" she recalls telling her husband and sister after spotting "The Blue Goose" painted in small letters above the gas intake.
Then her son told her to check out the owner, listed on the windshield.
When she saw her own name, she figured her husband had spotted the car before she did, and quickly arranged this little joke for her.
"Then he hands me the title to the car, and it hit me. I started bawling and laughing, and everyone around me started clapping," she said.
What can I say? I'm a sucker for happy old-couple stories. Read the full article at Seattle Times right here.
Outsourced!
Real quick movie recommendation. Kristin and I downloaded Outsourced over XBLA the other night and really enjoyed it. It's about a thirtysomething sales guy for a Seattle company called Northwest Novelty (they sell lots of kitsch) who is forced to go to India to train the people who are taking over for his department. It stars Josh Hamilton (who bears more than a passing resemblance to Dane Cook) as the executive and the beautiful Ayesha Dharker as the inevitably hard-working phone-bank employee for whom Josh's character falls for.
The movie is pretty funny at times, but also as independent films are typically willing to do, doesn't mind spending some time showcasing the opposing viewpoint to a sensitivie topic, in this case showing an Indian's take on outsourcing. I also enjoyed the movie because of the culture shock-value and because it really seemed to showcase India as India, and not what Hollywood wants us to believe it's like. The portions of the movie that strayed more into travel-zine territory seemed far more genuine than in most other movies. Of course, I hadn't been to India yet, but it seemed presented in a natural state.
The characters are all likeable (except for the one who is purposely a jerk) and the setting is fantastic. It's a pretty short movie at just 103 minutes, but it's won a handful of awards including Best Film at the 2007 Seattle Independent Film Festival.
Definitely check it out.
The movie is pretty funny at times, but also as independent films are typically willing to do, doesn't mind spending some time showcasing the opposing viewpoint to a sensitivie topic, in this case showing an Indian's take on outsourcing. I also enjoyed the movie because of the culture shock-value and because it really seemed to showcase India as India, and not what Hollywood wants us to believe it's like. The portions of the movie that strayed more into travel-zine territory seemed far more genuine than in most other movies. Of course, I hadn't been to India yet, but it seemed presented in a natural state.
The characters are all likeable (except for the one who is purposely a jerk) and the setting is fantastic. It's a pretty short movie at just 103 minutes, but it's won a handful of awards including Best Film at the 2007 Seattle Independent Film Festival.
Definitely check it out.
A Thousand Splendid Suns
We covered 2,849 miles of roadway during out Colorado roadtrip last month and I have to say that Khaled Hosseini's follow-up to The Kite Runner made the time in the car far more enjoyable than it would have otherwise been. Thank goodness for iTunes audiobooks!
As someone with aspirations to write a novel in the future, I can appreciate the challenge of crafting engaging dialogue. Some books pull it off and others stumble along the way with a phoniness that oozes out of every character's mouth, but never have I read a book where the characters were so different from myself, yet so identifiable and believable. How Hosseini could write an entire book not only about women, but about Afhgan women, and make it so easy for a thirtysomething guy from the United States to relate to is beyond my comprehension. But he did. And when I say relate to I mean it.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is ultimately about women growing up in Afghanistan in the 1970's with dreams and hopes and watching their lives transformed first by the Russian invasion, then by the rise of the Taliban. It's a tale of horrendous suffering, of the horrors of arranged marriages, and abuses that fortunately do not happen in our society. But it's also about love, devotion, and the hope that things can improve when logic and incoming rockets tell you otherwise. Sure, A Thousand Splendid Suns is as much a history lesson about Afghanistan as it is a drama about young women coming to terms with their marriage to a ruthless brute, but it's also more.
What really struck me when listening to this book was not how different our cultures are from one another, but rather how many similarities we share. I suspect many chidren of divorced parents will find reflections of their own youth in the early portion of the book. Not only when it describes the pang of waiting for a father to come and visit each week (and hoping he's on time), but also when the issue of going to live with him and his other family arises. The pain it causes to the mother is palpable, but pales in comparison to the disappointment of seeing an otherwise respectable man bend to the will of his other wives and ignore his child. And the repercussions are ones I can't help but say I feared would bode all too true in my own life at times. Thirty thousand miles and decades in time separate me from this character, yet it hit very close to home.
Of course, that's where the similarities between an American life and that of these characters end. Sure, they want the same freedom, education, and fortune that are universal to humankind as I imagine they are, but the predicament the women of the book find themselves in limits this. We have all heard about the women's rights violations imposed by the Taliban in Afghanistan, yet Hosseini paints such a vivid picture, that it can at times be hard to even listen to. Imagine that: a life so oppressed others can't even bear to hear it described?
There is good with the bad though, thankfully, and as with all good stories this one ends with a promise of better days. And in this case, a promise made possible by our country's reaction to the attacks on 9/11. And therein lies what is probably the unintentional ethos of the book, to show that good can be found in every wretched situation we humans can inflict upon one another. For as horrific and unconscienable the attacks on 9/11 were, our war against the Taliban in Afghanistan has brought hope to many others. It doesn't bring Americans back from the dead and it cost our country deeply, but something good did ultimately come out of it for the real-life Mariams and Lailas of Afghanistan. It's little comfort to those who lost a loved-one in the attacks, sure, but it exists.
Hosseini is clearly one of the best writers of this generation and I highly recommend A Thousand Splendid Suns to anyone.
As someone with aspirations to write a novel in the future, I can appreciate the challenge of crafting engaging dialogue. Some books pull it off and others stumble along the way with a phoniness that oozes out of every character's mouth, but never have I read a book where the characters were so different from myself, yet so identifiable and believable. How Hosseini could write an entire book not only about women, but about Afhgan women, and make it so easy for a thirtysomething guy from the United States to relate to is beyond my comprehension. But he did. And when I say relate to I mean it.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is ultimately about women growing up in Afghanistan in the 1970's with dreams and hopes and watching their lives transformed first by the Russian invasion, then by the rise of the Taliban. It's a tale of horrendous suffering, of the horrors of arranged marriages, and abuses that fortunately do not happen in our society. But it's also about love, devotion, and the hope that things can improve when logic and incoming rockets tell you otherwise. Sure, A Thousand Splendid Suns is as much a history lesson about Afghanistan as it is a drama about young women coming to terms with their marriage to a ruthless brute, but it's also more.
What really struck me when listening to this book was not how different our cultures are from one another, but rather how many similarities we share. I suspect many chidren of divorced parents will find reflections of their own youth in the early portion of the book. Not only when it describes the pang of waiting for a father to come and visit each week (and hoping he's on time), but also when the issue of going to live with him and his other family arises. The pain it causes to the mother is palpable, but pales in comparison to the disappointment of seeing an otherwise respectable man bend to the will of his other wives and ignore his child. And the repercussions are ones I can't help but say I feared would bode all too true in my own life at times. Thirty thousand miles and decades in time separate me from this character, yet it hit very close to home.
Of course, that's where the similarities between an American life and that of these characters end. Sure, they want the same freedom, education, and fortune that are universal to humankind as I imagine they are, but the predicament the women of the book find themselves in limits this. We have all heard about the women's rights violations imposed by the Taliban in Afghanistan, yet Hosseini paints such a vivid picture, that it can at times be hard to even listen to. Imagine that: a life so oppressed others can't even bear to hear it described?
There is good with the bad though, thankfully, and as with all good stories this one ends with a promise of better days. And in this case, a promise made possible by our country's reaction to the attacks on 9/11. And therein lies what is probably the unintentional ethos of the book, to show that good can be found in every wretched situation we humans can inflict upon one another. For as horrific and unconscienable the attacks on 9/11 were, our war against the Taliban in Afghanistan has brought hope to many others. It doesn't bring Americans back from the dead and it cost our country deeply, but something good did ultimately come out of it for the real-life Mariams and Lailas of Afghanistan. It's little comfort to those who lost a loved-one in the attacks, sure, but it exists.
Hosseini is clearly one of the best writers of this generation and I highly recommend A Thousand Splendid Suns to anyone.
Fear the Air Attack
I really, really wish I was making this up.
Allow me to introduce the starting wide receivers for the Seahawks game against the 49ers this weekend:
Courtney Taylor - 5 receptions in 2007.
Billy McMullen - 45 receptions in 2003 - 2006.
Samie Parker - 110 receptions in 2004 - 2007.
Logan Payne - 0 receptions in the NFL.
They are replacing the following due to injuries.
Deion Branch - 315 receptions in 2002 - 2007, including Super Bowl MVP in 2004.
Bobby Engram - 598 receptions in 1996 - 2007.
Nate Burleson - 195 receptions in 2003 - 2007.
Ben Obomanu - 12 receptions in 2007.
Nate and Ben are gone for the year, and Bobby won't be back till October. We can only hope that Deion can get back on the field in the next two to three weeks.
Allow me to introduce the starting wide receivers for the Seahawks game against the 49ers this weekend:
Courtney Taylor - 5 receptions in 2007.
Billy McMullen - 45 receptions in 2003 - 2006.
Samie Parker - 110 receptions in 2004 - 2007.
Logan Payne - 0 receptions in the NFL.
They are replacing the following due to injuries.
Deion Branch - 315 receptions in 2002 - 2007, including Super Bowl MVP in 2004.
Bobby Engram - 598 receptions in 1996 - 2007.
Nate Burleson - 195 receptions in 2003 - 2007.
Ben Obomanu - 12 receptions in 2007.
Nate and Ben are gone for the year, and Bobby won't be back till October. We can only hope that Deion can get back on the field in the next two to three weeks.
The Leg Thing...
The leg thing had me worried. I'll be honest and say that my first reaction was that I was having a stroke. I know, pretty farfetched for a guy who is only 32, but not impossible. Especially when you factor in the headaches.
I was actually talking with another strategy guide author the other day and mentioned this leg pain and the headaches to him and what he told me confirmed my recent decision to impose more down-time on myself, regardless of the pressure to work round the clock.
He was working ridiculous hours in attempt to meet another nearly-impossible deadline (sound familliar?) when suddenly his arm went numb. Then his leg. Then his other arm and leg, followed by his chest. He was obviously very concerned. He did some searching online for answers, went and got bloodwork done and had a physical and everything appeared to be normal. Except for the fact that the symptoms pointed to anything and everything ranging from stress to Multiple Sclerosis. He tells me he eventually went to a neurologist to have these "body migraines" looked into a bit further. Fortunately, it's very likely that the problem is stress. Way too many hours in front of a computer, way too much stress, way too weird of a sleeping pattern.
As for me, I don't know what caused the leg pain the other night. WebMD suggests it was likely a pinched nerve, but the simultaneous arrival of the headaches and my fellow author's tale tells me it could have been a very mild case of body migraine. I don't know.
Regardless, I am making a serious effort to take more time away from the desk. In fact, I may even ease back on my blogging too. I never minded the ridiculous hours I work when on a project because it always balances out with complete downtime. I've often joked that I either work 80-100 hours a week or 0. There's no way to completely smooth that out to a nice 40 hour per week average (and frankly I wouldn't want to) but I have to make an effort to work less during those crunch times. Kristin and I are going to try and ensure we take two nights a week off from work & schoolwork and spend at least one day on the weekend not working. No matter how busy we get. We just need the downtime for health's sake apparently.
Neither of us are workaholics by any stretch, but crunch happens. It's unavoidable. I just got to find a way to not let it get out of hand.
I was actually talking with another strategy guide author the other day and mentioned this leg pain and the headaches to him and what he told me confirmed my recent decision to impose more down-time on myself, regardless of the pressure to work round the clock.
He was working ridiculous hours in attempt to meet another nearly-impossible deadline (sound familliar?) when suddenly his arm went numb. Then his leg. Then his other arm and leg, followed by his chest. He was obviously very concerned. He did some searching online for answers, went and got bloodwork done and had a physical and everything appeared to be normal. Except for the fact that the symptoms pointed to anything and everything ranging from stress to Multiple Sclerosis. He tells me he eventually went to a neurologist to have these "body migraines" looked into a bit further. Fortunately, it's very likely that the problem is stress. Way too many hours in front of a computer, way too much stress, way too weird of a sleeping pattern.
As for me, I don't know what caused the leg pain the other night. WebMD suggests it was likely a pinched nerve, but the simultaneous arrival of the headaches and my fellow author's tale tells me it could have been a very mild case of body migraine. I don't know.
Regardless, I am making a serious effort to take more time away from the desk. In fact, I may even ease back on my blogging too. I never minded the ridiculous hours I work when on a project because it always balances out with complete downtime. I've often joked that I either work 80-100 hours a week or 0. There's no way to completely smooth that out to a nice 40 hour per week average (and frankly I wouldn't want to) but I have to make an effort to work less during those crunch times. Kristin and I are going to try and ensure we take two nights a week off from work & schoolwork and spend at least one day on the weekend not working. No matter how busy we get. We just need the downtime for health's sake apparently.
Neither of us are workaholics by any stretch, but crunch happens. It's unavoidable. I just got to find a way to not let it get out of hand.
The Eyes Have It
I started suffering from very frequent headaches this weekend, something I've only previously experienced when I was dehydrated or jonesing for a caffeine fix. These weren't normal everyday headaches either. The pain was coming from my eyebrows and were triggered by shifting my gaze. Bright lights were very painful, changing focus from near to far induced pain, and looking up, down or to the sides hurt like hell.
To make matters worse, my leg started going numb Saturday night while I sat and worked. I couldn't sit in my chair due to pain spreading through my right femur. It originated up near the pelvis and shot down through my leg to my knee. Sunday I laid on the couch all day, suffering from the headaches and periodic leg numbness. A couple of Aleve sent the pain into hibernation, but it was clear something wasn't right. Stress? A pinched nerve? Tired eyes? I toned down the brightness on my monitors, switched out my office chair, but it was only the Aleve that seemed to do anything.
I just got back from my first eye exam in at least 12 years. As expected, I ended up getting a prescription for computer glasses. My overall vision is good and I don't have any eye disease. I'm a little bit burry when it comes to distant viewing -- a slow deterioration that I've noticed over the years when in the car with Kristin -- so the doctor is giving me a mild prescription to help relax my eyes and just make it easier to handle the long hours I put in in front of the computer.
I can't say I particularly enjoyed trying on different glasses. I never thought I'd see the day. And while I'm almost always wearing sunglasses (light sensitivity and for protection while mountain biking), there is something really odd about trying on glasses with clear lenses. I at once thought I looked quite a bit older. I didn't much care for it.
Insurance picked up the exam and the $200 eye hardware credit is enough to cover the lenses (barely, thanks to the anti-glare coating), but the frame selection was super pricey. I had no idea eyeglass frames were so expensive! I should have them in 7-10 days. I just hope the headaches are minor enough so I could finish this book I'm working on in the meantime.
To make matters worse, my leg started going numb Saturday night while I sat and worked. I couldn't sit in my chair due to pain spreading through my right femur. It originated up near the pelvis and shot down through my leg to my knee. Sunday I laid on the couch all day, suffering from the headaches and periodic leg numbness. A couple of Aleve sent the pain into hibernation, but it was clear something wasn't right. Stress? A pinched nerve? Tired eyes? I toned down the brightness on my monitors, switched out my office chair, but it was only the Aleve that seemed to do anything.
I just got back from my first eye exam in at least 12 years. As expected, I ended up getting a prescription for computer glasses. My overall vision is good and I don't have any eye disease. I'm a little bit burry when it comes to distant viewing -- a slow deterioration that I've noticed over the years when in the car with Kristin -- so the doctor is giving me a mild prescription to help relax my eyes and just make it easier to handle the long hours I put in in front of the computer.
I can't say I particularly enjoyed trying on different glasses. I never thought I'd see the day. And while I'm almost always wearing sunglasses (light sensitivity and for protection while mountain biking), there is something really odd about trying on glasses with clear lenses. I at once thought I looked quite a bit older. I didn't much care for it.
Insurance picked up the exam and the $200 eye hardware credit is enough to cover the lenses (barely, thanks to the anti-glare coating), but the frame selection was super pricey. I had no idea eyeglass frames were so expensive! I should have them in 7-10 days. I just hope the headaches are minor enough so I could finish this book I'm working on in the meantime.
Leadville: Official Numbers
I finally got around to looking at the official results for the Leadville 100. Here's how it breaks down:
Official Starters: 890
Finishers < 9hrs: 114 (12.8%)
Finishers 9 to 12 hrs: 538 (60.4%)
Unofficial Finishers 12 to 13 hrs: 60 (6.7%)
Did Not Finish: 178 (20.0%)
By all accounts from those who would know, this year's race had the best conditions and was one of the fastest ever. It also had a much higher finishing percentage than normal. I believe the 2007 race had a finishing percentage of only 65%, much lower than this year's 80% (including those of us in the 12 to 13 hour bracket).
And I could be wrong, but I believe far fewer than 100 racers finished in under 9 hours last year.
I was the fifth person to come across the line after the 12-hour gunshot blast.
---
In other news, there was a lot of speculation about whether or not Lance would come back and race Leadville next year. That question was likely laid to rest today when he followed in the long line of athletes who come out of retirement shortly after realizing they have nothing else to do. That's right, Lance says he's entering the 2009 Tour de France. So, in all likelihood, Lance will not be racing Leadville. But if he does (highly unlikely), he's going to be more than fit enough to win after getting back into TDF shape.
No word on what team he's going to race with (my guess is Columbia or a Euro team... or Rock) but I'll still be pulling for Garmin Chipotle. After all, they're the tastiest! And speaking of Garmin Chipotle, I really hope they don't sign Lance. Let those boys who did the team so proud this year have their shot next year.
Official Starters: 890
Finishers < 9hrs: 114 (12.8%)
Finishers 9 to 12 hrs: 538 (60.4%)
Unofficial Finishers 12 to 13 hrs: 60 (6.7%)
Did Not Finish: 178 (20.0%)
By all accounts from those who would know, this year's race had the best conditions and was one of the fastest ever. It also had a much higher finishing percentage than normal. I believe the 2007 race had a finishing percentage of only 65%, much lower than this year's 80% (including those of us in the 12 to 13 hour bracket).
And I could be wrong, but I believe far fewer than 100 racers finished in under 9 hours last year.
I was the fifth person to come across the line after the 12-hour gunshot blast.
---
In other news, there was a lot of speculation about whether or not Lance would come back and race Leadville next year. That question was likely laid to rest today when he followed in the long line of athletes who come out of retirement shortly after realizing they have nothing else to do. That's right, Lance says he's entering the 2009 Tour de France. So, in all likelihood, Lance will not be racing Leadville. But if he does (highly unlikely), he's going to be more than fit enough to win after getting back into TDF shape.
No word on what team he's going to race with (my guess is Columbia or a Euro team... or Rock) but I'll still be pulling for Garmin Chipotle. After all, they're the tastiest! And speaking of Garmin Chipotle, I really hope they don't sign Lance. Let those boys who did the team so proud this year have their shot next year.
Pure-ly Spectactular
Okay, I admit that I've only gotten to play the demo and my experience with the game is limited, but the new ATV racing game Pure is absolutely fantastic. When I first viewed a trailer for this game earlier in the summer, my thoughts could be summed up as follows, Oh great, just what we need. Disney Interactive is putting out another moto-x trick game. Yawn.
Then when I was working on-site last month a certain well-known game designer had said he got to play Pure at a gaming event in Toronto. He had nothing but praise for the game. I believe "F'ing awesome" were his exact words.
So I downloaded the demo the other day and was immediately blown away, not just by the graphics which were impressive, but by the overall quality of the demo and the natural ease at which the game played. The game is indeed about racing four-wheelers (quads or ATVs or whatever other coloquial term you have for them) through mountainous terrain, but the game's hook is that the jumps allow you to literally fly hundreds of feet in the air and, thanks to the magic of whatever graphics engine they're using, you really do get a sense of vertigo. There is an intuitive trick system that features 70 different tricks. The races have 16 racers in them (single player career and online multiplayer) and the quads are all customizable with different parts and settings, supposedly allowing 100,000 different set-ups.
But games like this always rest on their ability to provide a fun diversion while offering a difficulty that balances challenge with frustration. I've been playing a lot of Sega Rally Revo over the past few months and that game goes too far into the realm of frustration for me to really recommend it to anyone other than racing-game masochists. There's no telling just yet if Pure will get the difficulty curve handled -- the demo race felt about perfect, if not a hair or two on the easy side -- but the addition of 16-player multiplayer makes this a must-buy for me regardless.
This game was so off my radar a month ago, I would have never given it a glance in the store. But now? September 16th can't get here fast enough.
(actually, yes it can since I have a deadline on the 15th)
Then when I was working on-site last month a certain well-known game designer had said he got to play Pure at a gaming event in Toronto. He had nothing but praise for the game. I believe "F'ing awesome" were his exact words.
So I downloaded the demo the other day and was immediately blown away, not just by the graphics which were impressive, but by the overall quality of the demo and the natural ease at which the game played. The game is indeed about racing four-wheelers (quads or ATVs or whatever other coloquial term you have for them) through mountainous terrain, but the game's hook is that the jumps allow you to literally fly hundreds of feet in the air and, thanks to the magic of whatever graphics engine they're using, you really do get a sense of vertigo. There is an intuitive trick system that features 70 different tricks. The races have 16 racers in them (single player career and online multiplayer) and the quads are all customizable with different parts and settings, supposedly allowing 100,000 different set-ups.
But games like this always rest on their ability to provide a fun diversion while offering a difficulty that balances challenge with frustration. I've been playing a lot of Sega Rally Revo over the past few months and that game goes too far into the realm of frustration for me to really recommend it to anyone other than racing-game masochists. There's no telling just yet if Pure will get the difficulty curve handled -- the demo race felt about perfect, if not a hair or two on the easy side -- but the addition of 16-player multiplayer makes this a must-buy for me regardless.
This game was so off my radar a month ago, I would have never given it a glance in the store. But now? September 16th can't get here fast enough.
(actually, yes it can since I have a deadline on the 15th)
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