We had our BBQ on Sunday. We spent the morning running around getting ready, and my brother came up right before it started. It had a pretty good turn out, probably about 25-30 people came by at one time or another.
I believe I cooked 25-30 hot dogs, 12 hamburgers, 4 turkey burgers and 10-12 veggie burgers. 8 of those hot dogs kind of don't count though, because Jesse and Chris C had a hot dog eating contest.
It rained a couple times throughout the day, so we moved in and out a couple times. We busted a Pinata.
We ate tons of desserts and finished the night off with tons of Rock Band.
Right away, Jesse broke our kick pedal but some quick thinking fixed that right up. Whew.
I was exhausted by the end of the night.
In the morning, Jesse, Chris C, my brother and I went to the golf course to hit some balls on the driving range. I was pretty rusty, but was able to hit pretty consistently by the end...
I'm at the coffee house with Francesca, Lindsay and Adam now, but I kind of want to go home and sleep.
We've been cleaning and organizing a lot the past week. This weekend we had our first real gathering since we remodeled, and there was a lot of figure out and put in place.
On Friday I got off work at 4 or so an went straight to the rental place near our house. I picked up a moving dolly and a chainsaw. Our lawn mower was also broken, and Lindsay had picked it up from the repair shop earlier that day. So when I got home, I went nuts.
First I mowed the front and back lawn. Then I took out the chainsaw and cut down the the bunch of trees going to the side out our house. Then I just walked the perimeter and cut down anything else that looked like it needed cutting.
I ended up with A LOT of stuff cut down, so I spent the next couple hours cutting it into smaller chunks and moving it to the back alley.
After that I moved our old fridge (which, until this point, had been in the living room) out to the garage. And I got one nasty bruise doing so. It's huge, and it hurts even when I touch the opposite side of my arm...
Once all that was finished, it was about 9 PM. Francesca was over helping Lindsay clean so we all went out to Sakura. Adam joined us and I enjoyed some sushi while covered in sawdust and dirt.
On the way home, we stopped at Cub Foods to get some last minute BBQ supplies before the Saturday rush. We picked out a bunch of crap and got in line. There was only 1 cashier and a we were about 9th in line. Quickly, there was a line to the back of the store, and a whole bunch of irate, questionably stable people. It was a nightmare. People can be so confrontational for no reason.
Afterward, Lindsay and I were talking about what we wanted to do with the house. We decided it might be nice to move the some rooms around and change things up a bit. It was 12 or 1 AM, but we just decided to go for it right then. We moved the living room area into the front room, and changed the old living room into a library/study area.
We got to a good stopping point at about 4 AM. I had to be up to return the chainsaw and dolly at 8 AM. Oops. I dragged myself out of bed and returned the crap and went straight back to bed.
When we finally did get up, Lindsay and I went to Best Buy and I picked up a new, 46" Sharp Aquos HD TV for a song since it was on clearance. It's very nice. And big. I think any bigger and it would be too big for our house.
Then we went to Ikea and looked at couches and chairs but bought nothing. The rest of the day was spent cleaning, organizing and getting ready for the BBQ. Jesse helped once he showed up, and then we went for some Hot Dogs and played Rock Band a bunch.
I did a bit of spring cleaning and added a ton of games to Goozex. Within minutes, I had a ton of requests. So today I mailed off the following games, with an explanation of why I don't feel I need to keep it forever. Just for fun.
Bionic Commando- I believe I had Ryan buy this for me for 5 or 8 bucks during one of Gamefly's crazy sales. I was curious about it and loved Bionic Commando: Rearmed. This is not that game. It took me months to get around to even popping it in, and when I did, I only played the first two levels and I'd seen enough.
Bioshock 2- I was hesitant to buy this game in the first place but did thanks to my undying love of the first Bioshock. I didn't know if I wanted to return to Rapture and, as expected, I found the game felt like a been-there, done-that grind. I did end up enjoying my overall experience and the story became interesting near the end, but it never blew my mind like Bioshock did. I guess I never made a personal connection with the game. If I was going to go back and play a Bioshock, it would be the original.
Call of Duty World At War- I waited a long time to buy this game. I feel like it's unfair to just blatantly accept the 'Infinity Ward makes good COD games, Treyarch makes so-so ones' stereotype, but I did. But Ryan, Chris C and Nic all eventually moved on from COD4 to WaW, and eventually I caved. I hated the single player and probably didn't make it more then 3 or 4 levels before just quitting outright. The multiplayer was ok, but I felt like CoD4 was just undeniably better. I liked the old weapons but felt the map design was particularly uninspired. The Nazi Zombie mode was a fun novelty, but the pacing was terrible. Playing with a few good people turned what should have been a breezy mode that shouldn't have lasted more than 20 or 30 minutes into an hours long slog. I quickly quit after we got good enough to last longer than it remained fun. Overall I just didn't have much fun with this game at all.
Darksiders- Darksiders is a very good game. I enjoyed it a lot, and I'll be buying the sequel. If this game had a different art style it might have become one of my favorite games of the year (something closer to Shadow of the Colossus? Or Okami? Maybe? I have no clue). As it stands, it was a ton of fun. But the world wasn't interesting enough to revisit.
Halo Wars- I don't know why I keep thinking I might like RTS games. I don't. Also, although I like Halo games, it's not because of the rich lore. So combine a genre I don't much care for with a franchise I have little love for, and it should be obvious why I'm ditching this one.
Hotel Dusk Room 215- Unique art style! Complex story! Puzzles! Point and clicking! Hotel Dusk was an amazing 5-8 hours of fun. Too bad it lasted 16-20. This game was way too long to ever think about replaying it.
Infamous- Some fun powers and world navigation. Pretty generic everything else. Climbing the junk tower was really cool, though.
Klonoa- Don't know why I got it (oh yeah, it was super cheap) don't know why I didn't send it away immediately. I didn't like much about this game, and I don't know why I thought I might...
Lego Rock Band- Exported the songs. Done.
Metro 2033- Very cool game, I loved the atmosphere and my journey through the game. There was just way too many oddities, bugs and frustrations to make me want to go back. It's so linear and scripted, and I have fond memories of the game. If I played it again, I think I would ruin those memories.
Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword- Ummm. A DS ninja game with all touch-based controls. It is amazingly competent and polished. But I'd rather just play real Ninja Gaiden.
Last Friday I didn’t really have any plans. It was going to be just Lindsay and me going out to eat, and it snowballed into us plus Chris C, Jessie, Ryan and Adam. We all went to Poncho Villa and ate some awesome, awesome food.
Before that, I stopped by Ryan’s place and hung out until everyone else was ready. We played some Super Street Fighter IV and since I was without my Fight Stick I was forced to use a DualShock. And I won. A lot. I think I have come to terms with the fact that I am just better with a regular pad than I am with a fancy (and expensive) Fight Stick.
I will keep playing with the stick, though, because it’s fun and it does help a lot with Charge characters… but the control pad muscle memory runs deep. Real deep.
When we got home we played Lego Rock Band, which I got in the mail. I was going to just export the tracks, but we decided to give the game a try. Maybe it’s just me, but that Lego style just doesn’t appeal to me. I feel like, in theory, it should. But something about the way it looks/moves/acts just turns me off. There’s some good songs on there, though. So I exported it out to my Rock Band 2 song list. Then I played some Red Dead Redemption until way too late. I’m really liking it a lot.
On Saturday Lindsay, Francesca and I went to the International Quilt Market trade show downtown. Booo-ring. Well, for me. Lindsay and Francesca had a good time running around and getting contacts of textile manufacturers…
We went to some Vietnamese Restaurant afterward, which was pretty good for a hot, hot afternoon. I decided to put down Red Dead for a while and play Alan Wake, just because it’s much more linear, much, much shorter. So far it’s pretty dang good.
Sunday we went to Lake Calhoun to feed the ducks, but couldn’t find many. We found about 4 total, but they didn’t want to hang around. So instead we threw bread to the fish. Eventually, we had a bunch of kids around asking for bread so they could feed the fish, too.
On the way back we stopped at Barbette for some Fondue and warm olives. It was really, really good.
When we got home, we were hot and tired. So we downloaded a ton of Rock Band songs. We spent a good hour going through all the tracks and I bought so many packs of Microsoft Points in a row eventually my credit card was declined. Yikes. I guess that looks pretty suspicious.
But now my track list is so big, I actually found a website to keep track of all the music I own and print it into a Karaoke-style song list for parties.
I played more Alan Wake and finished the third chapter (out of 6, maybe?). It’s still really good.
Today I had a meeting that went well. It went much better than other people's meetings, so I was glad.
After work I went for Sushi with Lindsay at Fuji-Ya. Also very good.
I stopped by Walgreens on the way home to stock up on Twink's allergy medicine and piked up the first issue of the newly relaunched Electronic Gaming Monthly. I am quite impressed. It is good stuff. Especially for an American magazine.
I might subscribe, although I'm afraid it will go under (again) before I get my money's worth. The paper stock to too nice, the articles too mature, in-depth and niche to stick around. Or is this the market they should have shot for the whole time? Adults read magazines, kids are too busy with that internet BS.
When I got home I cleaned and organized the kitchen for a bit. Then a played a butt-load of Red Dead Redemption. I finally started the story. Very, very nice. I already like it a whole lot.
I thought this Japanese Monster Hunter Tri video was the cutest thing around.
Last night I swung by Macy's to return some stuff we used for the TV shoot. I picked up a couple new pairs of jeans while I was there. They were identical to the pair I ruined the 2nd day of shooting, and this is the first time I've been able to stop and grab a new pair.
Red Dead Redemption was waiting for me when I got home. I was excited to try it out, but I had a lot of other stuff I should be doing. I cleaned a bunch, did laundry and dishes made some food and 'finished' coloring my Super Awesome Art Challenge piece.
The topic was Rainbow Fun Times, and I didn't do it by the 1st of May because of the kitchen. I wanted to do something, however, even if it was late, and I picked something that should have been easy and brainless. I chose to just do some drawings of things I owned that represented each color of the rainbow. But I really found that I had to spend a lot of time making a list of items that were ordinary enough, comparable is size and detail, and were actually all the different colors.
Then I spent a bit of time coloring them, trying different things and not liking anything. Eventually I was like 'this was supposed to be quick, dirty and painless' so I just took a step back and posted it.
I like the concept, and I even like the drawings, but I don't really like it. At first I just decided to not allow myself to work on in anymore, but I might be having a change of heart already...
Once I posted that, I jumped online to play some Red Dead Redemption. Chris C had been on for hours by this point, and he must have just logged off before I logged on.
I don't want to start the story until Lindsay gets back, so jumped into the multiplayer Free Roam mode and noticed a couple hiccups. I would get kicked when I would try to customize my character, and people would disappear soon after I would see them in the game.
Chris C jumped back online and we couldn't get into a game together. Predictably, the servers were crushed under the day-one load for the game, so we both played Free Roam offline, but in the same chat. It was still kind of fun. It will be 10 times more fun once we can assault bandit camps together. it was kind of hard alone.
So far, despite that fact that I was just aimlessly riding around doing nothing, I thought it was pretty cool and I wish I was playing it now. That's a good sign.
It's Tuesday, Lindsay comes back tomorrow. I've been trying to clean, go to the gym, finish some art, and play some games but a couple things are getting in the way. Pets is a big one. We have too many as it is, and we're also watching a friend's cat, Boo. Boo can't be with our cats, who already can't be with Oliver. So we've got THREE separate cat zones to feed/water/pet/clean litter.
I also got a flat tire, so I had to run around and get that resolved. Luckily it was a slow week and not a blow-out, so I didn't have to deal with breaking down or being stuck or anything. I just had to make sure not to go too long without refilling it.
I did beat Metro 2033 the other night. I thought I might be a ways off, because I still had 4 or 5 'scenes' left (I think there's 6 chapters, each divided into 2-6 scenes) but quite a few of those scenes were 5 minutes or less, and I don't think any of them were longer than 10 or 15. So before I knew it, it was over.
I really liked the game, although I think I wouldn't recommend it to many people. It's very unusual, claustrophobic and punitive. I loved how the weapons were make-shift and your character wasn't a super soldier, but in a shooter, some people might see awkward shooting and weak weapons as a negative thing. Go figure.
When I started the game, I thought it might end up in the permanent collection, but lately I've been in the purging mood, so it might end up on Goozex in the very near future. I can't see myself playing it again, although it was very cool in it's own way.
I've been doing a quest or two in Monster Hunter Tri every night and I'm liking it more and more. It's also a very peculiar but enjoyable game. I know a lot of my friends would probably hate it, but whatevs. It's pretty great. I can't help but wish it was on an HD console, though.
I also put Wolfenstein in for a test-drive last night. I got it cheap a while back and I've had it sitting around for a long time now, so I figured I'd just take a peak. It seemed like a good candidate to add to my purge pile.
I was surprised at how fun it is. It's like the opposite of Metro 2033. It's not particularly artful or atmospheric, but the shooting is dang tight and the guns feel really powerful. I instantly loved the rifle. Love love love. Love. It reminds me a lot of my favorite Battlefield weapon, the M1 Garand, but way more accurate and powerful.
I played a couple levels and I think it's pretty good, but the hub world is already starting to be a bit of a grind traveling from mission to mission. The graphics are just OK, and the story isn't too hot, so I can see how I won't power through it, but I might keep it around to put in for a couple levels every now and then.
I took Lindsay and two of her interns to the airport at 4 am this morning. I obviously just went straight back to bed. When I finally did get up I went to the gym. It's a beautiful day, it was quiet and no one was there. Perfect.
I spent most of the day cleaning a lot. Our kitchen might be nice now, but not being able to use that room, moving the fridge to the living room, having a contractors, construction people and a film crew in and out of the house for a month really put the rest of house in a state of disarray.
I worked all day, but I feel like I didn't make much of a dent...
Chris C called up and I went with him and Jessie to MCAD. She was taking down her show, so I helped but we also walked the school to check out all the Senior Shows. A few were taken down, but most were still up. There weren't a ton that totally blew me away, but one of the films were really tight, technically. I was impressed, even if the acting and story weren't that exciting.
Jessie's was easily one of the best illustration shows, she obviously put more thought into the project and presentation than a lot of other students. The work itself was also a lot better than a huge majority, so that's cool. I was impressed.
Now I'm back, doing some art and waiting for our Realtor to send some paperwork my way. We're making headway on the studio, but it might be far from final...
Last night I went to the gym after work. It's been about a month since I was able to go regularly, and it feels good and slightly nauseating to be back.
I went home afterward. Lindsay was hanging out with Atom P in Uptown, but Adam H came over to hang and play some games. First we hit up B-Squared to get some food. We ran into Jessie, Chris C and Chris C's mom who was visiting from China. She was strange, and pretty much exactly as Chris described...
We popped in Monster Hunter Tri when we got home. I had bought the game from Amazona while back, but it arrived while we were working on the house so I never bothered opening it. Adam also bought it at the same time (so we could play together). He did get the chance to play it and he didn't have a high opinion of it. So he brought it along so I could give it a test drive before deciding to keep mine or send it back.
I've been curious about Monster Hunter since it first came to America on the PS2. Mainly it's been a PSP franchise since, and I couldn't have cared less, but the Wii version rekindled my interest. It seemed like it might be too much of a grind and too grounded in (arguably) archaic Japanese game design cliches, but this one video got me pretty excited.
That's a sweet axe! Am I right?
I played about an hour and had a good enough time I decided to keep it. I played another 1/2 hour and decided it was pretty good. Lindsay and Atom came home so I quit. We hung out all night and they didn't leave until about 4 am. Which was maybe a liiiitle on the long side, but maybe not.
Today we met up with our kitchen designer and got rid of the 'props' he lent us for the shoot. Then we ran errands and got a ton of food for our empty kitchen. We made our first real meal in the kitchen, which was really nice. I'm so freakin' sick of eating out.
I played a couple more hours of Monster Hunter until Ryan came over for a while. Lindsay was busy getting ready for her trip to NYC so we just chilled, played some games and he told us about the MCAD senior shows. We had meant to see them, but Lindsay was too busy preparing for her trip to make it down to MCAD... nuts.
It's nice to be done with the kitchen, although I've hardly had the time to notice. I was D E A D tired at work on Wednesday, but I forced myself to go to the gym afterward. Then I met Lindsay in Uptown for some Sushi at Fuji Ya. Damn. It was soooo freaking awesome. There's some days when certain foods just hit the spot, and yesterday was one of them.
We didn't get home until 9 or 9:30, and I messed around on my computer. Steam was released for Mac, so I downloaded it and fooled around a bit. Free Portal for all (for the next week or so).
I decided to give the Starcraft II beta a whirl. It's multiplayer only, so I got in a match (as the Terran) and went to it. I played the campaign of Starcraft a long time ago, so it was pretty familiar. After about 5 of ten minutes of base-building and stuff, I sent some dude's out to scout the area. I found the opponent's base, and I was instantly just like 'I don't want to play this.'
All the reasons I don't like RTS games, specifically multiplayer, came flooding back in. It's so slow. Games take forever. You spend most of the game alone, building and setting up units, but really it comes down to the question of; did you build the right units/structures to beat out their units or structures?
In a shooter, or fighting game, it's more immediate. They keep spamming fireballs, I counter. Someone keeps sniping me, I figure out where from and flush them out. I'm always in constant contact with my opponent. The delay in when I do something (like make a siege tank) and use that unit (maybe 10 minutes later) is too painfully long for me.
So I wanted to back out of the game. But since I was playing a real human, I decided to give them an easy steamroll. I sold off any unit/structure I could, and sent a message like 'Hey, I remember why I don't like RTS games. I'm not building or defending anymore." giving them the chance to come in and wreck shit with their army. But obviously he must have thought it was a trap. I sent a couple more messages, finally ending with 'if you don't attack in the next 2 minutes, I'm just going to quit.'
I ended up just quitting and when I did, I saw the option is actually to 'surrender' so the other team gets the victory. I wish I had looked at that, I felt like if I dropped I would just be leaving him hanging mid-match or something and he wouldn't get credit.
So I deleted the beta immediately after that. I might be interested in the Starcraft II single player, but I need to remember I don't like RTS multiplayer. I keep forgetting that somehow.
Holy crap. The last day of filming is over. What a looooong day.
I took off work yesterday to receive the new fridge and help the contractor. Once he left, I spent the rest of the night touching up paint, cleaning up the huge mess we've made over the past month, and bringing out a lot of the supplies we packed away when we started the project.
At midnight, I was hoping to finish soon. At 2 AM Atom called saying he was on his way with our custom shelving and table. At 3 AM, we were installing a flip-up table into the concrete of our chimney, and at 5 AM I was going to bed.
Today we shot until about 7 PM. The day was long and we were really busy the whole time, but it was worth it. The kitchen really came together and I'm super impressed with how it turned out. Totally phenomenal.
By the time we wrapped up, it was getting pretty dark out, so the pictures aren't great. If it's nice I might take more tomorrow or something.
After we finished up, we grabbed the dogs from day care, picked up our friend Andres' cat Boo, whom we're watching for a week, stopped by Target, ate at Gandhi Mahal and then had Mary, Ben, Chris C and Jessie over for a bit to see the new kitchen. I am so, so tired right now I want to barf. But I'm also happy that I'm done working on the kitchen. Pretty much. There's still a few loose ends to wrap up, but at least I'm done with filming.
Here's us with the host, James.
I should have took all the photos while the TV lights were still up.
Sunday. This blog is getting repetitive. Same shit different day. Here's the precarious way we had to balance the projector to transfer elements of the mural. Danger!
And here is how this all feels.
I stopped at Midnight to play some Street Fighter with Ryan and Feng. Feng plays in tournaments, but I kind of held my own. Kind of.
Then I played some Sonic and Sega All-Star Racing which I got in the mail on Friday or Saturday. That game is awesome. Way awesome.
It's 2:30 and we're finishing up the kitchen for the night. This is the last week of working on it (I hope) and it's pretty brutal. We've been working on it every minute we're home, and running out with our designer to accessorize when we take brakes.
Mainly we're working on the mural, as well as staining wood and doing touch-ups, cleaning and organizing what's going in and what's coming out...
Friday night we went out for diner with Adam. It was his birthday, about 10 of us met up at Chino Latino and got a boat-load of food. Afterward there was talk of seeing a movie or going rollerskating, but we just took off to go paint. Fun fun fun.
Today we went and ran a bunch of errands and met up with our designer at an antique store. We bought a bunch of stuff to put in the kitchen, but upon seeing it there, we think it might be all wrong. Too bad you can't return stuff. Oops.
Today was our last oil painting class. I almost didn't go, just because we're so busy and I'm so tired. But I did, and I'm glad I did.
This time I drew a sketch on my canvas the night before, so I had the full class to paint. I finished a painting I actually like. I knew I would only have a couple hours (there's no way I can work on it at home right now...) so I kept it simple and made sure it was manageable.
After class, Ryan came over and we got some pizza and he gave the Halo: Reach beta a try. We're really getting ready for painting the mural now, it's the biggest task left, although there's TONS of smaller things to worry about as well.
After work I ran out to Dick Blick to pick up some canvases (or gessoed Masonite, to be more specific) and a new, cover-able pallet for oil painting class. I met up with Cy at Crate and Barrel, and we spent the next couple hours running around buying stuff for accessorizing our kitchen. We found a fair amount of stuff, but we're counting on a weekend trip to Lindsay's favorite antique store to round out the look.
I got home at 9 and immediately started to paint the ceiling, and once i finished that I started touch-ups on the rest of the kitchen. That pretty much wraps up the large-area painting, now we just to to keep touching up, detailing, and then paint the mural. Oh, and stain a bunch of wood.
I played a couple levels of Zeno Clash. It's just as bizarre as I expected, but it actually plays smoother than I thought it might. First person melee combat is always a strange beast, so I wasn't expecting that much from the combat system. I am impressed it's as good as it is.
(note: I don't have much free time, so I've been writing this post for like 4 days. Some information might be quite old).
Ryan got his copy of Super Street Fighter IV yesterday. He texted me at midnight wanting to fight. So of course I did and it was a lot of fun. Lindsay was uploading some stuff so it was a bit laggy, but it's not a big deal.
Street Fighter handles lag in the correct way for a fighting game, which is to freeze the action on both ends, so every frame is still represented correctly. There's no room for the teleporting tricks that make an FPS playable, so the freeze frame lag is totally tolerable. It might throw you off here and there, but you don't keep fighting normally only to find out you've been pummeled when the connection catches up.
I picked up Mount and Blade: Warband on the PC. It's an expansion to the original Mount and Blade that adds multiplayer. Otherwise, they're basically identical from what I understand. I grabbed a demo a few weeks back and I liked it. It looks kind of rough and it's not exactly easy to pick up and play, but I really like the idea behind the realistic combat. The single player was already pretty intriguing, but the added multiplayer sold me.
I actually bought it a week ago, and so far I've put about 15 minutes into it. But it's definitely a cool little game. I'm terrible on horseback, but I really like how you have to really be precise and work for every hit. It's not for everyone, sure, but it seems pretty good.
There was also a really good deal on SWAT 4 Gold, so I snatched that up as well. Gold includes the original SWAT 4 as well as the expansion, The Stetchkov Syndicate. I've always been curious about SWAT 4 since I knew it was developed by Irrational Games (who made Bioshock, System Shock 2 and Freedom Force). I guess I didn't know what the game would be, though, since Irrational makes these atmosphere-heavy games with lots of story, but the SWAT 4 title seems to... generic.
I've only played the training and the first mission (three times) but so far I'm totally, totally digging it. It turns out it does have some of the atmosphere Irrational is known for, but none of the story. The missions are completely unrelated, but there settings seem to have a lot more character than you'd expect. It's believable and even a bit creepy.
The game itself is very, very tactical. You lead a team of five on each mission; 2 two-man fire-teams and a sniper. You can order the fire-teams around together, or split them up and use the cameras in each unit's helmet to see what they see, issue orders and scout out levels. You use the camera to control the sniper, as well.
You can give orders from a contextual menu, and depending on the target, there can be up to a dozen commands. But it all works pretty slick, so it becomes fairly effortless.
Add civilians, hostages and uncooperative innocents into the mix, plus some random NPC placement, and things get interesting. The also stresses non-lethal force, so in addition to guns you have a multitude of tools to take out suspects and help subdue belligerent innocents.
Very, very cool. Already completely worth the few bucks I spent.
I won't say much about it, because I haven't play it yet, but today Zeno Clash came out on XBLA. I've been following this game for a long time. I downloaded the demo on PC once, but it ran like crap so I decided to wait. Now I finally get to try it out.
Zeno Clash is so bizarre I can't help but be interested. Father-Mother is the stuff of nightmares.
And finally, you probably should go download the videogame/rap mashup Gold N' Fly by Alex Kresovich. It samples from Goldeneye 007 from the N64 and I almost didn't give it a listen. I thought "N64 music? Goldeneye? Did that even have memorable music?" and the answer is "holy crap. it totally did."
I instantly recognized all the music, and the mixes are outstanding to boot. It's good stuff.
And finally, check out the Humble Indie Bundle. It's a pay-what-you-want promotion for a group of indie games that is hard to pass up. You can't go wrong if you're looking for a worthy cause. It supports indie developers and awesome charities, and you can split the money as you see fit (I split it 50/50).
Aquaria and World of Goo are both phenomenal games, and I've heard enough good things about Gish, Penumbra Overture and Lugaru to make me interested.
The 'rap' might be kind of embarrassing, but it's a pretty righteous deal.
I can see the finish line in the distance... It's a painful final stretch, but we're really close now.
Yesterday was our 2nd to last day of shooting. Well, at least of all-day shooting. We put in the counter tops, which are super awesome. They're a dark butcher block, and they look mighty nice. I'm worried how they'll hold up to our abuse, but they look super slick so far.
We also put in the sink, which is also very, very nice. Our sink/faucet combo cost about $2,500, which is more than average. By a lot. So it's a little nicer than pretty much anything else in the house. We got it for free, so it's all good.
We started tiling the backsplash as well, which is looking good. The tile is pretty bizarre and out there, but (I hope) it's tasteful.
And finally we put some bubbleglass into our cabinet doors.
Once the crew dispersed, Lindsay and I split up. I went downtown and grabbed the dogs, Lindsay went to St Paul to get some stuff for Menard's. We met back up and without saying a word just both started working on the kitchen. We taped off and painted the ceiling. Lindsay wallpapered the interior of the cabinets while I painted shelves.
Atom P stopped by and showed up the laser cut design Lindsay and made for some furniture he's building for us. It's mighty cool.
At around 11:30 we got some food at Lunds and watched some Samurai Jack. It was a long day. But we've got A LOT of homework to do before next weeks final shoot, so there's very little time to spare.
It was too late to take pictures, but I should be posting new ones soon.
This morning I got up and called up Chris C and Ryan for some help painting the kitchen. Then I ran out to mow the lawn, because it was completely out of control. Normally I might not care since I'm so busy, but since I know we'll be filming outside, I decided it would be worth it.
We all painted the kitchen together, and it didn't take too long. While we let it dry, I took Chris C and Ryan to get some food while Lindsay helped a friend with his motorcycle that broke down.
We decided to go to Midtown Global Market and get some Manny's Tortas. Delicious, right? Right. So we headed down Minnehaha to Lake street, and ran into a little festival blocking the road. No biggie. We turn onto Lake Street and I start to suspect something is going on that we don't know about. We see more and more people, and traffic goes slower and slower.
As a policeman waves us across Bloomington, I realize that we are crossing right in front of a parade. The May Day Parade. Crap. We sit within reach of the Midtown Global Market, but traffic is just dead. Eff this.
We turned off to try to get out of the area, and spend the next 1 1/2 hour barely moving up and down streets in a hilarious comedy of dead-ends, blocked roads and a sea of pedestrians...
We finally made it out and hit up Chris and Rob's for some Chicago dogs.
After we finally ate, we painted another coat over the entire kitchen. Our designer stopped by to look at our progress and talked forever. After that we all took a trip to get some Bubble Tea.
I am very tired today. That is all I want to write, I guess.
Today way a long day. We got up kind of early to get to the Animal Humane Society's Walk for Animals 2010.
yeah.
We picked up Adam and Francesca on our way. It was a lot of fun. We played some games, ate some food, walked some pets and picked up some poop.
We had to park super far a way, so we rode in a special bus, loaded with dogs. You'd think that might be trouble, but it's fine.
twink loves pubic public transportation.
atari goes crazy, so I keep him in line. with force.
j/k! friends!
weee! bus!
When we got there, we participated in some games and got some food. Then we started on the walk. It's a 5 mile walk or something, but I haven't done it in a few years. I'm there for the festivities... We walked for a bit and then turned around.
we made it!
time to walk, yo!
walkin' and stylin'.
walking past the traffic jam created by 10,000 people all walking their pets at once.
pffft. let the girls walk the dogs, i'm carrying the camera bag.
there's not only dogs, but rabbits, ferrets, alligators, monkeys, cats, and more. lindsay liked the rabbit stroller the best, though.
alright, we've been here a while and it's amazingly exhausting for some reason.
time to go.
There was a HUGE line to take a bus back to where we parked, and people were cranky. But it went quickly and before we knew it, we were on the bus.
It was packed, and Atari was acting a little strange. When we pulled up and people (and dogs) began to disembark, Atari started freaking out. He was whining and howling and barking. And Twink, being the idiot that he is, followed suit. I'm not sure what sparked Atari's fit, but he sounded tortured...
bus ride home. twink's satisfied.
lindsay points with her finger, twink points with his tongue.
After we dropped Adam and Francesca off, Lindsay and I got some gilato and met up with our Realtor to look at some condos downtown. They were very nice, but we're still happiest with the one we put an offer on. While we were looking, we dropped Atari and Twink off at Downtown Dogs, so they got to play with MORE dogs.
We grabbed some food at this bomb-ass pizza place called Black Sheep Pizza. Man it's awesome. By the time we picked the dogs back up and made it home, it was 6 PM. I had to nap for a couple minutes, and then we started to paint the kitchen...
We wanted to get to a good stopping point before going to Meghan's wedding. When we finally finished, cleaned up, got dressed and were ready to go, I double checked the invite and realized it ended at 10. It was 9:58... Damn. I feel like a stupid jerk.
Since we were clean and dressed up, we went out for Sushi at Mt. Fuji, which was pretty amazing. I should have gone to bed, but I practiced up in Super Street Fighter IV for a while before grabbing the pics off my camera and writing this...
Now it's 2:30 AM, and we have a bunch of people coming to help paint tomorrow. Oops.
