Worms!

Went on another tour today. This time, it was to the Basilica de Guadalupe and Teotihuacán. Overall, I think the Basilica was much more interesting than the "pyramids" at Teotihuacán, especially the gardens behind the churches. The pyramids should really be called ziggurats instead, and while large, they're pretty drab. I may be a little jaded though after having been to Ephesus, Pompeii and the Parthenon.

For me, the highlight of the day was dinner at chef Patricia Quintana's Izote, which serves modern versions of old indigenous dishes. I ordered the crunchy maguey worms, the sautéed escamoles (ant eggs), and lamb shank wrapped in banana and maguey leaves. Once you get past the fact that you're eating what looks like large fried maggots, the crunchy maguey worms were actually rather tasty. Sort of like french fries... The escamoles was interesting, with the texture of corn kernels, but was a little lacking in flavor. As for the lamb shank, I've read quite a few reviews singing its praises, but mine was too dry for my taste. Flavorful, but dry.

Xochimilco and the Ballet Folklorico de Mexico

We went to Xochimilco this morning and took a boat ride on the canals. I was surprised at how many families there were picnicking on the boats. And talk about a riot of color...

In the evening, we went to a performance of the Ballet Folklorico de Mexico at the Palacio del Bella Artes. While the show itself was great, what amazed me the most is that they allowed photography! Which is how I ended up with these shots:

In between, we finally managed to file a report of yesterday's pickpocketing. We'd attempted to go to a ministerio publico (police station) the night before based on directions from the US embassy only to discover that it had closed down a while ago. Asking around for the nearest ministerio publico didn't yield any results until we asked a couple police officers, and by the time we finally got to one, all the interpreters had left for the day and we couldn't do anything. Which is why we had to wait till today to get it done. The scariest thing about this whole ordeal is that we were told more than once that we were lucky -- that it was just a pickpocket and not a robbery by a gang of thugs!

Bam!

First day in Mexico City, first subway ride, and we've already had our first misadventure: Charity's dad was pick pocketed on our way to the Zócalo.

On the bright side of things, the weather's been great so far -- nice and cool and breezy.

2.5 Weeks

The past couple weeks have been pretty interesting. I was in NY/NJ all of last week for the birth of my nephew, James Brown. He is perfection in a bundle and I can pretty much guarantee that he will be doted upon by everyone.

I spent the last week catching up on work, and tomorrow, I'll be leaving for Mexico City for the next five days.

During this time I've managed to catch Romeo and Juliet in Central Park, Spring Awakening on Broadway, and Iphigénie en Tauride by Gluck at the SF Opera. I'm not sure how Spring Awakening swept the Tony awards this year, but if this was the best musical of '07, then everything else must have sucked. The story just did not appeal to me, although the music was decent. As for Iphigénie en Tauride, I was amazed at the production. I'm normally not a fan of modern interpretations, but this completely worked for me. It had me mesmerized from the start with its amazing opening.

Uncle Mark

I'm an uncle! Jeanne gave birth to James Brown at 7:10am Thursday, June 14, 2007. Vital stats: 10 fingers, 10 toes, 19.5", 7 lbs. 5 oz., and cute as can be. He's got huge hands and feet, so he should be a great swimmer!

Worst Clam Chowder. Ever.

While we were in Monterey, Charity and I stopped at Sly McFly's on Cannery Row, primarily because they claimed to have the best clam chowder in Monterey. This turned out to be a horrible mistake. The soup was like something from the glue factory with some salt and clams thrown into it. We didn't bother finishing the thing and just beat a hasty retreat.

Nikon D40

I've been taking my time replacing my poor old Nikon CoolPix 4500 which died a few years ago. Charity had just bought a Cannon SD700, so it wasn't too big a deal. I'd been contemplating a DSLR, but I've been very skeptical on how often I'd lug such a big camera around. Well, after much hemming and hawing, I finally settled on a Nikon D40. It arrived just in time for our trip to Monterey over the Memorial Day weekend.

I shouldn't have worried. The D40 is a lot of fun to use. So much so that we sometimes have to fight for the camera. The click you hear when you snap the picture is just so reinforcing that it has a sort of Pavlovian effect on me. Must... take... more... pictures... to hear sound again...

The fun and games ended last night though when I finally uploaded all the pictures and started looking at them. And the big dark spot I'm guessing is caused by a speck of dust on the sensor. Grrr... I guess this batch of shots will definitely be getting the Photoshop treatment.

Joey recommended that I get Giottos' Rocket Air Blaster to deal with the dust, so now I'm just waiting for it to arrive.

Desktop Tower Defense

Timesuck alert! Desktop Tower Defense is freakin' addictive. Wasted most of my day on this... Normal was a breeze, and then I made the mistake of trying the 100 challenge. Best I did was level 77.

Rob warned me about this a while back, but I promptly forgot.

Women in Art

Speaking of something different, check out this YouTube video of women in art through the centuries. After the first few, there were very few I could identify.

Whim

Thought I'd try something different...

CFL Bulbs

There seems to be quite a bit in the news about CFLs lately. The one that raised the most eyebrows was a sensationalist article claiming that it costs $2000 to clean up a broken CFL due to the mercury inside it. However, it seems that this urban legend has been debunked.

I've been on the fence with CFLs for a while now. On the one hand, I like the fact that they use less energy and last longer. On the other hand, the ones that I'm familiar with tend to take a while to reach full brightness, emit a low buzz, and/or have a strange hue to them.

The last time I did any research on this was a few years ago when I was remodeling my house. I just bought a few brands and tried it out to see how I liked them. I wasn't very impressed back then, and decided to only use them in certain applications.

I've started paying attention again since Charity and I are remodeling our house, and we'll be putting in lots of new lighting. The good news is that it looks like things have improved. Popular Mechanics has an article reviewing newer CFLs and it looks like the color problem seems to have mostly been solved.

Dungeon Twister

Played Dungeon Twister for the first time last night against Danny. It's a pretty fun dungeon crawl-ish sort of board game. The fact that I won may have contributed a wee bit to my enjoyment. ;)

The only negative thing about it so far is that it's only a two player game, which limits the chances it'll be played. Fortunately, there's a 3-4 player expansion available...

"New" Bike!

Yee-haw! I've just bought a used 2004 Yamaha FZ1. From Ohio. Off eBay. Now I just have to figure out how to get it shipped here...

The average person...

I've been playing with Channel 4's human footprint calculator and the one factoid that stood out is:

The average person will know 1,700 people in the course of their lifetime. Of the 1,700 people we know, 305 will die of heart disease, 179 by stroke, 99 of lung cancer and 32 of breast cancer. 10 people will take their own life, 9 will be killed in road accidents and 1 will die in a fire.

Yikes! If you know me, I hope I'm in your other 1065.

If Only I'd Known

Better late than never, I guess, but this sure would have helped when I was having problems with Java's security manager.

Speaking of Restaurants...

Forgot to mention that I found Layang Layang through Restaurant.com.

They sell gift certificates to restaurants at reduced prices (typically $25 certificates for $10). They're also having a 50% off sale right now using the discount code "SPRING". It's nice in that it makes it a little less risky to try out new restaurants.

Update: The "SPRING" discount code has been replaced by "APRIL", which is 60% off + a $10 credit.

Restaurant Discovery

I can't describe how excited I am over discovering Layang Layang, a new, good Malaysian restaurant.

I've only been there once, but everything we tried was good and authentic. We started with the lobak and roti bhuddist, and they're definitely the best I've had in the US. The entrees didn't dissapoint either. The kari lamb and belacan okra were perfect, and the ikan bakar was decent. For desert, we tried the fried ice cream and banana. Not too shabby, but when I hear fried banana, I'm thinking goreng pisang, and I've not had any really authentic ones in the US.

You can bet that we'll be going back!

A Good Food Day

Had lunch at Per Se and dinner at Babbo today. Mmmmm!

Taxes

Did my taxes today. I've been using TurboTax for the past few years but decided to look for something different when I realized that they've raised their rates. A bit of Googling found me a very informative blog entry that compared the various tax prep companies and lead me to TaxSlayer.com.

Silly name aside, it did get quite a few good reviews, and was the cheapest at $9.95 to e-file both federal and state returns. As a sanity check, I entered my numbers into both TurboTax and TaxSlayer, and TaxSlayer actually gave me a bigger refund (some 15% more).

I have to say though, this does come at a cost -- their UI is definitely not the most user friendly. There really isn't much in the way of help, and they don't provide any overview pages to see all the numbers you've entered. You just have to trust that they're doing the right thing until the end, when they present you with the completed forms.

Water, water everywhere...

And so is Voss. I've been seeing their distinctive cylindrical bottles everywhere - in more and more restaurants and tv shows, everything from Dirt to Top Design.

They're marketing themselves as high-end water and they are only allowing their products to be sold in exclusive bars, clubs, hotels and restaurants. The water comes from an aquifer in Iveland, Norway, and to protect their exclusivity and supply, Voss is actually trying to stop the local townspeople from using their water source:

Ole Christian Sandberg of "Voss of Norway" confirmed the company wants to preserve Voss' supply and said his company is "in a dialogue" with township officials that he hopes will end the practice of local residents literally bathing in the precious water.

Don't drink this water because we want to sell it? Puh-lease. Don't even get me started on the travesty of bottled water.

Speaking of water, March 22 is World Water Day.

Movies

Saw two completely different movies yesterday: 300 and Bridge to Terabithia.

I was fairly excited to see 300: I'm a Frank Miller fan, they'd managed to pull off the movie adaptation of Sin City perfectly, and I'd heard some good rumblings on the net. Alas, I came away fairly disappointed.

First off, I don't think that this was as close an adaptation to the original 300 as Sin City was, and it wouldn't really matter except that I felt that something was lost in the translation.

Let's start with the visuals: everything looked absolutely gorgeous, but after two hours of that limited color palette, my eyes were crying for something different. And while the long battle scenes may have worked on the page with Frank Miller's succinct visual style, it too just became excessive on the screen. Perhaps I'm just getting older, but it felt like there was too much fighting, too much gore -- much more than necessary for the story.

Even more disheartening is that Frank Miller's distinctive, stilted dialog rang a little hollow from the actors. There were a few moments where it became very obvious that the actors were just posing to hit a specific frame from the comic. The combination of these two issues seriously undermines the emotional thrust of the movie -- that the Spartans sacrifice was worth something/meant something.

Like I said in the beginning, there's no denying that the movie looks good. It just works better as an extended trailer than a feature length movie. The one scene that stole the show for me was the Oracle's dance. I have no clue how they shot the scene, but it was just breathtaking.

I'm a little torn on how to rate the film, but in the end, I can't give it more than 3/5, and a 2/5 for those who are gore averse.

And for something completely different, I also watched Bridge to Terabithia. About the only thing I knew about it going in was that it's targeted at kids and has some fantasy elements in it. Unlike 300's trailers, which accurately depict what you get in the movie, the trailers for Bridge to Terabithia are totally misleading. This isn't a Narnia-wannabe. It's a story about friendship and the power of imagination.

I have to say though, I'm not sure how many kids out there who will actually appreciate the underlying themes of the movie. I guess that's for the parents. It's sort of a coming of age movie dealing with loss. That's about all I can say without giving anything away. It's a gentle, subtle movie that's (amazingly) carried by the performances of the children. When I was watching, Bailee Madison, who plays May Belle, consistently got all the "Aaaaw"s from the parents.

Worth watching: 4/5.

Refreshing Honesty

I called Continental's reservation line tonight hoping to change a seat assignment and was told that the current wait time was 174 minutes. Umm... I guess some warning is better than none at all but that's a little insane.

Update: I used Skype for the call and just left it running. I woke up this morning to find that it took 6 hours and 40 minutes before someone responded!

3.14...

Got Married...

I finally got married over the weekend! It took a while, and planning the wedding seemed to take forever, but it's done and now I've got this piece of metal wrapped around my finger that'll take some getting used to.

Highlights from Saturday included:

• My best man, Rob Owen, losing Charity's wedding band five minutes before the ceremony.
• My groomsman Bill Avery coming to the rescue by lending us his wedding ring.
• Charity having trouble getting my ring on since it was such a tight fit.
• Actually marrying Charity.
• The gorgeous reception hall at the Asian Art Museum. I thought the sight of the wedding cake from the entrance was just stunning.
• The first dance with Charity.

Sickness Sucks

I've been sick lately. Charity got it first, and then passed it on to me. The major symptoms are a fever and a hellishly sore throat. When she had it, I basically discredited the whole sore throat thing. I mean, how bad can it be? Trust me, it ain't pretty.

For the past few days I haven't been able to speak properly. I can swallow, as long as it's a liquid or close to it, and even then it hurts. Coughing is just a study in pain. I know my throat's getting better because I no longer wake up as often at night because I need to swallow and it hurts too much. How's that for a sign of how painful it is -- that even your subconscious doesn't want to deal with it and forces you to? (That's my theory anyway.)

Anyway, the fever's no big deal, I've dealt with fevers before, but this sore throat is just kicking my ass. About the only thing interesting I can say about it is I now know what it feels like to cough up blood, and what it tastes like as well.

Artemis Fowl

Over Christmas, I got Artemis Fowl: The Criminal Mastermind Collection by Eion Colfer (which contains the first three books in the Artemis Fowl series) from a white elephant gift exchange. I hadn't heard anything about it before, but it sounded promising, and I have not been disappointed.

It basically follows the adventures of Artemis Fowl, a thirteen year old criminal mastermind who has discovered the underground world fairies that relies on advanced technology. If that doesn't make any sense, trust me, it will.

These books are fast, fun reads. The closest comparison I can make is probably to Harry Potter, minus all the high school drama. The writing is certainly better.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!

The Curse of the Golden Flower

We went to see The Curse of the Golden Flower tonight. I had high hopes for the movie, since it comes from Zhang Yimou, the same director who made Hero and The House of Flying Daggers.

The short version is: I liked the story, I liked the characters (they were all unique and very well defined), and I loved Gong Li and Chow Yun Fat. That said, I also have to say that it does not hold up to the high standard set by Hero. I can't pinpoint the problem, but I did leave the theater feeling like something was missing.

The one thing that really surprised me was the colors. Instead of the strong color theming I've come to associate with Zhang Yimou, Curse of the Golden Flower had this lollipop rainbow swirl thing going on which I found rather distracting.

Two final points: I liked the pomp and circumstance and the sheer spectacle of it, and I found the underlying message of the movie rather novel, cynical as it may be -- power is everything.

It's just too darn bad that watching this movie is like eating a great meal where you're still hungry when you're done. 3/5 - worth renting.

SecurityManager Woes

*grrr*

Charity and I decided to set up a website for our wedding that our guests could use to RSVP. It's all very basic stuff and I pretty much had it up and running without too much problems... Until I tried to deploy it.

That's when I ran right into Java's SecurityManager. The web hosting provider we're using runs Tomcat with security enabled, which makes sense, but it's something I've never had to deal with in the past.

I've been banging my head against the wall for a few days now and it looks like I finally have everything working. My three biggest problems were/are:

• Figuring out how to grant the webapp permission to read files that are inside a JAR (e.g. with a URI of "jar:file:/path/to/jar.jar!/file"). Nothing I do seems to work, and my current solution is to just expand the jar file.
• Apparently OGNL implements its own security checks if you're running with a SecurityManager, and you need to grant special OGNL-specific permissions if you want it to work. Since my provider is loath to grant new permissions, my solution was to just fool OGNL into thinking that there is no SecurityManager by implementing a ServletContextListener that calls OgnlRuntime.setSecurityManager(null).
• Figuring out how to use Log4J with the SMTPAppender. Haven't had time to dig through the source, so I decided not to use it instead.

These aren't solutions so much as dirty hacks to side step the SecurityManager. It just shouldn't be this hard...

The Producers

Flew from NYC to Boston today to join Charity since her family had decided to spend Christmas at her brother's place.

Of course I couldn't leave NY without watching something on Broadway, so I went to see The Producers last night, with Tony Danza playing Bialystock. I'd seen the movie first, so I was constantly comparing Tony Danza to Nathan Lane. I prefer Nathan Lane; Tony just didn't seem all that comfortable on the stage, looking a little too rehearsed. That aside however, I did enjoy the production. I especially liked the actors playing Ulla (her accent was perfect!) and Carmen Ghia (totally hilarious exits).

As an added bonus, I got to meet Liza Minelli. My mom recognized her first in the lobby, and we went up and shook her hand. She was nice!

Made Out Like a Bandit!

Woo-hoo!

Had lunchner (there really needs to be a word for a combination of lunch that goes into dinner) with the extended Woon gang and had a blast. I'd brought my Wii with me and I think it's safe to say that we had a ton of fun playing with it. Benjamin and Kingsley were both complaining of sore muscles afterwards...

I made out like a bandit when it came time to open the presents: two more Wii remotes and nun-chucks, along with Rayman: Raving Rabbids and Metal Slug Anthology.

We ended the night with a Scrabble match with my mom, Jeanne and George, and wonder of wonders, both George and I finally beat my mom! My win was mainly due to an early seven-letter word (hothead). George took second place, a mere two points behind me.

It's been a good day.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!

I'm back in NY/NJ with my family this year. I'm in complete disarray as far as my gift giving plans go since not all my gifts have arrived (one of the perils of buying online) and of those that have arrived, I seem to have managed to leave them back home in CA. *sigh*

Quote of the Day

Any clod can have the facts, but having opinions is an art.
 - Charles McCabe

Wii Games

Emily threw a gaming party last Sunday and I brought along my Wii. Because I'd only bought single player games, I decided to sign up with Gamefly so that I could rent a couple multiplayer games. So far, the service has been pretty good - I received Rayman Raving Rabbids and Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz within two days.

I know Super Monkey Ball has been pretty popular on the GameCube, but I really didn't have much fun with it on the Wii. Most of the games just lasted too long and didn't necessarily use the controllers optimally.

Raving Rabbids, on the other hand, was a blast! All the games were pretty fun, and even the few weak ones were at least amusing to watch. For example, there really isn't much to jumping rope (you just shake the nunchuck to jump), but when you have rabbids popping up and screaming in an effort to distract you, you just have to laugh.

I sent Super Monkey Ball back to Gamefly on Monday. Let's see what their turn around time is. With luck, I should have a new game to try out by Friday.

In the mean time, I'll be playing Twilight Princess whenever I get a chance. I've always liked the Zelda games, and this one is proving to be pretty fun as well.

The other game I have is Trauma Center: Second Opinion, which is... interesting. The surgery bits are a little campy and the storyline is "very Japanese" (to quote Scott), but I've only played it for a little bit at the party and haven't made up my mind about it yet.

New Toys

In addition to the new TV, I've acquired a couple new toys as well: a Wii and a DS Lite. I'm hoping that the new gameplay options on the Wii will be fun enough to tempt non-gamers like Charity into playing...

Now all I need are some games! I only picked up The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for the Wii, but the options are limited at the moment. I'm considering signing up with GameFly (a Netflix for games) so that I can try out a bunch of different games.

Samsung A900M

I've been thinking about getting a new cell phone ever since Charity got her Treo a year ago but never really bothered since, well, my existing one worked just fine. When her parents decided they wanted to join the cell phone revolution, I took the opportunity of getting a new one (a Samsung A900M) and passing on my old one to them.

The good: this thing is svelte! No more bulging pockets, yay! Double yay for being able to surf the web with a decent browser (Opera Mini) and running Java apps in general (the GMail app is fantastic). But the best feature I've seen so far is its support for GPS navigation. Didn't know it was available until I was fooling around with it last week while driving, and it works wonders. No more getting lost!

The bad: why don't new cell phones have distinct keys? Flushed buttons may look good and all, but they're impossible to use without looking at them.

The ugly: getting nickel and dimed for every little feature. New theme? $2/month. New ring tone? $1/month. If it was a one time fee, I might at least consider it, but a monthly fee? No way. And worse of all, I just learned today that my trial use of the GPS navigation app about to expire. I didn't even know I was in some trial period. If I want to keep using it, it'll cost me $5/month. Are you kidding me? I can just use Google Maps for free, assuming I can figure out where I am, and that's more of a hassle than a problem.

Thanksgiving

A belated Happy Thanksgiving to all!

I'm not quite sure what happened, but it was Wednesday night one minute and Monday morning the next. I spent Thanksgiving with Charity's parents in Sacramento, that much I know.

I'm also fairly sure I did the whole Black Friday wait-in-line thing for the first time ever. Proof is in the shiny new 42" plasma TV that just arrived this morning (a Panasonic TH-42PX60U). I've been watching the price of these things for a while now, and Best Buy finally had an offer I just couldn't refuse.

Now I need to upgrade all my other components to match this one... ;)

TV Online

It looks like almost all the major networks now offer a video archive off their website. The exception is the new CW, but then it's not exactly a "major" network now, is it?

Off them all, I like CBS the best. It has the nicest interface, and appears to have at least the last 4 episodes archived. ABC and Fox are pretty good as well, but I have issues with both. ABC because I usually have problems with the video (hiccups, etc.), and Fox because they don't archive any of the shows I'd be interested in.

As for NBC, they have an absolutely horrible interface. It's almost impossible to figure out which shows have complete episodes available, and from what I can tell, they only have the last episode available. Unless you've missed something, it's really not worth visiting their site at all.

Even with all the problems though, it's nice to see progress on this front. I can only that the networks will improve their services and really expand their archives. It's quite nice to be able to join a show mid-season and and catch all the previous episodes.

Slapstick

Slapstick explained.

*rofl*

Too Slow!

Unbelievable... Charity and I were thinking of grabbing the domain name markandcharity.com and discovered that it has already been taken!

*grumble*

Bond, James Bond

I can't remember the last time I've gone to see a movie on its opening night, but I'm glad I did for Casino Royale. In a word: spectacular! Daniel Craig is totally believable as the new Bond, very much in the style of Connery's Bond -- ruthless and physical -- but updated for today's world. And it gets even better: the script is actually quite good. For once the silly one-liners were kept to a minimum. My favorite quote:

Bartender: Shaken or stirred, sir?
Bond: Do I look like I care?

I don't think I can say much more without giving anything away, so I won't. It's a great movie that I would have enjoyed watching again. Easily a 5/5 - go watch it now!

P/S - There's a great parkour chase sequence at the beginning of the movie!

New Shows

Who says there's nothing good on TV? Last season may have sucked in terms of new shows, but they seem to have figured out what they've been doing wrong. I've been very pleasantly surprised by a few new shows this season.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip is a reasonably good West Wing replacement, but my top pick so far is definitely Heroes, also on NBC. I watched the first 5 episodes back to back and just did not want to stop.

I also like Jericho, on CBS, but I'm wondering if they can keep up the momentum of the first few shows. There hasn't been much progress/revelations in the last couple episodes, but it's still holding my attention for the moment.

Finally, Day Break just premiered this week on Fox, and it's looking pretty good as well. The premise is interesting enough -- like Groundhog Day except for the fact that the guy who's repeating the same day actually carries over his physical injuries through each cycle. What I want to know is whether this is supposed to be a one season show, or if they really think they can prolong it indefinitely. I'm hoping for the former.

Get Out and Vote!

Tomorrow is election day. Are you ready to vote? Have you done your homework?

If so, you might be interested in watching HBO's Special on Hacking Democracy, which is available on Google Video.

This year I decided to vote by absentee ballot, and it was so convenient that I think I'll be voting like this from now on.

Books

Books are usually the first leisure activity that gets dropped by the wayside when things get hectic at work, but I've managed to continue reading after getting back from vacation despite the work that's piled up. Partly from procrastination, partly from a refusal to get my nose back to the grindstone, but I've managed to finish a couple more that's been sitting on the shelves for a while now.

I haven't read any good books based on the Arthurian legend for a while now, and I'm glad I stumbled over Jack Whyte's The Skystone: The Forging of Arthur's Britain. Believe it or not, it's historical fiction, and it's the first of six in the Camulod Chronicles. It's also absolutely captivating, and I'd recommend it to anyone. Now I've just got to get my hands on the rest.

Also finished Anne Bishop's The Invisible Ring, which I picked up because I've seen good things about her The Black Jewels: Trilogy. I couldn't find the latter, but decided to give the former a shot since it was set in the same world. Any interesting read, but it hasn't really made me want to run out and grab the trilogy either.

Home Sweet Home

It's good to be back...

But it's a little hard to get all the balls back up in the air again. I'm slowly settling back into the old routine and starting to juggle between work, wedding plans, and the remodeling, along with all the other cruft that comes with life as we know it.

It's All Japanese To Me

I'm trying to type on a Japanese keyboard right now, hoping that I don't send it into Kanji mode (I've got no clue what key I hit that pushes it into this mode, but I've already done it twice so far). I also don't know what I've got to do to get it out of Kanji mode, so my only recourse is to just close the window and open a new one. Super annoying. It doesn't help that most punctuation keys are at different locations.

I'm at the LaQua Spa at the Tokyo Dome right now, and just gotten a massage, so I'm ridiculously relaxed. If there's one thing the US needs to import from Japan, it's these onsen type establishments. There's a small one in San Francisco (Kabuki), but it's not quite the same.

OK, gotta run now to catch the last train back to the hotel, and then it's bed time -- gotta get up early to go to the Tsukiji fish market tomorrow for some super sushi.

Unimpressed with Russian Hospitality

I can't say I've been terribly impressed with Aeroflot, and by extension, Russian hospitality. I'm not sure where one ends and the next begins, but I'm sure that I won't be flying Aeroflot again if I've a choice.

• There were flies on the plane from Rome to Moscow. Seriously. Buzzing in the bathrooms, and buzzing in the cabins. I'm not talking one or two, I'm talking a full squadron of them scattered throughout.
• They don't seem to have a solid grasp on how long the flight should actually take. The itinerary says 3:40 hours, the captain says 4 hours, and we actually take close to 4:30 hours. This is with clear skies all the way. How do they anyone to make connections reliably this way? I mean, there were no real delays per se, we should have been able to arrive on time, but everyone just sort of took their time.
• The hotel they put us up in (Novotel) was relatively crappy. There was an empty beer can under the desk when I got in; both bed side lamps had blown bulbs; and the furniture was flimsy - I managed to pop out the back of one of the chairs.
• And worse of all: no one was even vaguely apologetic about the missed connection. Everyone I came in contact with seemed bored and unconcerned, as if this was just the natural course of events, or slightly annoyed, as if it was somehow my fault for forcing this inconvenience upon them!
• I also felt an undercurrent of hostility over the fact that I did not speak Russian. I'd understand it if I was randomly accosting people on the streets, but everyone here worked at an airport -- they should be used to the fact that many people do not speak Russian. I've been in many countries where I did not speak the native tongue before, but this was the first time that I've felt that I was unwelcome because of it (including the French).

Update: The second leg from Moscow to Tokyo was more pleasant. Part of this was because of the plane itself, a Boeing 767 vs. a Tupelov TU154. Even so, as far as long flights go (this leg lasted almost 10 hours), this was probably the worst.

Free International Phone Calls

Got this from Pogue's Tech Blog: Futurephones is offering free international phone calls to select countries (which includes all countries I can think of calling).

For those too lazy to read, the short version is: call 712-858-8883 (that's in Iowa), then when you're connected, dial 011 and the phone number you wish to call.

No one seems to know what the catch is, but they're claiming they want the free publicity and will keep this up till 2010. And for the moment, they can't connect to cell phones.

Stuck in Moscow

*sigh*

My flight from Rome to Moscow was late, causing me to miss my connecting flight to Tokyo. The next flight is in 24 hours, so I'll be spending the night in a nearby hotel, courtesy of Aeroflot. They've put me up in a hotel, along with several others who also missed the flight, but we're pretty much restricted to our rooms since we don't have an entry visa for Russia. Missing the connection wouldn't have been so bad if we were at least allowed to wander around town during the day.

Instead, we can't leave the floor we're on. The elevator is behind a locked door and there's a guard on duty at all times. When I went to the front desk to purchase a passcard for wifi access, I had to be escorted by another security guard. At least they're feeding us, which is sent directly to our rooms. We don't get to pick what we eat. It's all a little surreal.

Oh, and we don't get our luggage either, so yay, I get to spend 48 hours in the same set of clothes.

On the bright side, there's 'net access (only because I've been lugging my notebook around), and I've what's shaping up to be a pretty good book: Stephen Lawhead's Empyrion.

Lost and Found

Had a bit of a panic yesterday. We were supposed to meet Charity at the hotel we were staying at in the morning, but she never showed up. After a wee bit of stressing, she finally appeared at 5pm, and it was entirely by chance. She had thought that we were meeting on Friday morning instead of Thursday morning, and the only reason she was at the hotel at all was because she was in the area and thought to make sure she could find it easily the next day when she would be carrying her luggage.

Anyway, alls well in the world now, and Venice awaits...

Reading Material

I always bring a long a book when travelling, and this time I brought a backup in case I finished the first too quickly. Imagine my surprise on the first day when I learned that the ship actually had a small library with some decent books! And books that I've been wanting to read, at that.

Which sort of explains how I finally managed to read Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. I miss his Sandman comics, and this book definitely reminded me of those stories. Highly recommended if you get the chance -- it's a real fast read.

Venice

Spent the day at sea today, and we've just docked at Venice. The thing that excites me most about Venice is that I'll finally be meeting up with Charity tomorrow. Wheee!

Corfu

Another late start again today at Corfu, Greece. There are no major archaelogical sites here; the major attractions are the historical buildings and districts, as well as some scenic locations and beaches in surrounding towns. For George, my mom and I, however, we pretty much treated Old Town as a huge bazaar and spent the day shopping...

Jim and Jeanne had gotten off the ship before us so that they would have time to frolic on a beach. Alas, they reported that they didn't find anything as nice as on Mykonos.

This is our second to last port. At our next stop, Venice, we'll be disembarking for the last time. A shame, really, as I've just gotten used to this whole cruising thing...

Olympia

It's getting harder and harder to wake up early as the cruise goes on... We didn't go ashore to Katokolon, Greece till 10am, some three hours after we arrived. What's at Katakolon, you ask? Nothing. All the guides describe it as a "sleepy town." What it has in its favor, however, is the fact that it's the closest port to Olympia, the site of the ancient Olympics. Even today the flame for the Olympics is lit at Olympia and carried to wherever it is to be held.

The first order of business for the day was finding some breakfast, as we had decided to eat it on shore today. More specifically, I wanted to find a bakery. We'd discovered early that we really like the pastries that could be found in Greek pastries, and when we finally found one, we were not disappointed.

After that, we rented a car and drove to Olympia, which was some 39km away. Of all the major archeological sites we've visited so far, Olmpia feels the least preserved. All that's left are the foundations and a few columns. On the plus side, there's a sense of calmness and serenity here. It could be the fact that there were trees all around, or that we arrived after the morning tourist hordes and left before the afternoon tourist hordes, or some combination of the two, but I definitely felt a lot more at ease here.

The funnest fact I learn today was about the Zanes - statues to Zeus constructed with the fine an athlete had to pay if he was caught cheating. Their name would be carved into the statue's base, along with his crime. There were sixteen of these before the entrance to the stadium as a warning to others.

Athens

Our port of call today was Athens, Greece -- the cradle of western civilization -- and I've been looking forward to this stop the entire trip. The highlight, of course, is the Parthenon in the Acropolis. It's immense. Pictures don't quite convey how large and imposing this structure is. Unfortunately for us they're renovating the entire Acropolis right now, so the structures are incomplete. There's scaffolding everywhere, they've taken down entire columns from the Parthenon, and the Temple of Nike Athena is practically dismantled. Even so, what's left is still awe inspiring. I can't imagine how the ancient Greeks built everything, and the fact that it has stood the test of time is incredible. They sure don't make things like they used to.

We also visited all the surrounding sites: the Agora, the Temple of Olympian Zeus, Hadrian's Arch, and Syntagma Square (very briefly; we were getting tired and running out of time).

As in Pisa, I was once again surprised at the amount of graffitti around these major historical attractions. I just can't fathom the lack of pride that would allow someone deface their national monuments. True, the graffitti isn't on the sites themselves, but it is on all the approaches to them. It's just sad...

Mykonos

Today was a good day. Although the ship docked at Mykonos, Greece fairly early, we didn't get off till some time after 9am. We were planning on a relatively low key day and decided against going to the nearby island of Delos, where most of the archaelogical finds are. As a result, we spent most of the morning wandering around Mykonos city, exploring the tiny tiny streets and the multitudes of stores. We ate lunch on the beach (at Platis Gialos), and spent the rest of the afternoon in the water. It was absolutely beautiful; the sun was out and the water was that wonderfully Aegean blue, cool, and crystal clear. Everything was just absolutely perfect.

Kusadasi

We had a short day today. The ship docked at Kusadasi, Turkey at 8am this morning and we went ashore soon after. Jeanne had done some research ahead of time and got us a private tourguide, so we were up and running pretty much immediately.

The main points of interest that we visited were the Temple of Artemis (the largest building of the ancient world and one of the seven ancient wonders), the House of the Virgin Mary, and Ephesus. Ephesus was amazing. By comparison, Pompeii is a mere shadow.

After lunch, we got sidetracked at a rug store, where we all ended up buying something. We spent so much time there that we had to cut our tour short and return to the ship since the last boarding was at 5pm.

Right now, I'm back on the ship and sitting in the Explorer's Lounge where they're holding an art auction. I think I'm going to bid on a couple pieces...

Santorini

Today's stop was Santorini, Greece. It's a beautiful island, and I wish I had more time to spend here. Instead of sightseeing, I decided to go scuba diving instead. This is my first dive outside the US (everything's in metric!) as well as the first one in a long time where I have not used my own equipment. And eventhough the sun didn't cooperate (it was overcast and cloudy all day), visibility in the water was still excellent (easily over 60ft).

My first dive was at the New Volcano. There aren't many fishes out here, and the ones that are swimming around are all small/young. According to some other divers, this is because the area has been overfished. The most interesting fauna I saw were fire worms, which were rather fun to watch. The highlight of the dive, however, was the wreck (my first) at the end, at a depth of 30ft. It's supposed to be one of the first steel ships in the area. No one knows why it sank, and the top two theories are sabotage and insurance fraud, with the latter being the heavy favorite.

My second dive was a wall dive off Caldera Beach. The highlight of this one was when we stopped to feed the fishes some bread. I literally had a swarm of little fishes around me, nibbling at both the bread I was holding in my hands and my hands themselves. They were so intent on the bread that I could actually reach out and smack them around ;)

The trade off for scuba diving was that I didn't have the time to go to Oia. Apparently, lunch was simply amazing according to my mom and my sister. *sigh* At least we have a few more Greek ports on the itinerary.

Day at Sea

Spent the day at sea today as we sail for Santorini, Greece.

My major accomplishment? I slept for about 12 hours...

Naples and Sorento

We woke up in the Bay of Naples this morning. We finished breakfast just as the ship finished docking. From the top deck, looking into Naples, the Castel Nuovo dominated the foreground. Behind us, Mount Vesuvius sat crowned in a halo of clouds.

Our original plan was to catch a taxi to the train station to get to Pompeii. When we got to the taxi stand, however, the cabbies started selling us on taking the taxi directly to Pompeii. Much discussion and attempted haggling ensued. To make a long story short, they stayed firm on their prices and we agreed to hire one to take us to Pompeii, then Sorento, and then back to Naples. We soon discovered that this was a wonderful stroke of luck genius on our part.

On the way out of Naples, we got to see some pretty crazy driving. Traffic going the other way was backed up (rush hour traffic), and to get around that some drivers were actually driving down our side of the road...

Honestly, I thought Pompeii would get old pretty quick. I mean, how many ruined buildings do you really need to see? I'm happy to report that I was wrong. We spent two and a half hours wandering around, and could easily have spent another two. My personal favorite was the small amphiteatre, where if you stood in exactly the right spot every sound you made (hum/whistle/sing/speak) would be echoed back to you. Move even a bit in any direction and you wouldn't get the effect. The amphiteatre is your standard Greek half-circle amphiteatre that seats about 5,000, and the spot is the center of the perfect circle inscribed by its outer rim.

I did notice one thing that Charity would not like about Pompeii: there were dogs all over. I believe they're were strays, and would find one dozing pretty much around every corner.

From Pompeii we headed to Sorento, and it's an absolutely gorgeous drive along the coast. This was also when the cabbie started proving invaluable: he knew all the vista points to stop at for us to take pictures.

When we reached Sorento, our thoughts had turned to lunch, but the cabbie advised us to walk around downtown before the stores closed for the afternoon, which we did. We met back up with the cabbie at 1:30pm, and asked him to take us to a restaurant where the locals would go. We were not disappointed. Lunch was absolutely spectacular. I had a caprese salad (huge chunks of mozarella in between thick slices of tomato with olive oil and herbs), spaghetti a vongole (the best spaghetti I've ever had, in a clam sauce that was just perfect), and cozze alla Pronvecale (mussels Provencale-style). Mmm...

The last time I was in Italy, I was sorely disappointed in the food. This one meal made up for all the past disappointments. I guess we must have been really unlucky last time and just picked sub-par restaurants.

After lunch, we headed back to Naples, where we wondered around downtown before boarding the ship. All in all it was a great day, with the highlight definitely being lunch.

Livorno & Pisa

The ship docked in Livorno early this morning. We woke up to a wet and drizzly dawn and it pretty much stayed that way all day.

The first thing we did was to catch the train out of Livorno to Pisa, where we did the tourist thing. The leaning tower is definitely a sight to behold. Pictures do not do it justice, and I was suitable awed. Definitely worth the visit. The Duomo (cathedral) was also very interesting and worth the price of admission. It's a bit harder to say the same for the Baptistry, although seeing (or more accurately, listening) to the acoustics demonstration was nice. As for the Campo Santo (cemetery), in its current state of repair/renovation, it is eminently skippable unless you're a real fan of tombstones and sarcophagi.

A minor disaster occured at the top of the leaning tower of Pisa -- the battery in our camera died. Jeanne had bought a new camera (the Canon PowerShot SD700IS) for my mom and no one thought to charge it up the night before... Incidentally, this little camera has been absolutely terrific so far.

From Pisa we went to Lucca and wandered around its old, twisty streets and plazas, sticking our heads into the odd church or musuem that were scattered about. Unfortunatly, we only had about 90 minutes to spend here since we'd taken our time in Pisa and had to get back to the ship by 5:30pm. Nevertheless, my mom and George loved it. While Pisa might have the more spectacular attraction, they prefered the Lucca's ambience.

I learned a three unexpected (and disappointing) things today:

1. There's grafitti everywhere. And I do mean everywhere, which detracted from the sights.
2. Italians are serious about their siestas. Except for the stores selling tourist souvenirs, almost all other stores are only open from about 9am-1pm and 4pm-8pm. Since we have to get back to the ship by around 6pm or 7pm, that basically means we've got to do any shopping we want to do between 9am-1pm, and we're usually focused on seeing the sites first so shopping is pretty much not an option.
3. There's a feeling of getting nickle and dimed at some of the attractions. The worst example of this is at one church where they had lights set up to illuminate the paintings on the walls. The catch? You had to pay to turn the light on!
4. I am not a big fan of the time limitations we have to operate in due to the cruise format. We basically have nine hours (plus or minus an hour depending on the port) to look around, and if we want to travel out of the town we docked in, that really doesn't give me as much time to sight see. It's a constant struggle deciding between quantity or quality, and it can get quite stressful the close it gets to the departure time.

By the time we'd gotten back to the ship, we were all bone tired and immediately hopped on to the hot tub/steam room/sauna circuit. Bliiisssss...

Go directly to bed. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.

Mah Jong Parlor

I'm quite amused that the Chinese on the cruise have taken over the games room and converted it into a mah jong parlor. Five of the ten tables have been monopolized, and I can hear the oh so familiar click-clack of the tiles from where I'm sitting.

Bad Weather

So much for Monaco... The captain woke us up at 7am this morning with an announcement that we would not be stopping at Monaco due to inclement weather. Apparently there's no sheltered docking available there. I ran up on deck just in time to snap a few foggy shots of Monaco in the distance.

We're now chugging our way to our next stop, Livorno. I'm staring out a window on one of the lower decks and the waves definitely look pretty big.

First Post (from Italy)

Finally landed in Rome after some 15-odd hours in the air. Caught the train to Civitavechia, where I spent the night at a B&B. The second B came in the form of a ticket for a free breakfast at a cafe down the street, Nero Bollente, which had some wonderful pastries.

I made my first language mistake here -- asked for a latte and got a cup of milk! A not altogether unpleasant surprise -- the milk was steamed and had chocolate powder sprinkled on top. Unexpectedly good.

Met up with my mom, George, Jeanne and Jim a couple hours later and boarded the cruise ship, and spent the afternoon exploring. The important discover: there's a wireless network available, but it's $0.35/minute. *ouch*

It's a little after midnight now and I'm typing this from one of the top decks in the aft. It's pitch black outside the radius of the ship's lights, and I can just make out a few lights twinkling in the distance.

Our first stop will be at Monaco, and it's time I went to bed.

Flight

Woot! I'll be leaving for Italy in a few hours! I also just found out last night that my trip will be extended for three more days as I'll be going to Japan for a conference.

Movies

Managed to catch a few movies recently...

Went to see a preview of The Guardian, starring Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher. It's pretty much your standard training movie (e.g Top Gun, An Officer and a Genlteman) for the Coast Guard. OK, OK, the elite Coast Guard rescue diver program. I'm no Costner fan, but I actually found him doing a creditable job in this movie. I give this a 3/5 - worth renting.

A much better choice was The Illusionist. I don't want to give anything away, and it's probably best if you go in knowing nothing about it anyway, other than it is a very well-crafted story. Definitely worth watching - 4/5. I think this is Edward Norton's best film since Fight Club, and Paul Giamatti was very good as well.

Speaking of fighting, I had an attack of bad judgement and watched The Protector. It's really only worth watching if you really enjoy fight sequences. The plot, if you can call it that, is totally fractured and only serves to connect one fight to the next. If I hadn't known better, I'd thought this was some Street Fighter spin-off. There seemed to be a fighter dedicated to almost every martial art style, with the protagonist being the Muay Thai expert. Definitely NOT recommended: 1/5 - only suitable as background noise.

Aaargh!

I'm finally done moving everything from my old notebook over to the Inspiron 9400. I've only just started to do some real work on it and am already appreciating the extra horse power and memory. The 17" screen is pretty nice too, but a little too reflective I think, making it feel more like a plasma screen than an LCD screen. I wonder if this was done for cosmetic reasons? If so, it was a bad choice.

One major problem that I've discovered so far is that it doesn't have a built-in mic. For crying out loud, how much more could this component possibly be? I'd take a built-in mic over all these multimedia buttons any day. I've gotten quite used to using Skype, and the lack of a built-in mic is a major pain in the rear.

From what I can tell from the Dell support forums, I'm not the only one to have been caught off guard by this. Apparently they've stopped including the built-in mic for quite a while now. I've griped before about how Dell has been dropping features from their notebooks (specifically, the mouse nipple in the middle of the keyboard and real docking station support). Grrr... These are features I'd pay extra for, but they're not even an option!

Ludlum Schmudlum

I really need to stop reading stuff by Ludlum. The first time I read any of his stuff was right after the first Bourne movie came out, when I read his three Bourne books (The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum). By the time I'd hit the third one, I'd realized that I really didn't care for the way he developed his characters, or the way his characters spoke. The story was interesting enough, he's certainly good with plot twists and pacing, but the characters just never seemed realistic.

But apparently I didn't learn my lesson. I still picked up The Aquitane Progression, which is totally forgetable. Definitely not recommended.

L'Opera

We're doing the opera thing again this year, and since we'll be travelling so much in the next month, we've had to move up a couple shows. As a result, we went to see both Strauss' Die Fledermaus and Verdi's A Masked Ball this week at the SF Opera.

I thought the music in Die Fledermaus was nice, but the production emphasized the slapstick elements of this operetta so much that it rather turned me off. It was also sung in English, and since many parts of the dialogue was spoken normally rather than sung, it really felt more like a musical than an opera.

There were no such problems with A Masked Ball, which actually had a pretty decent plot. Combine that with amazing singing and beautiful sets made this one of the better operas I've seen in a while.

Dell Inspiron 9400

Woot! Christmas came early this year: my shiny new Inspiron 9400 just came in today...

Goa!

Went over to Danny's house on Saturday and played Goa for the first time. I've been playing a lot of Puerto Rico lately so it was a pretty nice change of pace. Nice enough that I decided to pick up my own copy today...

Beef with (Protestant) Churches

Charity and I have been hunting for a church to get married in the past few weeks, and what I've come to realize is that pretty much all Protestant churches only operate during business hours. That's 9am-5pm if we're lucky, and most aren't even open that long.

This just seems totally odd to me. Are those of us who actually have to work pretty much out of luck till Sunday? Some churches aren't open on Saturdays either, or if they are, it's usually only from 9am-12pm.

I guess the church as a place of refuge (and therefore open all day) is primarily a Catholic idea. I'm beginning to see the benefits of a professional clergy...

Labor Day Weekend Labors

Went white-water rafting over the long weekend (props to Bryan for organizing the whole thing). We rafted down the class III-IV rapids along the Upper Klamath for the first two days and spent the third in kayaks on the Middle Klamath near the Tree of Heaven camp site. It was definitely a fun time.