I finally made a good video of last year’s road trip from California to NY.. enjoy!
Archive for July, 2007
Last week I was in a hurry trying to iron my clothes. I just checked in to the hotel the night before, and woke up late. The iron itself when I looked at it was a bit dodgy. It was the type that had the retractable cable. You know, you pull the cable from the body and the extended power cable locks into place. Once you’re done, you pull on the cable again and it rolls back into the body.
The first problem was that the cable refused to lock. So I said, what the hey? I could keep the cable from rolling back into the body by winding a part of the cable around the handle. So that I did. I plugged it in and immediately started ironing. Then I noticed that the iron was sticking to my favorite dress shirt. Pulling the shirt away I realized that I had burnt a hole all the way through the shirt!
So I put the iron on the ironing board to inspect my shirt. Yep, all the way through. There was a hole the exact same shape as the iron on the front lower left hand side. I felt sad for a moment as, although it was a cheap Van Heusen, it was the easiest shirt to iron that I had. I probably have owned it for close to 10 years (hey, that means that I am stil roughly the same size as 10 years ago right?)
Well, my mourning suddenly had to be put on hold, as only a few seconds after I lay the iron on the ironing board, it was already burning a hole through the cover and foam of the thing! It was definitely a dodgy iron, as I have had ironed my clothes on this same type of device in this same hotel for more than a year. As the smell of burning fabric and foam wafted into my nostrils I pulled out the plug and.. lo and behold! The electrical outlet pulled itself almost completely out of the wall!
Obviously I called the hotel management about this. A couple of days later the manager called me up and asked me how much my shirt was valued. I told her it could not have been worth more than $50. Actually, it was probably closer to $12 as it most likely came from a Filene’s clearance bin. The manager offered to reimburse me for another shirt, up to $50 provided I give her a reciept. I graciously accepted.
Well, all’s well that ends well or so they say. At the airport today, I stopped by Brooks Brothers and got myself a $89 dress shirt, but hey at 50% off! Price on the reciept, $47. Right on the money.
27
Jul
Wii Are the Future
The other day I just read on the web that Nintendo was going to release additional controllers for the Nintendo Wii. One was the "Wii blaster", basically a gun attachment to the controller such that you could play shooting games more naturally. The 2nd was the "Wii Wheel" which was another attachment that looked like a steering wheel to make driving games play more naturally.
But the final and probably the most important new controller about to be released was the "Wii Balance Board" - something that looked like an oversized weighing scale. What did it do? Well according to the press you step on it and it was sensitive enough to determine how your weight was distributed over the surface. So you could play surfboard or skateboarding games, and other things we have not even imagined yet.
Well what was so important about that? Well, basically the original Wii controllers were your hands’ interface into the virtual world. The new balance board brings your feet into it as well. This of course marks the beginning of immersive virtual reality into the mass market. I am perfectly certain that both Microsoft and Sony are developing their own controllers that mimic the wii and these will definitely show up on the Xbox 360 and the PS3 in the next couple of months or at the most in a year (unless Nintendo trademarked the hell out of the entire Wii controller concept)
Back to my own Wii, I think this is the best game console for someone like myself. It’s immersive, yet you can get out of it easy. The games that come with it don’t have the nature of "just one more level and you can stop" which is always my Waterloo and signals the start of addiction. It’s also good exercise. Whenever I play Wii Boxing, I get so sweaty from the exertion that I either play with wifebeater sandos or shirtless, as the wet clothes stick to the body and hamper quick movement. Sometimes I even think I’m not playing it enough. Just this weekend it was just laying in it’s bag, unplayed. Well, thats a good thing.
Last weekend for my rental I was given a choice between a Mazda 3, a Chevy Aveo or a Chevy HHR. Now, I had driven the Mazda 3 a couple of times before and it was a car I would want to drive again, but I had a very good experience with the PT Cruiser a couple of months back and the Chevy HHR from the outset looked like it was a vehicle of the same ilk - an American retro wagon. So I took the keys to the Chevy, not knowing that the similarity ended there.
In the initial walk-around, the HHR was a good-looking car. It looked like the old Chevy Suburbans, and was larger than the PT Cruiser. But when I got inside the car, the interior was totally modern, unlike the PT Cruiser which was retro inside as well as outside.
The cargo area had no lining, which could be a good or a bad thing depending on your perspective. For people who do a lot of hauling, this could be a good thing as there would be no carpet to ruin, just the bare plastic. For someone like me though who never really hauls anything dirty, the lack of carpeting in the cargo area lets my bags slide around the rear in an irritating manner.
Sitting in it and adjusting the seats to make myself comfortable, I discovered that I could not adjust the seat height with the driver door closed - there was no space for my hand. The door needed to be open for any sort of height adjustment! What is worse is that during the entire time I drove it, I could not find the seat recline function!
To compensate though, the dashboard was pretty intuitive, and even had a very well-designed A/C and stereo controls. But still, this was a driving machine first, disco a distant second.
As I drove off the lot, I was struck with a panic as the suspension wobbled from left to right in the slowest, widest turns. I definitely did not expect it to perform on the corners like my Spyder, but I did expect it to handle more like a car than an ocean-going vessel.
The problems did not end there. On the highway it was slow to accelerate, even taking into consideration the small 2.4 engine. What was worse was that it decelerated even slower! This vehicle was practically a hazard to its driver, passengers, and all the other vehicles sharing the same stretch of road.
At least it was not a gas guzzler. I think I averaged around 30mpg, which was very good for it’s size. In the final analysis, there are lots of better cars out there. If you’re looking for retro specifically, then the PT Cruiser is still a better bet.
20
Jul
Days of Futures Past
On the plane today, I’ve tried thinking of what my own life would have been like under different circumstances. How it could have been different if I had taken other forks in my own life. What if I had gone to a different high school? What if I had taken something different for my major in college? What if I had stuck with a significant other? What if I had taken a different job out of college? What if I had stayed in ‘Pinas? What if I had bought that house 4 years back?
But I couldn’t. Maybe it was just a lack of imagination, or I’m just the eternal optimist, or I’m just damn lucky, but I could only find 1 or 2 situations where I definitely could have ended up better off than I am now.
I think part of it is that much of life is so unplanned, and the biggest course changes in life often come from random opportunities that you could never have had the foresight to anticipate. Some opportunities even spring from the silver lining of failures. If you had done your best in everything, there wouldn’t have been failures, and thus no silver linings.
Come to think about it, the biggest positive changes in my life came from silver linings. If for example I had not gotten laid off during the dot-com bust, I would never have gotten the job I have now, have not been able to see the world, have not become close to being stable.
But having said that, maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe you are inexorably drawn to, for lack of a better word, a "destiny". Destiny being defined as the natural direction of your own life. Maybe even without the setbacks that give you opportunities, you would take advantage of other opportunities anyway, and that only the opportunities that come from failure come into focus, because they are the most emotionally memorable. Maybe all of our lives are really all leading to this point where you are now, reading this blog post.
Or maybe this is all just random $h!+ and we are all vainly trying to put a story around our own lives.
But somehow I don’t think this is true. If life were truly random, then we would all be mostly homogenous as everything would eventually equal out. But it doesn’t equal out. The person sitting next to me on this flight is as unique as I am, even though we both bought Pringles on the flight and had Pepsi.
Your conclusion may vary.
18
Jul
The Return of Itchy Feet
Its been almost a year since the last big road trip, so last night I was planning a preliminary route that would take me across all 48 contiguous states. Now with the magic of Google Maps, I can share it online - check it out. Hopefully I get the chance to start some time next month.
Washington State to Florida and Florida to Maine
From the lessons learned from the NY to LA trip, I have set out a couple of "rules of the road" to follow:
1) Road trips are few and far in between; therefore time should be spent enjoying the new and not trying to do a "speed run" i.e. get through all of your destinations as fast as you can. So now I’m planning to spend 2-3 days per state, and drive no more than 4 hours per leg.
2) I should be more adventurous in experiencing local flavor. Therefore, avoid national food chains if possible.
3) Take plenty of pictures (videos if possible)
I better get on this right away. The green card is only a year away, and I can’t wait to start my other evil plan.
Before anything, watch this:
OK, how’s that for hype? "The Sarah Connor Chronicles", as is pretty obvious, is the new Terminator TV series set between the Terminator 2 and Terminator 3 movies. Somewhat like a cross between "Smallville" and "24", it looks like through the course of the series it will trace the path of the development of young John Connor from pre-teen weenie into future rebel leader.
Genre favorite Summer Glau is the hero Terminator while Lena Headey plays the titular role. I only see one problem with this series. Unlike "Smallville" where we all know the adult Superman, no one actually knows or cares about the "future" John Connor as in all the movies we only see him in "flash-forwards". Who we do care about is Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), and the young John Connor (poor Edward Furlong) from Terminator 2, not even the weenie John Connor (indie actor Nick Stahl) in the 3rd installment. The TV series will have to take advantage of our loyalties to these characters in order for it to initially succeed. As none of our favorites make it to the small screen (no actors, not even the recognizable theme music), this will be a challenge.
Furthermore, Summer Glau will have to put a new spin on the Terminator character, as from the scenes on the preview, she can’t even muster a monotonous robotic voice. Hopefully her martial arts skills from "Firefly" and "Serenity" will make up for that.
I’m really looking forward to this TV series and it’s success. It can never live up to the expectations of the rabid fan, but hopefully it will realize this and take us into a whole new pleasurable direction.
For the last couple of months I have been braving the traffic jams around George Washington Bridge to get myself to Mitsuwa, that Japanese grocery that had the best shoyu ramen around. The noodles may be great, but still, I keep on wishing that I would not be stuck in traffic for 2 hours to enjoy 30 minutes worth of good authentic ramen.
So it was to my delight that Ramen Setagaya finally opened in the East Village. There was a bit of fanfare around it, as it was supposedly the "#1 Rated Ramen in Tokyo". There was much hype, but of course the proof was in the pudding. My first experience was not so good. The lines were long to get in, even at 10pm. I had to wait outside for 20 minutes to order ramen, which to my disappointment, was made of shio, or salt based, broth. I preferred shoyu, or soy based broth. But hey, it should be worth a try.
It was my mistake to have ordered the most expensive (at $12) item on the menu, ramen with separated noodles and broth. The broth was lukewarm and the noodles were cold, so it was not a good experience. There was however the promise of something in the aroma of the dish, even though it was cold. So I decided to give it another chance. Besides, the drive was only 25 minutes instead of more than 1 hour.
So this weekend I found myself in front of Setagaya again. Smartly, I had come at 4:30 just before they opened for dinner, as to avoid any lines. When they opened, I was the first one served. This time, I ordered the cheapest item in the menu, the plain shio ramen.
At first there was disappointment again, as the noodles were a bit under-cooked. But as the first minute passed, the noodles quickly softened to the perfect state in the broth that was perfectly hot, and not thin as I had been worried about. It had excellent mouth feel, and tasted vaguely like la paz bachoy. It was very, very good. And I could see myself returning often. Hooray for the 2nd good ramen joint in the NY tri-state area!
14
Jul
This Time Its for Real!
Well, last year I made a half-assed attempt to write an essay as an
entry to American Way’s "Ultimate Road Warrior" contest to win 2
million Hilton hotel points, 1 million airline miles, a laptop, and
other fun stuff (American Way is the official airline magazine for
American Airlines). I sort of forgot about it a few weeks later. So a
couple months back it was to my great surprise that I was reading my
own essay in the latest issue of the magazine. I didn’t win because my face
wasn’t on the cover (mug would have been too ugly I’m sure), but my
write up was some sort of "special mention". I wrote all about it in this blog here.
So of course the next time the contest came around again I got
interested in writing one for real. The hotel points and
airline miles could underwrite a lot of activities. I thought I’d be writing
about last year’s Los Angeles to New York road trip on the Spyder, and
how I flew their damned planes Fridays and Sundays as to be able to
both work in the office during weekdays, and cross the United States
during weekends in the MR2. I wrote all of that as well in this blog here.
So of course I go to the website to fill up a form and write my essay. The problem was, there wasn’t any essay! In place of the essay, you were to write a haiku! Now a Japanese poem with 5 syllables for the first line, 7 syllables for the second line, and 5 syllables for the third does not give enough space to tell a tale of adventure spanning 9 days and 3200 miles! For example, if I did the haiku, what would it have been like?
"Drive across the ‘States
And back to work on weekdays
is easy using miles"???
How interesting would that have been?
So, now my plans are dashed. I’ll have to think of something else for my entry. If life throws you lemons, you sing like Bono.
One thing marketers have discovered is that people on the web are too savvy now. They can’t tell you to "buy this, buy that" anymore and expect any sort of positive effect. So what they do is entertain you while selling you something in the background. That’s the whole idea of stuff like Google Ads. People make interesting content, while content-specific ads are on the side for you to click.
A step further is the promotion for the new Simpsons movie. Their home page allows you to create an avatar in your own likeness - something like the Mii’s on the Nintendo Wii. The interesting activity is really the ad itself!
Here’s the link to it. I’ve made mine, where’s yours?
