Pollywogs!

Audiosurf is an amazing fucking video game. I’m partial to involved, deep video games which require a substantial investment of time and effort. Audiosurf is a casual game. Why do I suddenly love it so much out of nowhere? It combines two of my favorite things in a single, slick package: music and twitch reflexes. It is hard to explain in words, combining music and twitch reflexes into a challenging puzzle game, but basically it takes any song on your computer (or it has a radio station if you don’t have much music) and crafts a track from the music. Then, after scoring your performance, you are placed on the leaderboards (if you’ve done well enough). I placed myself on the top of a couple global ‘easy mode’ boards for a few Pearl Jam songs last night. It is intense, challenging, and fun, and yet still casual and easily picked up by anyone.
Oh, and it scrobbles tracks that you play to your last.fm account. This is gaming done right!

This was recorded on the highest skill level, so it is pretty hardcore and difficult. Actually, strike that. This is mono mode, where every block is the same color. Let’s just say that the game can be as challenging as you are up for when it is moving a thousand mile per hour and you’re trying to play tetris…

I’ve only played handful of games on the highest setting (and only on mono mode), mostly I’ve been playing on the casual setting (and dominating that shit, uun). The actual gameplay is much smoother, since the computer was both playing the game and recording, it ended up getting a little choppy. But, you get the idea. It is a fucking blast. You can pick it up on Steam for $10, and I highly recommend you do so. It has reasonably low system requirements (1.6Ghz processor, Geforce2-class graphics card), so nearly anyone enjoy it.

If you do get a copy, I recommend starting playing Mono (casual) on the studio version of Pearl Jam - Yellow Ledbetter. It is a very easy, straightforward track, very good for starting out on.

Hell, any game you get these days, I recommend you buy on either Steam or Direct2Drive. Both places, no need to fool around with physical CDs, and your purchase is always your purchase, you can download what you own at any time. I recommend Steam a little higher, it is a little easier to use since everything is integrated into the one free program (the actual Steam client). Stay away from EA and other cock-gobbling places which want you to pay extra if you need to download the program you paid good money for a few months down the road.

Nootropil or Piracetam: daddy’s little helper. No, not in any crude sexual way, Piracetam is a nootropic drug which improves memory, attention and learning. And it isn’t a stimulant. Wikipedia has a decent write up on exactly what it is, but a short way of putting it is that it simply “makes your brain work better”. Check this out, if you’d like some dry reading. From a user’s point of view, I’d say that it quiets and centers your brain. It feels like I just got done meditating, all of the time. I feel quiet, composed, alert and aware at any given point in the day, as if that were my ‘normal’ baseline (as opposed to distracted and mentally fatigued, which is my actual ‘normal’ baseline). Apparently a lot of the magic it works is by allowing your various brain areas to communicate more effectively, especially between the right and left hemispheres.

I’m currently taking 800mg twice a day (morning and evening) and the effects are subtle but appreciated. The drug itself is extremely well tolerated, I’ve read that scientists were giving up to 9.6 grams to old folks in some studies with no significant side effects. I’ve read a number of different theories on using it, from people taking a significant dose (4.8 grams seems the most recommended) on the first couple days to prime themselves, then dropping back to a lower maintenance dose. At 1.6 grams a day, I can say that my alertness is no longer disturbed, and I like it. I’ve been flirting with the idea of a megadose day, to see how that goes, but I have no SATs or other challenging mental tasks to accomplish so ramping up my ability seems a little pointless.

The legal status is pretty safe for use in the United States. It is an ‘uncontrolled substance‘, which means you’re allowed to purchase and posses the drug for personal use. It is not regulated, not approved for human consumption, and not scheduled. I purchased mine through mail order from a company in the UK (oh how exciting, buying drugs online from a foriegn country!), along with a B vitamin (Choline) which is recommended as acting synergistcally with piracetam. Apparently you can also purchase it from companies inside the United States as well.

If anyone would like to sample my wares, just shoot me an email

So for work, we use this web service call Wufoo I read about somewhere at some point in the murky time before memory.  I chose it to handle our data collection and form creation because It Is Just Fucking Simple.  Go to their website, throw down some entry boxes, and collect the HTML to embed in your site.  All of the data then gets pulled and emailed or parsed as you see fit.  Reports and everything, it is Easy As Pie!  It seems a little expensive at like $7 a month compared to the fact that we host a number of websites for that amount per month, but for a business that $7 a month isn’t really much at all.

So we must have started using it pretty close to when they started up their operations, because the developers have always seemed really outgoing to me.  I recently got a handwritten thank you note in the mail from Ryan Campbell, one of the developers behind Wufoo, thanking me for using their service.  That is really going the extra mile, and really put a nice smile on my face.

So, if you have any reason or need to collect data from users online (they can also create forms which process payments), I highly recommend using Wufoo to create a really nice looking form which takes all of five minutes to generate and post online.

Alright, getting around to doing this took long enough!

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New York…I enjoyed New York much more than I ever thought I would.  The drive up sorta sucks, not much you can do about that, but we took the ferry at Port Imperial over into the city, which was very easy (except for finding the ferry, I guess New Jersey can’t afford to put a sign or two up…).  I wouldn’t get into New York City any other way.  The ferry was fast, easy, cheap, tons of parking, and then has free buses which run all over Manhattan.

Once in the city proper, we immediately walked to our hotel.  It is unmarked and blends in completely (and beautifully) with the neighborhood:

(All pictures are available here.)

The hotel itself (Chelsea Lodge) is very nice, a little small but it has a ton of personality and was very clean and comfortable.

Oh, and it is about $100 and in fucking Manhattan!!!  If you’d like something better than my short and obscenity laden comment, check out the reviews, the New York Times Guide nails it.  Sharing a bathroom (toilet) was not as bad as it sounds at all, as each floor has two and they are shared among perhaps five room.  The wifi wasn’t working, which was a bummer, but a local bar had free wifi (FUCK YOU STARBUCKS) so it wasn’t all bad…

Chelsea is so very nice, just south of Midtown and north of Greenwich Village.  I loved the shit out of the place, actually.  Shame the cheapest one bedroom apartment I could find with a quick search was half a million.  A nice studio apartment was running for like seven million, if I remember correctly.  The neighborhood was quiet, clean and yet still bustling.

After getting settled in, we decided to do something about not having a digital camera.  I looked through a booklet in the hotel room and found Adorama, which seemed like an excellent place to find a digital camera.  They had a very nice selection and a very helpful staff, but a fucking confusing system of tickets and stations and checkouts…ended up getting a Nikon Coolpix L18, which I like a bit.  It was cheap, and it seems a bit better (though a hair thicker) than our aging Sony DSC-T5.

On the way down to Adorama, we stopped by a nice little furniture store (West Elm) and windowshopped a bit.  Took in the sights.  It was all within three or four blocks from the hotel, which was very nice!

Back at the hotel, Surprised Kelley is surprised:

One of the first things I do with a new digital camera is try the macro mode, which I am reasonably impressed with.  It isn’t the 1.3″ the T5 is capable of, but not too shabby:

After trying out the new camera, we set out to explore the town a bit.  The first day in NYC was free for us, as the show wasn’t until the following night.  Well, there was a show that night, but I didn’t buy tickets for it.  Kelley wanted to see Times Square, so we walked up.  On the way we stopped at a bar for a beer or two:

With the crush of people (and lack of restaurant/bar space due to 22,000 damn Pearl Jam fans), we quickly beat a retreat back to the much more reasonable Chelsea neighborhood.   We did get a few pictures first, however:

You see all of those people? Now, picture that in every direction as far as the eye can see. It was like walking through a high school hallway for half an hour continuously. Got a little old pretty quick.

And how can you not take a picture of this, when you’re walking underneath?

We ate dinner at Chipotle Mexican Grill on the way back, as it was the first place that wasn’t insanely busy.  The food was actually quite excellent for being a fast food chain owned by McDonald’s.  We were recommended Chipotle’s by a guy we bumped into buying beer in Washington, D.C., and Kelley had marked it down for experimentation as well, and it did not disappoint.  They sold beer there too.   A little expensive, but I got used to Manhattan raping my wallet pretty quick.  Apparently brgr is very good too.

Also saw this on the way back, someone forgot to update their antivirus, wonder how much money was lost due to advertising downtime?  A guy next to me found it amusing enough to take a picture of as well…dorks, what can you do…

We got back to Chelsea around 9ish, and relaxed for a bit before turning in like old people around 10 or 11PM.

The next day will have to follow in yet another blog post, I gotta go do something productive!

Now home, zero motivation, but the memories will only get duller in time, so here goes nothing…

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Forgot our digital camera after we’re on the road for about an hour, so no good pictures until New York City (until we get our ‘film developed’, how quaint)…

The drive down to Washington, D.C. was surprisingly easy.   Got a combined average of about 51.1 MPG for the entire trip, best mileage was from home to DC, worst from DC to NYC.  On the way down I drove like The Grandma, from DC to NYC I drove like a clueless meth-addicted ADHD fucktard…you know, just kept up with traffic!  Going 78 in 55 zones, flooring it to avoid getting cut off by rigs (or just some rolling roadblock in the middle of the freeway), basically aiming a flying fuck at fuel efficiency…but I digress…

The hardest part was finding a place to park (instinct was to park in front of hotel entrance but Kelley said the police would get me as the street was closed for some carnival, long story short hotel said trust my gut from now on).  It actually wouldn’t have been that bad, finding parking, but I had to piss like the proverbial race horse, and it was driving me literally insane, my brain was slowly melting.  I ended up walking to the hotel from our parking spot with my pants undone and my fly halfway down.  Mothers, hide your children!

Oh, and driving around D.C. (at least the bits we visited) was wonderful as EACH AND EVERY FUCKING STREET IS CLEARLY MARKED.  Every intersection, same sign style, same location.  As a visitor, I cannot stress how appreciated that is…

We stayed at the Hotel Harrington, an older place but not without charm.  No air conditioning (or even a fan!), but for about $100 right in downtown D.C., all of about three blocks from the fucking Verizon Center?  The room was quite small, but entirely adequate.  Clean and quite?   Fuck the air conditioning, I’ll take it!

Ate at this wonderful microbrewery a few blocks from the hotel, delicious beer and excellent food.  The District Chophouse and Brewery, very much worth a visit.  Make reservations!  We had their pizza (very thin and delicious) and tried a couple of their beers.  The wheat was especially delicious! We sat near the bar at a small table for two:

D.C. itself was clean and nice but mostly without personality.  I’m sure it was just the neighborhood we were in, right next to the FBI headquarters in the J. Edgar Hoover building and all…

The show in D.C. was awesome.  We got our tickets at around 3PM from the Will Call (about a 10 minute wait), then after dinner got through security with just a quick ass-grab from the guy working the “line” (or lack thereof, I like getting in about 15 minutes before the first act).  Literally just short of no security at all (which I experienced in NYC, but that is a tale for a future time).  Oh the show…just fucking awesome, rocking, loud, our seats were perfect at about 8 rows up just off to the right of the stage, the entire thing was perfect (except for me + black, which I remedied by the end of the song).  Check out some shitty Verizon bullshit here until the proper bootlegs are available.  The opening band, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, was surprisingly good.  Beer was expensive, but we brought four shots with us (those little bottles, how depressingly alcoholic is that?).  I lucked out and got a rum and Wild Turkey, kelley got gin and vodka.  We were pleasantly buzzed at much reduced prices, however…

Here are some pictures.  We took a ton, but Kelley kept ignoring me when I said she needed to hold the camera higher, so most of them are of the back of the heads in front of us. Here are a couple I took:

You can see Kelley was blasted…and who is the fuck sleeping behind us?
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Went to Atlantic City for a day.  The only good things I have to say about the place is the Irish Pub is a decent place to have dinner (even with the barely-fluent-in-English Russian ‘exchange student’ waitresses), and the go carts were a blast.  87 Speedway, here I come!

The hotel room was fucking amazing for the price, but riding an elevator to the 30th floor while people continually pour in and out of it…well, I thought of a few optimization strategies during some of the longer rides…

The boardwalk itself was the same four stores repeated ad-infinitium, and the casinos themselves were depressing as hell.  I couldn’t bring myself to waste a single dollar in one.  Reminded me of the iniquity of the United States at this moment in time: the ultrarich pumping money out of the middle class, spending lavishly and opulently on a gilded front, while just out back the poor molder in their tenements, barely a dime of the torrential flood of cash making it to anything even so fundamental as clean sidewalks…

Did sit on the beach at night, watching the waves and the seagulls cavorting in the unnatural brilliance over the city (reminded me of a recurring nightmare I get sometimes, no not the Sweet Potato Man, a nightmare my brain played a strange coda to a few nights later, but I digress) and looked to the right to see two people fucking in a lifeguard house.  I’d definitely call it a quicky by any standard, but they did cuddle for a while afterward.

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Next stop, New York City.  Fuck…NYC is going to need its own blog post.  Maybe later after a little unwinding and a beer…