Microsoft Paint

This application comes in handy sometimes. But, it can be artful as well. Surprised, right? I surfed on YouTube yesterday and found this. Mona Lisa can be reproduced by Paint? Amazing and entertaining.

Heavenly plus Sierra

The past weekend was a ski weekend. Due to the storm, Tahoe had so much fresh snow. We 23 people met in South Lake, lived in hotel converted rooms, enjoyed Jacuzzi, and challenged ourselves in snow powder. The snow condition is the best that I have ever had. It was a bit dangerous to ski or to snowboard on the trails since the weather condition was not ideal (it snowed with gusts). We were brave. We were not hindered by the gusts. Instead, we were happy to see many people gone due to the scary condition. Why? Because we could have uncrowded trails. Heavenly was a nice resort. But, it was a bit flat. Totof and I passed the 1 PM lunch time meet. So, we continued to ski on Nevada side. It turned out it was a wise decision since Heavenly later on closed Sky Express. Sky Express is the main passageway for people to cross from California side to Nevada side. If Sky Express closes, then it means people on California side are stuck. California side is flatter than Nevada side. It is not too interesting if you need to ski on flat trails over and over. Next day, we decided to go to Sierra at Tahoe. It was my first time to ski on Sierra. Great condition. (perhaps the great condition was more due to the storm than due to the trail design) We had a great fun there. So powdery. Sierra's blue is filled with moguls. Quite bumpy. I would say the condition was closer to black than blue. I felt intimidated at the beginning. Overtime, I got used to it. My companions were quite good. In the end, we had five people skiing together: us, Laurent, Herve, and Fred. Two people skied and three people snowboarded. We took a black to close out the day. It was the best trail that I have ever skied on. So good, so challenging, and so fun.

A fun party

Due to the lately workload, I don't post articles as frequently as I did. Right, I am going to post a fun experience that I had on the early February. (I know I am late. But I promise I will not skip posting interesting experiences here) Servane and Jean invited us to their well-known lovely party. I brought Molin with me this time. Molin and myself went to the same university in Taiwan. She arrived here not long ago, just four months. Molin is a friendly and easygoing girl. I thought she would like the party and the party guests would like her. So, I brought her to the party. The party was as usual filled with nicely arranged and prepared food (liquors and drinks to fresh your talks, appetizers to start your conversations with others, desserts to fill the pauses in conversations). My French is not in advanced level (in intermediate level? in novice level?) So, I tended to mingle myself and Molin with French who speak English or American who speak French. In this case, conversations could go on and on and both parties could have fun. I had a good time at that night and hope Molin thought the same way as me. Servane shooted many pictures at the right or fun moments. To see pictures, click http://servaneleroux.blogspot.com/2008/02/party-time.html. Enjoy.

Squaw Valley plus Diamond Peak

Recently discovered that the combo of Squaw Valley and Diamond Peak is fantastic for 2 day ski trip. Totof and I spent the first day in Diamond Peak. Beyond our expectations, Diamond Peak has a great snow condition. I skied and Totof snowboarded. Both liked Diamond Peak's Great Flume and Lightning very much. Compared to other ski resorts, Diamond Peak is small. So, one day is pretty much enough. Second day, we drove some miles to Squaw Valley. So many people had mentioned it so that we really wanted to try it. Squaw Valley is a big ski resort. We totally could tell how proud Squaw Valley was. Like a British man, Squaw Valley doesn't say it aloud that it is proud of its snow condition. But, you can 100% sense the pride. How? From its map. On the map, Squaw Valley doesn't mark trails at all. It was my first time not to see any trails marked down on the ski map. Squaw Valley just marks its lifts by different colors and gives you a strong message that you can create your own trails around the lift. It is awesome. Among the lifts, we liked Red Dog and Squaw Creek the most. Siberia was fun to ski on. But, we just needed to pay 100% attention with it due to its steepness and moguls. A funny thing was that after Red Dog and Siberia, I somehow was super confident and suggested to take an advance route on Squaw Creek. First 1/3 was fine and good. Then, suddenly, we saw a mogul wall. Oh, what did I do. The wall took me at least 10 min. I completely chickened out. If someone took pictures of me before and after the mogul wall, these pictures should be quite fun to look at. First time to know the north Lake Tahoe is also quite fun to stay, to ski, and to enjoy life.

Miss Teen USA 2007 - South Carolina

If you don't mind watching how Miss Teen South Carolina answered questions; if you want to have some fun during the hectic work schedule; if you want to understand a bit on teens' mindset (not in general); if you want to see what is super famous in internet these days (this clip has been viewed more than 22 millions times), click on play button.

Leroy Jenkins

A classic to the World of Warcraft fans

Any one knows the world of warcraft should hear this name - Leroy Jenkins. For those who has no ideas about this video, let me give you a brief. This group was going to enter a room filled with dragon eggs. These eggs were highly sensitive. They would hatch immediately when they were touched. All magics would be invalid (not able to cast) in this room (maybe due to the presence of the dragons). This group had failed before. So, before their second attempt, the leader gathered the team in front the room and constructed a nice strategy. Through the conversation, you also hear someone jumping with statistics (see how serious these people are). This group planned well before they acted. But, a person named Leroy Jenkins destroyed all the plan because of a chicken sandwich. The yell, Leroy Jenkins, made this joke classic.

Ski in Heavenly

Last weekend we went to South Lake for ski. Robin proposed to rent a cabin. The cabin was much nicer than we expected. With kitchen, big TVs, jacuzzi, and nice furniture. Besides, the location of the cabin is great. Just a mile away from the east entrance of Heavenly. So, every morning, we did not spend much time on driving. Just a minor complaint, Heavenly should construct more on site parking. The snow condition was gorgeous. I had not skied on perfect powder snow for some times. I highly recommend people to go ski in following weeks. Now we are just in the beginning of the snow season but the snow condition is already near perfect.

New year eve party

An unforgettable countdown

Whoever sees this sub-header may let her/his imagination goes wild due to the term "unforgettable". My 2008 New Year Eve was sort of wild. With transsexual performers (my first time in person). But, not that wild. The night was special, at least for me.

Janice called me in the afternoon and asked me if I was interested in a San Francisco party. Given my super free schedule, a party sounded perfect. So, I gave a positive answer to her. We took off around 8 and arrived at a friend's house around 9. (the friend is friend's friend's friend) We were the first guest group to arrive. The house was absolutely used for parties quite frequently. Two stories, many spacious rooms, loud music, approachable garden (you can walk out any time you want if you want to breath some fresh air), and all you can drink alcohol. I am not an alcohol person. Normally I don't drink. For this occasion, but, I got a cup of cocktail (Andrew, Janice's friend, made this for me). Not too strong. Did not smell alcohol. Something acceptable for my low alcohol tolerance stomach. The decoration was quite holiday. Many tinkling stuff and tons of balloons. The hosts must have spent tons of time on preparing this can and stocking party (this was this party's official name).

More and more people came. I met lots of friends through Janice and Andrew. Andrew seemed to know the majority of guests. Amazing. Through conversations, I found out most guests are either Stanford alumni or MIT alumni. Interesting. Around 11 PM, Janice told me we should go to Asia SF since some of her friends will be there. I was told some transsexual people would be there. Neither Janice nor I had ever seen transsexual people in person. We were excited. Amy's boy friend came to the house for us and then drove us to the club. Asia SF was super crowded. The entry floor had a professional transsexual performer. We did not stay there long since friends were waiting downstairs. The basement was insanely crowded. I felt I was in a human heat generator. The heat was not all from the heating system but mostly from the guests (not gas). Music was super loud. I could not talk to friends without shouting, yelling, screaming. After 30 min, Janice's friends called. So we went upstairs. Stephanie and Reilie arrived. We four people decided to go back to the house party. Fun conversations were non-stop in the car. Around the countdown, since we had not found a parking space, we were counting down in the car. Not that disappointing though. Since we could see fireworks through the rear windshield. The fireworks were quite pretty.

The house party was still on going. The entry level was not filled with people. So, it gave me illusion that lots of people were gone. When we went downstairs, here they were. All people went downstairs for fun. Loud music, projected image, lighting, and drinking. We had a better chance of knowing other guests. Interesting. I guessed alcohol and atmosphere opened up the communications. We left the party around 2:30. I had not party for that late for a long time.

Catan

Have you played computer based Catan?

If you like the Settlers of Catan very much or you have not played the Settlers of Catan but want to, this computer based game is a "why-not" choice. Look at the image, isn't it cool? The computer game is designed quite well. The layout looks exactly like the Settlers of Catan. The hex, the island, the settlement, the city, the robber, the harbor, and the dessert. The cool thing is that the computer computes everything for you: how many resource card you have, how many roads you have, how many settlements you have, how many cities you have, and how many dev cards you have. Not only that, the computer lists how many resource cards your rivals have, how many roads your rivals have, etc. Of course the game has some limits: for instance, you can give out one card and get five cards back if you play well. In reality, I don't think any rival will give you five cards for one card. Because you can compress four identical cards for something else. Regardless of limits, this game is a well done.

Rock Band - Won't Get Fooled Again

Band: The Who

A tough song across the band. If you are looking for something like this, "Won't get fooled again" is absolutely a good choice for you.

Before playing Rock Band, I did not know "the Who". I knew this band from Rock Band. I came across "Won't get fooled again" in my last city in solo drum mode. I somehow got a feeling that this song would not be a easy one before I played it. Indeed, this song was tough. But, luckly not as streneous as "Green grass and high tides". This song was manageble. I liked this song since it was fun to play with. I felt like acting like a real drummer when I played this song.

Yesterday, Totof and I were trying to boost our band, October. Both of us liked this song. It was tough for sure. But you will gain tons of fun from this song too. We played this song over and over. Ha

October afternoon

Two new members

Yesterday, after dim sum, Pei-Chen and Yongjin came with me to Totof's place. We were thinking to have some fun. I could not wait to show them Rock Band. The drums, the guitar, the bass, and the box. They looked like two happy kids when they saw those instruments. They could not wait trying this new game. I plugged the cables, turned on the console, turned on the projector, and turned on the amplifier. We went to Rock Band World Tour mode. I showed them about the characters. They were so excited for the character creation thing. Pei-Chen created a female PC with Rock attitude. Yongjin created a male andrew with Metal attitude. These two new characters looked cool.

We three people went to San Francisco first. We let pc take the drum lead. I played bass while Yongjin played guitar. We tried The Weezer's "Say it ain't so". I suggested pc to try medium. Our drummer just had some difficulty at the beginning. Our drummer, pc, picked up skills quickly. We passed the song. The drum got 91%. Amazing. Then, we switched to Yongjin's drummer, andrew. We tried Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter" per Yongjin's request. A nice song indeed. Yongjin's drummer got a nice score as well. This couple are talented at music instruments.

We continued our tour. We yelled when we earned some fans. We booed when we lost fans. Yongjin said he wanted to try the singing. He wanted to sing Radiohead's "Creep". Nice voice. I first time had a chance to look at the singing track. The singing track has lyrics. So, if you don't know the lyrics by heart, you just need to glance at the lyrics down the track and you will be fine. Yongjin has a nice voice. He got 98%. Nicer than Totof's : p

After 2 hours rock n' roll, I suggested to try an evil song. Of course, I was thinking Outlaws' Green Grass and High Tides. We had an extremely strenuous 6 min. Not 10 min? Why? You don't know? Because we did not pass it.

I was happy to have them in this band. Now, October becomes stronger.

The Legend of Zelda - Isle of Ember & Temple of Fire

A meet with the oracle and the fight in Fire dungeon

From the previous post, I talked about Lineback. Lineback looked different from what I expected. Lineback did not look like a captain. Lineback looked like an alcoholic (he has such dark eye circles). Lineback was reluctant to join me to save Tetra. At a sudden, the Grand Pa appeared (how could he be so fast?) After some reasoning, Lineback agreed to help. We boarded our boat and took off.

The sailing on the ocean was easy to manage. I could look up, down, left, and right. I could change route any time I wanted to. I could jump. Lineback and I went to the oracle island (where the oracle was). We landed. I saw monsters and slayed them. As usual, only myself went on the island. Lineback stayed with the boat. I arrived at the oracle's house but did not find her in the first floor. I went to the basement and suddenly heard her voice. She confined herself in a small room in order to prevent monsters from attacking her. So, my first big task was to defeat these ugly looking monsters. I managed to do so but the oracle did not go out at this time. She wanted me to take a look at the chart on the wall. She said if I could mark three torches in right locations then the door would open and she could go out. The oracle opened a gate on the east part of the island so that I could enter the dungeon (the Temple of Fire). To find the locations, she told me to see Karl. He was the apprentice of the oracle.

I wandered and entered to another house. I saw a note from Karl. It seemed like he was killed or captured (did not know at that time). I took off to the east side of the island. This island was filled with monsters. Some monsters were small and easy to kill. I was happy to slay them to get some treasure or energy. Other monsters like spiders moved quickly and were hard to defeat. I sometimes lost some energy during the fight. I accidentally went to the remote island on the east part. I saw a ghost. It was Karl. He was killed. He told me some secrets about the torches. I thanked him and departed to find a torch.

Time to adventure. I went to the Temple of Fire. Not easy to go there since so many monsters and fire lava drops here and there. I was stuck around the entrance. A tablet said "to enter I need to blow off the candles". But how? I leave this pleasure to you.

The Temple of Fire was filled with fires. I could have been flamed if I did not pay attentions on my steps. I knew there must be some treasures in this dungeon. The question was how to find them. The design of Zelda was sophisticated. You need to look around and don't overlook your surroundings. Sometimes, the prize of the overlook was a power gem, wisdom gem, or energy gem. These gems were precious. But at the time in Temple of Fire I did not know these gems' purposes.

I circled around to ensure I got every treasure. The adventure was linear which meant if I missed a thing previously I would have a trouble getting through the rest of the adventure. So I would know I needed to go back to previous place (room or floor). The adventure was fun. The fighting was done with stylus (wonderful). At that time I had not acquired any Zelda tools (you will see them). I only had my sword and shield. My energy level at that time was only 4 hearts which meant I could die quite fast if I was negligent.
The dungeon took me some days. The adventure was entertaining. My little fairy always gave me reminder or suggestion at the right time. I gradually got used to this linear type adventure. I got the famous boomerang from a treasure box (see the photo). In the last stage of the adventure I needed to get a boss key. With this boss key, I could go to the boss floor where the mean boss monster resided. Boss key took me some time to acquire. The most difficult part was fighting with the boss. Unlike other monsters, the boss required special skills to defeat. The defeat was not going to happen at one shot. The defeat incorporated boomerang. (good design) The fight was breathtaking.

Accidental Power Grid night

A hearty meal is perfect for a game night

Last Friday, some friends and I had dinner at Tofu House. 7 people could not be fit to a small table. So the waiters kept us waiting for at least 30 min just for a big table. We wondered why? Since the waiters could have put two small tables (one small table has four seats) to solve the issue. It did not make sense for Tofu House to come to this decision.

Warm tofu soup tasted so good in cold weather. These days the bay area turns cold pretty fast. The temperature gap between noon and night (or early morning) becomes bigger. A hearty meal was a good idea for the winter time (almost winter time). We 7 people were quite noisy. Fun conversations were here and there. I had not seen Chun-Chun and John for ages. It was nice to see them. Chun-Chun was having some eye issues. Hope she will be fine soon.

Darren and Sophy brought a friend. The friend turned out being my junior in Elementary school (he was John's junior as well). I was happy to meet Fu-Shing people in the States. Janice was always a lovely conversation starter. We had a good 2 and a half hours meal time. After the dinner, 4 people came to my apartment for a game. Solomon called during the dinner time to apologize for missing the dinner. He was tied down by the work but he would join us directly for the game.

Sophy, Darren, and his friend were thinking to play the Settlers. When we were assembling tiles, we realized some tiles were missing. Maybe Totof put some tiles in the Cities and Knights box. So, we opened the Power Grid box and I started to explain the rules. We chose France map since it looked easy. (would it be really easy? you will see) At this time, Solomon had not showed up. So, we took time to explain the rules. If you want to know more on the rules, please see this post. Everyone was smart, so it just took me 10 min to go over the rules (my guests picked up the rules fast, proud of them).

Darren and Sophy were experienced. I recall Darren brought a black hurricane last time when we played United States map. This time, Darren picked up the black color again. It seemed like black was his color. After 10 min, Solomon showed up. He had not eaten yet. So he was sitting at the same table watching us play and eating his dinner. I could tell he wanted to try the game. So I offered him my seat after his meal. He picked up the knowledge fast. Power Grid was fun when the pace was not too slow. If a player played too slowly (by considering the consequences too long at a turn), the fun of the game would get cut dramatically. But, it was hard to balance the pace especially some beginners were involved. I saw my guests' learning curves. My guests were trying different strategies. Bidding part was easy to catch up. Deploying part was ok to catch up fast. But the budgeting part was sophisticated. The beauty of Power Grid was about budgeting and balancing your in and out capital. You learned practical strategies as the game moved on.

During the game, I saw my guests slowed down in order not to reach step 2. I saw Darren's friend and Sophy switched to clean energy power plants. I saw Solomon and Sophy competed for high efficiency power plants. This time the game played conservatively. The rival did not get bloody. In the game, everyone seemed to have a promising future. Hard to predict the winner. In the end, Sophy got the trophy. It was an impressive turnout. She planned well since step 2 from an observer's point of view. She told everyone the victory was a luck thing. Sophy was modest.

This time, we tried to control the play time. So, we ended the game around 12:40 am. A three hour game. Not bad.

Surf's Up

"You know, we've known each other way back since, like... yesterday, I think it was. " from Chicken Joe

A totally surfing movie. These penguins look similar to those from Happy Feet. But the movie atmosphere and plot were completely different from those in Happy Feet. If you are learning surfing or you already a surf fanatic, then you will appreciate this movie as much as I did.

This movie started with an interview. You started knowing the main character - Cody Maverick. You knew he was a penguin living in Antarctica. Unlike other penguins, Cody surfed when others fish. Cody surfed when others tried to hitch eggs. He had his own way. His role model was Big Z who was famous for big wave surfing. Cody admired Big Z so that when neurotic event liaison bird Mikey Abromowitz was in his island for Big Z Memorial competition promotion, Cody jumped to the whale and joined the competition team.

Cody was brave, fearless, and maverick (perfect for his last name). He stood up when Tank insulted Big Z. He was totally wiped out by the big waves. All competitors showed great sympathy on the wipe out. But the event organizer, Reggie, did not. Instead, he took this wipe-out as a promotion event to attract audience's attention. A tease to marketing folks.

Lani, a female lifeguard, saved Cody when he was wiped-out and in coma. Lani took Cody to her uncle's house. Her uncle looked 100% wasted. Accidentally, Cody found out this uncle was Big Z. Oh, this uncle was his role model. This uncle was his all time hero. But... why Big Z did not want to surf any more?

Through interactions and memories, the audience understood why. Then the fun began. We saw how Big Z was called Big Z. We saw many detailed techniques in respect to surfing. Oh, made me want to try surfing.

Chicken Joe was absolutely a fun character. His laid-back style and interesting behavior cracked me up. His talking, like the one I quoted in sub-headline, was nonsensely entertaining. His scenes with the tribe (the yum yum yum tribe) was creative. I somehow sensed that the yum yum yum thing was a tease to French. (since French said yum yum yum) Another fun part was from kids' talking.

The competition and ending part were more educational (friendship was more important than fame). Fun to watch though. Highly recommend this 85 min movie especially in this slow season.

Here It Goes Again

Band: OK GO

This song is absolutely a good example of Internet power. OK GO was not famous. But, since this video clip was so fun (OK GO were dancing on treadmills), hundreds and hundreds people forwarded this clip to their friends. It promoted OK GO from a rookie to a super star band. Regardless, this video is fun to watch when you are bored.

October night

Saturday night was a Rock Band night

Rock Band is more fun when you have a team (a band).
Four people were in the band: Antoine, Alex, and us. We rotated roles so that everyone could be the guitarist, the drummer, the vocalist, or the bassist. At the beginning stage, we did not try the world tour. We were warming ourselves up by the local match. I played the drum since neither Antoine nor Alex had the experience before. I was so glad to show them drums. After two songs, I asked them if anyone wanted to try drums. Everyone gave me a positive answer. Indeed, the drumming part looked challengingly fun.

Alex played the drums after me. He asked me if I could suggest some easy songs. I said "try Bon Jovi's Wanted dead or alive". The drumming part in this song is entertaining. Also, it helps you get familiar with the foot petal. (I think the foot part requires skills) If you want to know how this song looks like, try my previous post. After 30 min, someone said "How about try the world tour?" Great idea. So we went to the world tour mode. Antoine and Alex created their own characters. Alex created a drummer called "Gordon". Gordon looked so manly. (White shirt with big muscles) Antoine created a guitarist called Melissa. Melissa has long hair and petite figure. Melissa looked cute and sexy (with mini skirt and stocking). If you put Melissa and my figure, Ana, together, you will feel like you see a twin.
We had four members. The largest band for October ever (our band is called October).

We tried London first (our home town is San Francisco). There are three venues in London. We picked the first venue. This venue was not easy. But we made it. Then, we switched to the second venue. We tried Aerosmith's "Train Kept a Rollin". Apparently it was not a good idea. This song was too hard for first time drummer. We failed and lost fans. But, this failure did not stop October. We moved to our home town and rocked them all. Alex sang Garbage's "I think I am paranoid". This was fun since the song was not for guys. So we heard Alex tried hard to mimic Garbage's female voice. How nice. He also tried the Clash's "Should I Stay or Should I Go". Entertaining. Antoine sang Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" (see my post for the music). Classic. Totof sang Foo Fighters' "Learn to Fly". He failed once and he tried to find some excuses so that no one could make fun of him on this.

We continued to try many nice songs. For instance, the Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" and R.E.M.'s "Orange Crush". We liked Radiohead's "Creep" and Hole's "Celebrity Skin" (see my post). Faith no more's "Epic" was a hard one but we succeeded. The Weezer's "Say It Ain't So" and Nirvana's "In Bloom" were fun. Metallica's "Enter Sandman" was insanely hard (see my post and you will know why). We tried several times and lost tons of fans. But still efforts went to void. We then encountered another tough song - Boston's "Foreplay/Long Time". This time we managed to finish it thanks to the teamwork. The hives' "Main Offender" gave us a nice break. The Killers' "When You Were Young" relaxed us. OK GO's "Here It Goes Again" was fun. The Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop" was unexpectedly good. Of course we did not miss the chance of performing the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter" and Deep Purple's "Highway Star" (see my post). The most frustrating song would be "Green Grass or High Tides". I forgot who the band was. The whole song was so painful. We tried at least five times with different tricks. But none of the tricks worked. We lost a lot of fans. Just doomed ourselves. At that point, all of us were tired. We had kept playing for more than 4 hours. So, we decided to let the band take a big break. October will come back with the same members in a week.

Rock Band - Highway Star

Band: Deep Purple

This song is absolutely another insane one. Saturday night we four people tried hard but still got stuck. I like this song. This song brings more fun when you co-op with other instruments.

We got Rock Band

Super excited

Yesterday was Rock Band launch day. Totof went to Best Buy and got one home. I could not wait. We opened boxes after boxes to get all elements out. The packaging was quite sophisticated. By all means manufacturing requires good amount of knowledge. We removed all protections and assembled elements with extreme care. The bass was not hard to be assembled. But the drums were not easy at all. Parts were all over. We took the instruction and put elements in order. We followed the instruction and connected the drums to X box 360. But somehow, the drums did not get connected. We tried to do trouble shootings by ourselves. It turned out the USB hub came with the Rock Band package needed to be charged. After 10 min, everything was ready. We put the disk inside and wow. We were all standing up to appreciate the introduction of Rock Band. The intro and the menu and the background were aesthetic. Absolutely prettier than Guitar Hero. (Rock Band vs. Guitar Hero = 1:0)

In Rock Band, you can create your own characters. A similar way to Wii. Quite fun. (Rock band vs. Guitar Hero = 2:0) Just one thing to complain. The name entry part is not intuitive and not easy-of-use. Totof, myself, and Fabien created our own characters. We all looked cool.

Good thing is that the Guitar Hero guitars are compatible in Rock Band. We got our instruments and started our worldwide tour: Totof played guitar, myself played drums, and Fabien played bass. We chose San Francisco as our hometown. We started our tour from a small pub. We were thrilled to know we got fans and gigs after our performance. So, here is a major difference between Guitar Hero and Rock Band. In Guitar Hero, you perform and gain money and advance your band. In Rock Band, you perform and gain three things depending on your performance: money, fans, and gigs. It was entertaining to see the number of fans increased. (Rock Band vs. Guitar Hero = 3:0)

The drums were not easy to perform. We spent some time to understand the coordination. We should have consulted the manual but we did not. We realized the orange horizontal line was for the foot part after several songs (we failed many times). Rock Band is totally about team work. If a member fails, other members need to save him/her by using star power. Every member has three chances to fail. If a member is permanently failed, then the team will be in danger. The team will fail quite soon. It is like reality. Your band cannot survive if the drum or the guitar member fails her/his duty. Your fans will get annoyed or upset.

Another difference is that if you give up trying a song in Rock Band, you will get penalty by losing some numbers of fans (oh, no). It hurt when we abandoned a song.

We also tried the vocal part. I can tell you Rock Band will bring us tons of fun.

Guitar Hero 3 - Even Flow

Pearl Jam's Even Flow

The more I play this song, the more I appreciate it. I did not know Pearl Jam until I came across their song in Guitar Hero 2. On Guitar Hero 3 song list, I recognized this name right away. Even flow is a good song. Very Guitar Hero. If you are a Guitar Hero fan, don't miss to try it out whenever you can. You will say to yourself "I was thinking to do something else. Luckily I did not"

House warming cocktail party

How can you say no to a Santa Cruz house warming party

The party was hosted by Yasemin and Dustin. We knew Yasemin through Fabien. Yasemin used to live in Los Altos. Her previous house mates were quite fun. The crazy kind fun. Her house was a party generator. We have been there some times.

This summer, Yasemin told us she might go to Los Angeles for education. Both Yasemin and Dustin were students in Foothill college. They were trying to apply USC and UCSC. They got the admissions from UCSC at that time. But the USC decision was pending. We did not know if they would move to Los Angeles. No one knew.

Then, around a month, we got the news that they decided to enroll UCSC. After a month, we got an invitation from Yasemin. A house warming party. Why not? As mentioned in the lost key post, the day was quite eventful. After this tiring and worrisome event, we were happy to relax ourselves. We four people went to Yasemin and Dustin's house: Herve, Fabien, and us.

The house is cute. It has its own yard. With Santa Cruz air, the house looks laid-back. We started to entertain ourselves by Chess. It was an accidental decision. It was a team vs. an individual game. The team was led by me. My team had Fabien, Dustin, and Totof. The individual was Herve.

Herve was quite experienced. At the second move, he almost checkmated me. The beauty of our team was that each individual contributed but not contradicted. Each individual in my team would not have a chance to win Herve. But, as a team, we were strong and smart. We reacted fast and defended tactically. We converted the attack-defense situation. We survived from some severe Herve attacks. We wonderfully positioned chess and got some fantastic moves. As a team, we won.

After the chess, other guests arrived. We had 8 people. The first course was a Turkish appetizer with some cheese. Wonderful. We chatted and knew the other two guests were exchange students. One from Spain and the other from France. Of course, French would not miss this wonderful chance to speak French. So, French conversations were here and there. The Spanish guest was on my side. We protested. So, the conversation went back to the English mode.

The main dish was a Turkish dish. Apparently Dustin had Yasemin's mom's cooking. So he knew the original version. Personally, I liked the dish. Quite tasty. Yasemin complained that the meat was too dry (she convinced us the meat was supposed to be very dry. wink, wink) The meat was on top of arrays of tomatoes and potatoes. The juice was great.

The main dish was followed by Dustin's mom's Brown Belly. Brown Belly is a kind of Apple pie. Dustin's family live in Fremont hill. The family has many apple trees. So, when the season is right, the house will be stocked with piles of apples. Fabien and Totof had a Brown Belly before and they praised it a lot. I was curious about it. The pie turned out good.

After the dessert, Dustin showed his skills of making fire and S'mores. S'more is an American thing especially for camping. S'more is the abbreviation of some more according to Dustin. S'mores start from mash mellow. You grill mash mellow. The mash mellow then becomes brown outside and melted inside. You take two graham cookies and put the grilled mash mellow inside. Under the mash mellow or above, you put a slice of chocolate. Then, you have S'mores. Interesting.

The entire party was always with cocktail or wine. I did not try any so I could not comment any. But, the rest was very fun.