I just finished reading this trilogy, and I'm a bit sad that I can't convince more of my friends to try it out. It's a good mystery set in modern times, and the female lead is a very interesting character. I'd like to avoid spoiling anything, as I'm still determined to get other people to read it too.
I did attempt to watch the Swedish movies, but they weren't very good overall. The first one was alright, but the second one fell right off the tracks. The pacing was terrible and I completely disagree with which sub-plots got left in and which got removed. The interesting tidbits that got you through the boring set-up areas in the book were absent on the screen, leaving a rambling and dry second movie.
There's also an American version coming which is being directed by David Fincher. I tend to like his movies and think he's a good fit for this trilogy, so I'll definitely be watching that when it comes out.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
The Week of Yummy Asian Food in the International District
It's not very often weeks can be given titles, but if you were to assign a title to this last week of mine, that's what it would be.
Last Saturday some friends and I had the great pleasure of wandering the streets of the international district for the Dragon Festival. No, not the GW event that happened the weekend before, but an actual real life Dragon Festival.
Many of the local restaurants put $2 taster options on their menu for the weekend, and if you tried out any 4 of them you'd get entered into a drawing for something or other. With a group of people it turned into quite the adventure. Everyone got a small taste of the $2 sample, and we got to try a ton of different stuff.
It was like a scavenger hunt, but for food. It was glorious.
My favorite ended up being the shrimp dim sum from the Dim Sum King and the pu-erh tea from the New Century Tea Gallery. They had a ton of pu-erh varieties, so I'd actually have to look up which was the one we liked so much. Many of them were aged. I'd never heard of aging tea before, but apparently wine and cheese aren't the only things that get better with time.
The Oasis tea shop, while not really having tea to write home about, had a really nice vibe going on and provided its not always that loud and busy I'd love to just hang out there sometime. You don't often find a tea place with a pool table. Overall I really liked the feeling of the International district. It had a lot of character. I don't know if I'd be brave enough to live there right now, but its certainly tempting to keep in mind.
Later in the week I was back in the area for a tour at my friend's company (which was awesome), and we stopped for lunch first at the Canton Noodle House. I really enjoyed their wonton soup. It was quite reasonably priced too, so if I find myself in the area and in need of lunch again, I'll definitely be stopping back in.
Last Saturday some friends and I had the great pleasure of wandering the streets of the international district for the Dragon Festival. No, not the GW event that happened the weekend before, but an actual real life Dragon Festival.
Many of the local restaurants put $2 taster options on their menu for the weekend, and if you tried out any 4 of them you'd get entered into a drawing for something or other. With a group of people it turned into quite the adventure. Everyone got a small taste of the $2 sample, and we got to try a ton of different stuff.
It was like a scavenger hunt, but for food. It was glorious.
My favorite ended up being the shrimp dim sum from the Dim Sum King and the pu-erh tea from the New Century Tea Gallery. They had a ton of pu-erh varieties, so I'd actually have to look up which was the one we liked so much. Many of them were aged. I'd never heard of aging tea before, but apparently wine and cheese aren't the only things that get better with time.
The Oasis tea shop, while not really having tea to write home about, had a really nice vibe going on and provided its not always that loud and busy I'd love to just hang out there sometime. You don't often find a tea place with a pool table. Overall I really liked the feeling of the International district. It had a lot of character. I don't know if I'd be brave enough to live there right now, but its certainly tempting to keep in mind.
Later in the week I was back in the area for a tour at my friend's company (which was awesome), and we stopped for lunch first at the Canton Noodle House. I really enjoyed their wonton soup. It was quite reasonably priced too, so if I find myself in the area and in need of lunch again, I'll definitely be stopping back in.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Eclipse as a Maya IDE
I've been a hobbyist programmer for over a decade (damn, has it really been that long already?) and by necessity a semi-professional scripter for a little over 3 years. For the vast majority of that I was perfectly content to use an advanced text editor. As long as I had my color coding and and the occasional bracket mis-match highlighting, I was set. I even went so far as to program the entirety of my genetics sim game in SciTE.
Only a few months ago did I decide to finally see what all the fuss was about with IDEs. It took a day of tutorial diving in order to get Eclipse complete functional and communicating with Maya, but boy was it work it!
I set out this morning to put together a small stack of my tiny tools that my friends could download and benefit from, but instead of fixing one minor world-parent bug like I was supposed to, I felt the urge to praise Eclipse somewhere. And hey, it's Saturday. I might as well celebrate. ;)
Only a few months ago did I decide to finally see what all the fuss was about with IDEs. It took a day of tutorial diving in order to get Eclipse complete functional and communicating with Maya, but boy was it work it!
I set out this morning to put together a small stack of my tiny tools that my friends could download and benefit from, but instead of fixing one minor world-parent bug like I was supposed to, I felt the urge to praise Eclipse somewhere. And hey, it's Saturday. I might as well celebrate. ;)
Friday, July 8, 2011
Robo Ball
This is a little animation using my RoboBall rig! The rig is free to download and use. If you know maya, I hope you'll download it and give it a spin! Okay. Bad pun, but I had a lot of fun making this little guy and I'm really excited to share it.
If you make any videos using this rig, please post them as video responses on youtube. I'd love to see what you do with it!
The rig should be pretty self explanatory, but creators always seem to think that. ;) If you can't read my mind when you open the file, here's a demonstration of the rig's basic functions.
There's some technical insights if you stick around after the jump!
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