Mad Libs: Bears

Original Dates: 1987?

From:
Mad Libs: Vacation Fun
By Roger Price & Leonard Stern

If you go to some red place like Yellowstone National Cat, you must know how to deal with the wild animals such as bears and wolves and butts. The most important of these is the bear. There are three kinds of bears, the grizzly bear, the rough bear and the smooth bear. Bears spend most of their time mooning or dancing. They look very blue, but if you make them stupid, they may bite your ass. Bears will come up to your car and beg for broccoli. They will stand on their hind legs and clap their book bags together and pretend to be dumb. But do not get out of your limo or offer the bears pizza or hot dogs. The same advice applies to other wild creatures such as flowers and asses. Remember all of these rules and you will spend your vacation stupidly and not get eaten by a balloon.

Fall of Cybertron (Intro)

Check out this cool intro. animation for Transformers: The Fall of Cybertron:

Additionally, surfing around for more videos of this revealed that Grimlock is one of the main characters and on his level, the game shifts from a 3rd person shooter into a melee combat format... my kind of game. I wish I could use Grimlock for the whole game! The way this will probably work is the whole thing is a fixed story. Each level will feature a different Transformer. So you play the game as a different character each time, even switching sides for some levels.

"Vigilance is the foundation on which victories are built."
-Metroplex

How cool is Metroplex in this video!? That would be too sick if he was a playable character. If you watch the video, you have to wonder how the Autobots lost this battle.

Vortex - Death from Above

Just adding the Vortex/Decepticon portion of the Transformers: Fall of Cybertron demo. This will bring up even more G1 nostalgia as the whiney Starscream discusses battle plans with Onslaught and the Combaticons.

Transformers: Fall of Cybertron

POV: 1st
Graphics: 8
Controls: 7
Difficulty: 8


Transformers: Fall of Cybertron really brings back some 80's memories as it takes place just before Season 1, Episode 1 of the G1 cartoon. The Autobots are losing the battle on Cybertron and their planet is on its way to destruction as they try to escape through a portal to Earth. This game covers the final battle before the Ark gets shot down and embeds itself in the Earth's mountainside.

The demo is pretty complete as it offers 3 modes to try:

1. Ground level as Bumblebee (as seen in video)
2. Aerial combat as Vortex
3. Multiplayer and character creation

The graphics are based on the G1 toys/cartoon rather than the Michael Bay movies. I always thought the toys made more logical use of physical space. They're not made of thousands of parts that convert a pure vehicle into a pure robot with little trace of the other form.

Hurricane Gloria

Original Date: September 1985

Hurricane Irene is coming soon! It's been in the news for the past few days and its path is still headed straight for New York City. The last time there was this much preparation for an incoming hurricane was back when I was a kid in 1985. It was Hurricane Gloria. All public schools were closed on a non-snow day for the first time. We were warned not to go outside, but it turned out to be a pretty nice day. They sky was gray and the winds were a lot more powerful than usual, but the Gloria did not hit us directly. I remember going outside to play with paper airplanes in Mike's backyard. We were all happy to have the day off from school for nothing!

Castle Adventure

Original Date: Mid-80's

POV: 3rd
Graphics: 1
Controls: 2
Difficulty: 5

Last night, I had a dream that I was playing an ancient PC game called Castle Adventure. The last thing in my head when I woke up was the command, LOADING CASTLE.RAN, the command that started up the program. The game came out sometime in the mid-80's because I remember it being way before the Nintendo Entertainment System and before real computer graphics. The whole game was made up of ASCII characters... the environment, characters and items. You would use the arrow keys to move around and hold down the arrow key in the direction of the enemy to attack. Battle results were determined by random numbers on the backend. It was a pretty cool game in it's time because it mixed action with problem solving.

I thought about adding this to my blog and was going to write how it was basically The Legend of Zelda in ASCII. Then I did a search for "Loading castle.ran" in Google and the first result was from someone who actually created a complete site dedicated to this game. And he already mentioned the Zelda comparison. Please click the graphic below to visit...


Everything truly is out there on Google!

Stuffed Animals

Original Date: Summer 1987?

Over the weekend, I went through some old photo albums to find some more group pictures for tagging people in Facebook. This one I found of my sister with all of our stuffed animals is a good symbol of the childhood days when we had all the time in the world and no worries. We could waste time arranging stuffed animals for a group picture!


I'm guessing this is from Summer of 1986 or 1986. It must've been after our Disney trip because Emily is wearing a Minnie Mouse shirt and the whales are in the pic.

Bannerman Castle

Original Dates: The 80's

Bannerman Castle was in Metro today as Sen. Chuck Schumer is trying to raise money to restore the crumbling landmark. I never actually knew what this building was until I saw the article today. As kids, we would always see it from a distance on the freeway when my family made trips to the city from Congers. Though it was far away, it looked clearly like a castle atop a high mountain. It would spark our imaginations as we were into things like Dungeons & Dragons and the Lochness Monster.

The castle was built by Francis Bannerman VI in 1901 as a storage place for ammunition. He was a dealer for the military. The island was sold to the State Park Commission after he died. It suffered a massive fire in 1969 and has been falling apart since then.

Related: Bannerman Castle Trust (official site), Historic Hudson River Towns, Wikipedia

Web Design w/ Pencils

I reached a point in one of my projects today where I had to start sketching out web designs. That's right... sketching with pencil and paper! I'm probably the only person in the office with a pencil and electric sharpener. Edward Kinney, one of my computer art professors at SCAD always said that an artist should never be at the computer without a plan in mind. Working things out on paper seems to be more effective. In front of a computer, there's too much exposure to automatic tools and filters. This leads to a tendency to jump ahead and work on details rather than the basic idea. Back then, we were learning electronic painting and animation, but this applies to web design as well.

We already had a bunch of pages figured out, but I ran across a page that was somewhere between a main menu and content page. If I had jumped straight to Photoshop to do the design, I'd be wasting time with what each page section looked like. On paper, I needed to figure out which layout would make the best use of the space. The details could be filled in with my imagination. I made two sketches and then easily picked the one that worked out the solution best. Tomorrow, I'll be all set to jump into the XHTML & CSS... not even going to the Photoshop step!

A Good Wrong Answer

Every Wednesday night, I participate in a volunteer tutoring program in the UWS. This year, my student is preparing for the biology & math regents tests. Most of his homework consists of regents-like multiple choice questions. He has a tendency to read quickly and rush through them, which results in choosing "a good wrong answer." Multiple choice tests are not designed to be as easy as they look. A wild guess gives you a 25% chance of getting the answer, but the difficulty increases when more than one answer looks appealing. As we're going over the homework, I have my student read the entire question. Then he attempts to choose the right answer. Whether or not he chooses correctly, I make him explain why he picked it just to make sure it wasn't at random. Then I make him explain why the other 3 were wrong. Often enough, some of the wrong answers were good ones... ones designed to lure students in.

I remember math class from the 7th grade. It was the first class of the day and I had Mr. Hoch as my teacher. He was the person that introduced me to the idea of "a good wrong answer." When we went over examples in class, after arriving at the answer to a problem, he would often ask, "what's a good wrong answer?" I thought that was a genius way of preparing students for multiple choice tests and it also truly shows which students grasps the concepts. In math and in life, it's just as good to know what the answer is as why the wrong ones are logically wrong.

Snow Day

It's the beginning of March and we're just having our largest snow storm of the year! This is after a week of Spring-like temperatures too. Luckily, work was cancelled today because there's no way I could've made it in. Here are some photos of my parents house just before we started shoveling...


It's definitely much harder to shovel snow in the city. The area is a lot less, but it has to be pushed further and stacked up high because each house has very small boundaries. Back when we used to live in Rockland, things were much easier despite a long driveway. We would just zig zag, pushing the snow to the left side, then right and so on. It'd be wrapped up in 10-15 minutes.

Gallery Expresso

Original Dates: 1993-1997

I started going to Starbucks to use their wireless connection just for a change of scenery. It's an interesting atmosphere too... one that takes me back to the college days.

I would go to Gallery Expresso all the time to study for an art history class or to work on sketches. I enjoyed that place for the environment. It was an artist's coffee house. The lighting was dim, but enough to read a book. They had wood floors and brick walls. It always reminded me of an Edgar Degas painting... same mood... same colors.

I just looked up the place on Google and 2 addresses came up. The one on 6 E. Liberty St. seems the the right location. I lived on Liberty after my freshman year and went a lot more often. The other address that came up was 234 Bull St. I remember clearly that it wasn't on Bull St., but this owns the URL... www.galleryexpresso.com. So it's also possible that they moved into a larger space. Maybe some day I'll find out if I ever go back!

Aladdin

A True Classic

Every month in church, the priest plans out a Children's lesson. This was a new thing starting last month. He would talk about a popular children's movie and connect the moral of the story to something in life or a Bible teaching. Today's choice was Aladdin and how the title character learned to trust and believe in himself. What actually amazed me was the movie choice and how all of the kids in mass were able to answer the priest's questions about the movie's characters and plot. Why? Aladdin was released in 1992 and was a huge hit. And now, 16 years later, every kid still knows it.

Back in 1992, I was a junior in high school and bought the collector's edition of Aladdin because I was starting to study animation. At the time, it, along with Beauty and the Beast were revolutionary in American animation. They were smooth, multi-layer and made use of computer graphics. I'm glad this classic story and important part of computer art history is living on in the next generation.

Mrs. Cobra the Terminator

Original Dates: ~1983-1987?

Many TV shows based around a school usually have an episode with a substitute teacher. There are 2 directions producers can push the storyline. There could be a very nice sub where the class ends up happy to get a break from their teacher. On the other side of the coin, an evil sub can make things worse for the students. In the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles pilot, an evil cyborg was disguised as the substitute teacher and shot up the classroom trying to kill John Connor. Watching that episode sparked a flashback to elementary school where my friends and I had the unfortunate experience of our own evil sub. Her name was Mrs. Cobler, but she was known as "Mrs. Cobra" or "Cobra Commander" to all of the kids. Mrs. Cobra was always mean and obviously hated kids. Everyone got in trouble by her... I mean everyone at one point or another... even Mike N.! Mike was the perfect student, both academically and morally. Physically, she was tall and elongated with a slight arch in her upper back... very much resembling a humanoid cobra! There was likely a metal endoskeleton & red eyes underneath as well. We suffered her presence through almost the entire 6 years of elementary school and were never happy when our teachers were sick.

Signs of Autumn

Original Dates: September 1980 - September 1993

We're not even up to September yet, but it's felt like October for about a week now. Perhaps the transition to Fall has accelerated because school starts up early this year with a Sept. 2 Labor Day. There were certain signs in nature that reminded me of the beginning of the school year when I was a kid. There was of course the temperature drop that's a bit too cool for swimming. When my parents installed a pool, we would have parties almost every weekend. Friends and/or family from out of town would stay over for days at a time. When temperatures got cooler, less people would come over and gatherings would get smaller. The shortening of daylight symbolized that the fun days of Summer activities were over. I've always wanted to like Autumn because I feel more comfortable with its temperatures, but these memories of the end of leisure time are still triggered by the same changes in the environment that happen every year. There's also a smell in the air that I can't describe. Because of this, I don't think I can ever enjoy the beginning of Autumn.

Dragonboat 2007 Hi-res

Original Date: August 5, 2007

In my Picasa album, I mentioned that Charlotte was testing out her new Sony Alpha DSLR. The shots came out great. For most of them, we were standing from similar positions. My point-and-shoot gave me distant shots while the Alpha made it look like Charlotte was right in the middle of the action. When the dumpling eating contest was about to begin, they reserved the area up front for press photographers. I convinced Charlotte to get up there. They weren't really looking carefully at who had press passes and holding a DSLR looked professional enough. So her dumpling contest photos were especially close-up.

Click Here for Charlotte's Dragonboat 2007 Photos
Warning: The dumpling contest photos are especially graphic. Don't view these on a full stomach!

Dragonboat Preview

Original Dates: August 4-5, 2007

The Hong Kong Dragon Boat Festival is coming soon... August 2-3 to be exact. I didn't have a blog yet at that time last year, but took a bunch of pictures of the event. So I thought I'd post a flashback as a preview to this year's race.


The event will be at the Meadow Lake of Flushing Meadow Park. The best way to get there is to take the train to Shea Stadium and then hop on the shuttle bus.

Tips:
- Wear sunblock. It's usually a hot day and there's very little shade in the Meadow Lake area.
- If you spend money at the booths, buy the cold drink and not the food. The drinks are very refreshing. The food is just OK, but overpriced. You're better off holding your hunger for Main St. (one stop away by subway).
- The area to the back of the food stands has the best shot of the finish line.

Related: Frommer's Events, Official Site, Wikipedia

Capt. Breen

Original Dates: ~1981-1984?

When I wrote many of the QM2 posts and photo captions, I used some naval terms like "starboard" and "bow." I actually learned these back in elementary school gym class. There were some games Mr. Breen had us play regularly to keep us active. I don't remember the name of this one, but the 4 walls of the gymnasium were named after the 4 sides of a ship. He would call one of them out and we would all have to run to the correct side. I also don't remember how people got eliminated. It was either the last person to reach or there may have been some other team tagging people out.

bow: the forward section

stern: rear section

port: left side (when facing the bow)

starboard: right side (when facing the bow)

It's interesting how something from my childhood like that just stuck. Back then I had no idea it would be educational. Mr. Breen probably didn't think so either!

"It seemed extraneous at the time."
Mike Myers (as Wayne Campbell)
Wayne's World, 1992

Magi of Estonia

Original Dates: Fall 1985 - Summer 1986

At work today, I made a minor fix to one of our Tallinn, Estonia Destination pages. Many people haven't heard of this place before, but I clearly remember learning a bit about it while I was in the 5th grade, sitting by the window in Mr. Magi's class. The 6'4" version of Roger Moore who always wore a vest and bow tie was from Estonia. He mentioned it one day during a lesson about ancestry. I'm pretty sure he only mentioned it once, but it was easy to remember because no one had ever heard of it.

The destination of Estonia came up again during 8th grade social studies with Mr. Davy. He gave us bonus questions based on current events each morning. One day, the answer was Estonia and I was the only student to get it right. Because I wasn't really a good student at the time, I'm sure many classmates thought I cheated on that one and wrote it down after Mr. Davy revealed the answer.

QM2 Prologue

The upcoming trip won't be be first meeting with Queen Mary 2. On Friday, April 23, 2004, she slowly sailed down the Hudson River, passing by my office. Those with window seats lined up by the windows and alerted everyone else in the office. I think it was Trista that got me as she had just taken pictures from outside with her camera phone. I quickly ran out with the department's outdated and underpowered 1.3 MP PowerShot A50 and was able to get some good shots as the gigantic ship passed by the park behind the Wiley office. Several helicopters were also circling the ship for security and they looked like tiny flies in comparison.

QM2 Stats
Length: 1,132 ft
Weight: 150,000 gross tons
Passengers: 2,620
Crew: 1,253
Top Speed: Approximately 30 knots (34.5 mph)
Power: 157,000 hp

Click here for my 2004 photos

Related: Cunard, Frommers.com