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IFES Crab Fest

kip — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 00:36:43 +0000

A few months ago, I had a crab craving. I looked for a good crab restaurant in the area and found a few candidates like Boiling Crab in San Jose and Banana Leaf in Milpitas. However, there was one interesting entry: this once a month all you can eat crab event right in Mountain View at the IFES Cultural Center. We finally got to experience it last night. I think that crab itch has been scratched for the rest of the year or so.

We had arranged to go with a few friends. We ordered our tickets in advance for the second seating at 6pm (the first one was at 4). During the day, I went on a quest to find crab zippers (those plastic utensils you get at Bob Chin’s or Red Lobster for opening up the shell). I went to the Asian knick knack store, but didn’t find them, so I settled for a set of crab crackers and combo fork-spoons at Bed Bath and Beyond. Then I had to pick Lola up since she’d biked into town and we made our way over. I had looked up the place beforehand, so I didn’t bother putting the address in the GPS: just drove to the Safeway on Shoreline and I saw a big banner that said “CRAB FEST” and pulled into the first full parking lot. We walked up and saw signs but none of the lines that other reviewers had mentioned. “Maybe they’ve sorted out their issues,” I thought. We saw tons of tables inside and a band playing up on stage, but none of our friends. I checked where they were on Latitude and it looked like they were trying to find parking to the south. We high fived each other for being on time and then waited…

And waited…

Finally we called and asked where they were. “We’re in a massive line, where are you?” Then I put 2 and 2 together with the signs at our building and the lack of IFES branding anywhere: there were competing crab fests within 1 block of each other. Our was run by the Rotary Club. We ran down the street to the real location to find an immense line snaking back through the plaza area. And then we waited.

And waited…

We got to the real place at 5:55 for the 6pm seating… we didn’t get into the hall until close to 8pm. In that time, I kept worrying about my car in the parking lot at the other place so I managed to go grab it, pull some illegal U turns and run back to the line. The line was pretty well behaved, although maybe that’s because there were a bunch of security hired for the event. Finally the line started to move and we slowly made our way into glorious warmth (glad the drizzle held off until then). We got seated at the end of a table and immediately set to the salad and garlic bread laid out there. “Don’t fill up on this stuff,” I heard voices in my head say, but I needed to get some sustenance into my system right then and there.

And then:

Bam: gigantic bowls of crab in a spicy cioppino sauce were laid out in our midst. It was game time. We cracked shells, squeezed lemon, peeled back the armor and scraped the shells clean. The first bowl disappeared pretty quickly. My mouth slowly became used to the sauce, and I don’t even really need to drink much because everything was swimming in it. It was still kinda chilly in the place, and the steam rose out of the bowls. At first, I went fishing for certain bits (claws, etc), but soon I was just taking hold of any piece I could find.

The second bowl came and the quality dipped a little bit. I think this batch had been lying around a bit longer in the sauce. Lola topped out around this point. I felt myself slowing a bit and drinking more of the table wine to cleanse the palate a bit and taking some garlic bread for a change of pace. Conversation had slowed down by this point as everyone else hit the same point. But then, as the shell plates got cleared and the volunteers (who were awesome, I have to say) came by to ask if we wanted any more, John said, “Yes please.” And the guy came back with a massively full bowl of incredibly great crab: so much that it was piled high above the sauce line. We three who were the last ones standing realized that we had about 2.5 crabs each to eat if we were going to declare victory.

My place at the table was drenched in sauce. Juice ran down my arms. I reached for my first piece of the finale, even though I still had some of bowl #2 on my plate. I really wished bowl #3 had come before. And yet, I was happy to go out on a high note. I made my way through 3 more pieces and then ended the night with a claw. We had originally invited everyone back to have cupcakes and play Kinect, but everyone demurred as we realized that merely standing up was going to be a bit of an issue. I went to get a last cup of soda to wash things down and I felt drunk on crab. We washed our hands with orange and lemon juice from John and Myra’s garden and then gingerly made our way out the door. There were still people going as we left.

So, glad I went? Yes, totally. It was a great experience just working my way through epic amounts of crustacean on a Saturday night. Could I handle going next month? Probably not… but maybe I could be convinced for the last one of the year. My advice: do seating 1 so you don’t wait in line too long, wear crappy / loose-fitting clothes, bring lots of lemons, both for the meal and for fighting crab odor on your hands, bring your own wine rather than relying on the table stuff, bring a large group, make sure to have crab utensils, and finally… make sure to eat your heart out: this is more of a journey to remember than a meal to remember.

Mutant flu of death

kip — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 06:51:17 +0000

I am on the road to recovery after being laid out with the flu / sinus infection / lingering cough for the past 2 weeks. I don’t think I’ve ever been so sick and for such a protracted period in my life. It really took a huge chunk out of my winter break from work. As such, I figured I’d document what I’ve learned about being sick so that I can avoid falling into the same rut next time.

Get a flu shot
I can’t believe that every year, I wave off the flu shot. I usually say, “Oh it’ll make me feel sick for a few days, and I don’t usually get sick.” Both of these things are true, but the real reason is that I’m a total wimp about needles and I can’t see volunteering to get stuck.
Have healthy respect for other people who are sick
I should have known I was in trouble when I got back to Chicago and my wife was ill. Her immune system grew up with much more practice than mine at fighting off germs. Therefore, anything that could possibly take her out for a few days should make me run for cover: I should start taking zinc supplements, start sleeping more, etc.
Don’t tempt fate
When we got back from Milwaukee to Chicago, my wife was already on the mend, but still coughing. I woke up with a scratchy throat, but it slowly went away. I decided to go out for drinks with a friend that night. I figured that if I was going to get sick, it was a done deal, and I might as well make the most of my last day of health. I figured I’d be out for a few days and I’d be better by New Year’s.
Watch out on the home remedies
I was pretty wrecked by the time I got back from dinner that night. I had a fever and I alternately was burning up / chilled. I was definitely regretting the beer and mussels I’d put down at the Hopleaf. I took ginger + honey tea (Lola had been ingesting tons of that to fight off her flu) and went to bed. I didn’t realize until my mom told me later that ginger actually can make the fever worse. Whoops. The other home remedy I really screwed up was gargling with salt water. I think I ended up just spreading the germs around and I think I picked up my sinus infection then. In hindsight, I should have gone on antibiotics right away. I’m not sure why I didn’t: I think I had something in my head saying that this was probably a virus and it wouldn’t do anything when in fact it would have staved off my secondary infections. It’s not like it would have been hard to get a prescription either given the number of medical professionals in the family.
Wait until fully recovered before venturing out
I felt pretty under the gun to get better before New Year’s. The night before, I was feeling better so we went out to dinner with Adam and Jeannette. I managed to last about 2 hours before I had to run back to the condo to sleep, and then I ended up losing my voice. We still went out on New Year’s but I had to sleep most of the day to store up enough energy to make it out.

I came back to California this past Monday and I still sound horrible. I still cough a bunch. I’m really sad that I was so ill that I couldn’t make the most of my last week long trip to Chicago to try out restaurants, etc. However, I got to spend a whole week holed up in the condo with Lola, playing Lost Cities and Monopoly Deal, catching up on Leverage and Mad Men, etc. And that’s the final lesson: only get sick when you have someone around to take care of you. Next year, I’ll make sure to do this right.

Batman: Under the Red Hood

kip — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 08:02:47 +0000

I just watched Batman: Under the Red Hood on Netflix tonight. I’d been debating that or Ip Man, but in the end, I decided to go with an animated feature. I really enjoyed the film: it started out right in the middle of the “A Death in the Family” storyline where Joker is beating the crap out of Robin and then cuts to present day. The animation throughout was thoroughly impressive, like a more detailed version of the original animated series. However, during flashbacks, the lines seemed to get smoother (especially on boy Robin) making it look more like later iterations of the series.

Speaking of the original series, Under the Red Hood has much of the same world: GCPD has airships floating around, the Batmobiles look similar, etc. However, the voices were all different, which was a little jarring. Mark Hamill is still the best Joker voice, although perhaps he would have been a bit cartoony for this. I loved all the scenes that featured the Joker, especially towards the climax of the film. This might be sacrilege, but I enjoyed this even more than the Darwin Cooke New Frontier film.

The movie is interesting in that it starts out with one of the most famous examples of “stuff happens” in the Batman mythos: the death of Jason Todd. They did a good job of showing how Batman has been changed by that experience and how he became even more of a loner, not even wanting help from Original Robin Dick Grayson (voiced by NPH, which while cool, was a little distracting… I kept expecting him to say “Legendary”). And yet, near the end of this film, instead of something else happening permanently, things go back to the status quo. “This changes nothing,” Batman says.

I haven’t been an avid Batman reader for a while, but I do keep up on the storylines from time to time, especially when things go wonky like in R.I.P., the return of Bruce Wayne and now the current Batman, Inc. And yet, in my mind, I don’t think these current events will get caught up in the canon of Batman the way the death of Jason Todd has. They’re just too complicated to follow.

When I was a teen, I didn’t bother collecting all the Batman single issues that were out around the time of the Knightfall story arc. Instead, I picked up the novelization. It was actually pretty comprehensive: it went through the Bane stuff, Bane breaking Batman, Archangel coming in, not wanting to give up the cape, Tim Drake getting pissed, and then Bruce regaining his skills and taking things back. I have a feeling that’s what’ll happen to this Batman, Inc. thing. Because in the end… “this changes nothing.”

Chicago eating report

kip — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 19:05:44 +0000

I had a great time in Chicago last week: so much that I had to recover a bit this week before putting my trip report together. The reason is because I pigged out the entire time I was there at some of the fine establishments that opened since I moved. I put on the Google 15 within a year of moving to California, that’s nothing compared to the Chicago 5 – in one week.

So here goes: my week in fine (and not so fine) dining.

Saturday
Lola and I went to Le Peep for lunch in a bit of nostalgia only to find that wow, the food there is not so great. I mean, I guess it’s never been that great, but we used to go there on the weekends quite a bit just because it was down the block. The menu had changed slightly and we were tired and groggy, so we definitely fell off the “order drink, come back and order food” cycle so everything took way longer than it should have to get some anemic eggs and a soggy waffle.

Lesson: should have gone to Walker Bros, or at least Dixie Kitchen.

Part of the reason we didn’t get more ambitious for dinner was because we were meeting Woods and Erin for dinner at the Purple Pig downtown. My college roommate Abby had suggested it to Lola. The website said they serve Mediterranean food, which was a shock to me (I am pretty burnt out on kifta kabob since Lola requests it for dinner whenever she’s back in town). I was happier to read the tagline on the door: “Cheese, swine and wine.” The place was packed to the brim with people and we had to wait for a while outside with a beer, which was nice until it started to drizzle. We huddled under the tented seating area until the hostess sat us… right next to where we were standing. That was handy.

Onto the food: we were seated at a communal table next to a party of ladies who were clearly enjoying themselves. They suggested the bone marrow and the pork fried almonds. We added to this a scotch egg, chorizo olives, butternut squash, milk braised pork shoulder, fish “fries” and more beer! Lola’s favorite was the bone marrow, which was served with toasted bread, capers and cilantro. It was definitely the most memorable marrow dish I’ve had: the capers really gave the creamy marrow a dash of flavor. Lola wanted to get another. The pork fried almonds were great too. I was not so wild about the fish fries (tiny little deep fried smelt) and the pork shoulder was good when hot but in the cool air, the sauce started to congeal as the night went on. For dessert: we all split a nutella sandwich, mmm. I definitely want to go back and try more of their main dishes next time I’m in town.

Sunday
We woke up late, as expected. We got groceries for the condo for the week and split a can of store chili for a small late lunch because we were going to the Hopleaf for dinner with J-net, Scott and Levin and I was prepared to eat like none other. (See, I told you we dined at both ends of the spectrum). However, on the way to the bar, we decided to try someplace new (to me) and hit up the Publican instead. I’d been hearing about this place for a while and I had definitely built it up in my head a little much. I called them and they gave us a reservation right away which was awesome (I guess it was Sunday after all) and away we went.

Again we sat at a communal table (with slightly odd table breaks). We ordered more beer, oysters, apple salad, pork rinds, the charcuterie plate and the ham sampler to start. For the main dish, we got 2 orders of the pork belly. The oysters were OK, although slightly fishy compared to what you get out here. The pork rinds came in a tall glass, like frites, and were covered in a slightly spicy powder. They disappeared quickly. The ham sampler was different than I expected: I thought it would be more like prosciutto. Instead, it was… ham (well one of them was serrano, but the others were just… salty). We ended up waiting forever for the pork belly, so in the mean time we got some bread which was really great: crusty and warm. And beer: Levin, Scott and I split an Allagash Fluxus. When the pork belly finally came, it proved to be worth the wait. It had the right mixture of fat and meat, and also had this sweet savory thing going on which went right to your brain’s pleasure centers. Lola’s verdict was that she preferred the Purple Pig, but I would give the Publican another shot, just to try more of their main dishes (and to avoid the oysters). It was Scott’s birthday so we got the chocolate tart with a candle for dessert.

Monday
We went to dinner at Union Pizzeria with our friend Joaquin. We ordered a pizza each: lamb sausage for me, potato for Lola and prosciutto arugula for Joaquin. It ended up being way more food than expected… but we managed to eat almost all of it. Go us! I’d been to Union a few times before when visiting, so it wasn’t new to me, but it’s quality pizza and they have a good beer selection. I wish it had opened sooner so I could have gone more often when living there.

Tuesday
Dinner: chili again! It was cold outside. Chicago had this major wind warning. We were lazy.

Wednesday
I went to see Jackass 3D with Levin, Scott and Phil and we grabbed BW3s before the show. This place went in next to the movie theater. I’ve been once or twice before, but I think I still prefer classics Buff Joe’s to these fancy sauces. We had the garlic parmesan, mango habanero, classic and some others that were too spicy for me to try. I’m a total wimp. Even the mango habanero put a bit of hurt on me (it sneaks up on you).

I’d never really seen any of the previous Jackass oeuvre: just a quick glimpse here and there, but I admit I enjoyed myself. I think watching stuff blow up in slomo 3D just can’t possibly be boring. It was amazing to see the credit sequence where they showed old pics and previous Jackass stunts from the crew and you realize they’ve been doing this a long long time.

Thursday
We had dinner with my brother and his wife at their house. They’d just gotten back from a trip, so we just took takeout up there: Jimmy John’s and Cosi flatbreads. It was like having lunch back at work again! We did get a parking ticket while getting the sandwiches: I was literally out of the car for 5 minutes. Evanston meter maids are so smug and cocky. I got back to the car just as he was putting the ticket in the door and he had the nerve to wave at me as he drove away.

Friday
Lola and I went for dinner with J-net and Adam at the Bristol. I was already downtown at the office, so I got there a little earlier than them (and here I was rushing to squeeze in a game of Starcraft 2 with the Data Liberation Front guys). The Bristol has this bar / waiting area upstairs, which is SO smart: I immediately partook of their excellent cocktail menu. They have this really high octane pear vodka drink which really slinks up behind you and pulls the rug out. Glad it wasn’t my turn to drive. My second drink was also pear vodka based, but cut with cucumber water so it was less sweet. Finally, at dinner, they had a Patron + chai cocktail which was spicy and smooth. Can’t say enough about how good these drinks were. We did scotch olives, duck fat fries, more bone marrow, shrimp and a big bowl of different types of sausages. The meal was excellent, it really was, but I find it hard to remember all the details now due to those fine fine drinks. Their menu changes daily too, so I couldn’t even refresh my memory with the website. Again, would visit again because I’d like to try more of the menu, but also to request that chai cocktail again.

Saturday
Lunch was at Edzo’s, which is a new burger joint in Evanston that everyone mentioned to us whenever we talked about eating anything beef based. “Oh, you have to try Edzo’s, but it’s only open for lunch.” We met up with Scott and Nina, Adam and Jnet and stood in the long line for food. Lola and I decided to split a burger like everyone else, but I forgot that we like our burgers done very differently: I like it medium to medium rare and she like it on the way to charcoal. When our 8oz burger arrived I cut it in half and blood came pouring out, so she went to get her own burger while I set to the task of eating 4 times as much meat as anyone else on the table. We also had a bunch of fries with different toppings, but I couldn’t be wasting space on them: I had a job to do. That being said, that burger was way less cooked than even I like. However, you can’t deny the quality. Mmm. Also, we had a nutella shake. Scott got a maple shake that I want to try next time.

After that meal, we just skipped dinner.

Sunday
Last meal in Chicago proper: brunch at Big Jones on J-net’s recommendation. We got an Opentable reservation for 4 people and headed on down. Adam and I got eggs benedicts in popovers: his had fried green tomatoes and mine had crab cakes. We also got more pork belly as an appetizer. It came with a plum ketchup and a crepe and actually tasted more Asian than southern. The popever were excellent: they kept the benedict-y goodness contained while eating. Lola had something that looked like chilaquiles, but I was too stuffed to try any. J-net got shrimp and grits. That lunch put me back to sleep until it was time for my flight.

I wasn’t planning on eating at the airport, but then my flight got canceled and I had to hurry up and wait in line to get rebooked. I ended up on a later flight to SFO instead of SJC, so I had some time to kill so I hit up the food court and got a BBQ sandwich. Nothing too spectacular to note except that I totally cut in line because I was dithering around trying to decide whether to eat another burger at Billy Goat or else get some Panda Express style Asian food. But I didn’t even get dirty looks from anyone. Yay, the Midwest. Sorry I was dumb about the ordering line vs the paying line.

Conclusions
Chicago has a lot of great nose to tail restaurants. Also, I can eat way more than before. Like, sick amounts. I think it’s eating full meals at Google every day that’s doing it. Yow. I still have plenty more places on the list to try: Lula Cafe, Big Star, and the new Uncommon Ground on Devon. And yet, I’m still sad I didn’t make it to some of the old favorites: Hopleaf and Walker Bros. My next visit is in 2 weeks and I can’t wait.

The Old Apartment

kip — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 14:19:31 +0000

I’m… home?

I’m back in the old apartment in Evanston for the week. Lola’s been staying here when not traveling and visiting home in the Bay Area since her new job is technically based out of Chicago. But now her travel has died down for the rest of the year, so I’ll be coming out here for one week a month for a little while.

It’s a little weird to be “home.”

This condo was the first place I lived on my own, no roommate. It was the first home I bought. Even though I got in pretty late last night, I couldn’t stop myself from walking around the place and remembering how it felt to walk through here the first time. The similarity is deepened by the fact that Lola and I don’t want to accumulate too much stuff in this place, so it basically looks how it did when I first moved in.

For example: the floor. When I got the place, before the full move, I decided to change the things that I would never be able to change once furniture was in. I had the carpet taken out of the main room and put in a hardwood floor, for my allergies. I didn’t have enough cash on hand to really do the full apartment though, so the bedroom is still stock. My allergies have been going full blast since last night. Thanks a lot, past me. Wish I could loan you some dough. The floor used to be pretty white, but over 5 years in the sun, it has seasoned into a nice toastier color.

Some things are different: my renter put in some light fixtures while he was here, which is nice because it means those light switches actually do stuff now. When I lived here, I just made do with a mish mash collection of floor lamps gathered over the years (some of which still light the apartment in Mountain View).

The main difference is the lack of all my stuff. Lola and I currently have a bunch of donated kitchenware / bedding from my parents, a few clothes, a bed and a TV (sitting on an Amazon box). We’re basically living in the bedroom only. It’s sort of like being back in a dorm room, sans desk. I miss having a table / couch / frickin’ Rock Band in the living room: the old place just isn’t the same without ‘em. I have a feeling we’re going to be eating out with friends most of the nights I’m here anyway so I don’t think we’re going to need a table and chairs or anything. Like I said, we don’t want to put much into the condo because Lola’s not here that much. And yet: I’m a creature of comfort: I don’t know if I can handle not having at least a futon or something out there.

Anyway, still processing being back here in Evanston. It’s only been a couple hours. I was about to say something like “part of me never left,” but that’s not true at all. I’m thinking back to the last day I closed this door, after the movers had gone, the last time I saw this place so empty. I definitely made the right decision to move out west when I did. So thanks again, past me. I forgive you for the floor thing.

Camping

kip — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 03:37:05 +0000

Lola and I went camping for the first time this past weekend. Well, I don’t know if you can really call it camping: we drove all they way to the campsite, we stayed in a pavilion type structure (with a bed!) instead of a real tent, and most importantly, our friends John and Myra took care of all the cooking / fire building / bear precautions. And yet, it feels like we camped: we were cold (slept with several blankets), we hiked on a trail, and we ate a sack lunch.

It was great going with John and Myra, since they took care of bringing all the food and cooking it. If Lola and I had been in charge, we’d probably would have had bears all over the place in the night, after suffering hypothermia. Instead, we had a huge roaring fire and lots of good wine and company (a bunch of other friends from college). It did get pretty cold at night, and I wish I’d taken John’s advice to wear a hat while I slept.

The next day, we drove to the Magnolia Grove and hiked around. We didn’t make it all the way up to the museum or to the Fallen Tunnel tree, but we got to see a bunch of the most interesting trees: the Grizzly Giant, the Faithful Couple, and the Clothespin. Lola and I had to cut the day short because we had to get back to the South Bay since Lola’s flight left the next morning. Everyone else stayed to hike Half Dome the next day.

On our way back, we stopped at Five Guys. Verdict: awesome fries, but the burger just didn’t come together the way In ‘n Out burgers do, even with the extra toppings. If only you could take the best parts of all fast food restaurants and tie them up into one cholesterol bomb of a meal. Ah well. A man can dream.

As a kid, we never went camping, ever. My dad was very outdoorsy, but my mother couldn’t really fathom a vacation without a shower. My best friend and I tried sleeping outside one night when we were kids: we took sleeping bags out to the playset in my yard. I think we made it up until about 9 or 10 PM until we went inside, where my mom was waiting with ice cream for us. This was the same playset my brother tried to camp in years earlier: the sprinkler system turned on in the middle of the night and he had to go sleep with our dogs in the garage for the rest of the night since everyone in the house was already asleep and the alarm system was activated.

Would we go again? Sure, but we’re still not ready for a big solo outing or anything. Still, I think my dad would be a little proud of the baby step.

Lego

kip — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 02:34:28 +0000

So sad: I purchased a Halo Scorpion Mega Bloks set (note not Lego) today to bring to the office on Monday (we’re sprucing up the place a bit). I cleaned off the coffee table and got out the camera: ready to document the building.

I noticed that the flap was only stuck on with a piece of tape. Then I pulled out the instruction manual and some loose pieces came flying out. “Mega Bloks sure doesn’t have the same build quality as Lego,” I thought. I tipped the box and large pieces of tank came out. That’s when I realized that this was not a virgin set of building blocks. Some of the decals had even been put on! Now, it’s really hot out currently and I’m really lazy, so I thought about just keeping it and putting the rest together, but then visions of completing the set and finding 1 or 2 pieces missing flashed in my head and I decided it would be a good excuse to spend more time in some air conditioning rather than in the apartment.

So, back to Target. They accepted the return with no questions, but unfortunately, they had no other Scorpion sets and truth be told, I wasn’t too impressed by the build quality of the pieces I took out of the box. The whole experience got me thinking about how long I’ve been playing with Lego.

Like many geeks, I treasured my Lego set when I was a kid. I had a mish mash of sets: hand me downs from my brother and gifts from my family. I don’t remember playing with Duplos too much: I went straight for the regular sets. With every new set, I’d build the suggested model, play with it for a few days, then I’d break it up and toss it into… the box.

If you loved Lego, you had… the box. The pit of pieces that held half formed creations and some treasured masterpieces, swimming in a pile of plastic amino acids. Legos weren’t meant to sit completed on a shelf: they had to be in a state of constant flux: breaking apart and reflowing together. I can still hear the swish swish sounds of the box as I’d hunt for a 4×1 flat or a white 2×2. I shared a room with my brother until he left for college and I remember him telling me to go to sleep when I’d sneak out of bed to try to finish a model by the flickering light of the nightlight. That swish. Still music to my ears.

When I was a kid, I played one game with my Legos and that was the never ending battle of the Legos vs the action figures (mostly GI Joes). It didn’t matter if they were Joes or Cobra, they were all alignment evil in my game. On the side of the good were my Lego Technic figures. Since they were hurting for character diversity, I modded them up a bit: I put little wire Wolverine claws on one of them, gave another an eyepatch with a marker, and when their underdeveloped shoulder joints inevitably gave out, I’d make little lego exoskeleton arms for them so they could continue the fight. GI Joes had a life span as well: after a few years of karate kicks, their rubber band spine would give out and their legs would pop off.

The battle raged around the room every afternoon after school and all day on weekends. Detente was declared on Wednesday nights before the cleaning ladies came: everything went into the box until they were done. For years, this was a big process since there were also space ships and space stations to dismantle. No side ever won of course, and there were plenty of scenarios that were run over and over until they were just as intense as the latest movie I’d gotten to see. My Lego world was always space based.

My best friend Jason had even more Legos in his basement. He had a town that took over half a room. He even had- da da da- the monorail. His sets were always city based, however. We’d mostly play cops and robbers in his Lego world.

I don’t remember when I grew out of Legos, but I certainly remember the day my cousin did. He was older than me by four years and he used to play with me all the time. But one day, he told me that he was too old and he was going down to the basement to play Nintendo. I felt so betrayed. Pretty ironic given the amount of time I’d later spend on video games, but I digress.

Eventually the number of Legos dwindled as my mom gave stuff away or the GI Joes broke. However, every so often I’d get a set from relatives who saw me rarely but remembered how insane I’d been about building things before. I used to tell my mom that I wanted to be a Lego Builder when I grew up but then my sights changed to putting more conceptual blocks together.

When I graduated from college, my brother got me a really cool gift: a Lego portrait of my Kip avatar. Abby and I put it together on the floor of our apartment. You get this sheet that shows the paint by numbers view and then a ton of tiny 1x1s. It’s a lot of fun (but you should pace yourself when putting them together: we started and then decided to finish in one sitting… our knees did not thank us).

Once I got a job and disposable income, I noticed that Lego had caved to making branded sets: Star Wars was a big hit. And so I ponied up for a Millenium Falcon. I put it together and then… it stayed together. It resisted the box. I got more and more Star Wars sets (the X wing and then the Arc Fighter from Episode 2) and again they stayed together in their approved configurations. Too many specialized pieces to really rework into something. And of course, I’d graduated to video games. I still kept the sets on display in my room but there was no denying that some of that old Lego magic had seeped out: not from the sets, but from me.

However, whenever I visit home and see my godson, I’m so proud that the Lego building tradition has continued. He of course has plenty of Legos of his own at his hourse, but when he comes over to my parents house, the last remains of my old box are brought out. There’s still a red truck with a pneumatic pump still kicking; it was one of the last sets I ever got. He builds long space ships out of Lego city sets: the sort of primary colors you would never see on a USNC Scorpion tank. He explains which protrusions are the propulsion jets and which ones are the guns, and which ones can be used for propulsion and weaponry. One day he too will just put a set together and leave it on the shelf, but for now, he breathes new creative life into my old bricks, and I get to be 7 again. Sweet.

Walking Dead / Invincible

kip — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 06:33:46 +0000

I’m finally caught up to date on The Walking Dead and Invincible, 2 comic series by Robert Kirkman. I love comic books, but I’m way too lazy to go to the comic store every week to pick up single issues, so until I got my iPad, I would have to wait for the books to be bundled into trade paperbacks. I read most of my comics this way, in graphic novel form: 100 Bullets, Sandman, Y, etc. I would preorder them months in advance on Amazon and then they would arrive almost randomly. However, with the Comics app on the iPad, it’s really easy to stay current and so I obsessively check each week for either of these 2 series. Then when they arrive, I queue up the downloads and then anxiously slurp them down as fast as possible. I don’t think this would have worked well for many of the aforementioned series, but for these 2, I can’t wait: they’re that good.

The Walking Dead is a series about zombies and the end of the world and how people deal with it. Some freeze up. Some give up. Some go crazy. I like to say that it’s the most depressing work of fiction I’ve ever read. It’s worse than The Road, because that was pretty short. It’s worse than World War Z because that book was actually the chronicle of a triumph. In Walking Dead, we follow a group of survivors who get into bad circumstances, which get worse, which then get downright painful. The hero is Rick Grimes, but as the series has gone on, survival has taken such a toll on the guy that you sort of wish someone else would step up to be the main. But no one does and you have to watch this noble good hearted fella get beaten down and down until he becomes as bad as the villains around, very few of whom are actually zombies.

So, why do I like wallowing in this post apocalyptic hellhole? Because I can’t stop reading. I can’t wait to find out what’s around the corner. The Walking Dead is so well plotted and the characters are well rounded: it’s like a TV series (and it will be one on AMC this October) where the characters keep finding darker depths in themselves (like Breaking Bad). And those good times, when they come are treasured so much that it really makes me feel much more grateful that I can live in a place with big windows and not worry about roamers crashing through and eating my brains. But back to the depths: there’s a section in book 7 that I had to put down and not look at for a little while. And I’m a desensitized to violence child of the 80s here. Yeesh, I said. Then book 11 came along and I hadn’t seen anything yet.

I’m sort of worried about the TV series: part of the book’s power comes from its stark black and white look and I’m not sure how I’ll be able to adjust to color. But I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.

Then there’s Kirkman’s superhero book, Invincible. I had heard a lot about this book from other friends who read comics and I picked it up on their recommendation. It’s almost the opposite of Walking Dead: it’s colorful. People succeed. There are heroes to look up to and the villains are even pretty funny at times. Throughout the series we follow Mark Grayson as he learns he has super powers and becomes the character Invincible. His father is also a superhero: Omni-Man. The book starts out with him discovering his powers and then his early career and then it takes a 90 degree turn around book 3 and becomes a much more complex family piece. Mark’s relationship with his father and mother change drastically. He has a girlfriend, then another. He has to deal with his boss, and also figure out whether he should bother with college when he’s got so much else to worry about. Many of these relationships could have felt like they were Spiderman ripoffs, but Kirkman keeps them unique and modern.

Like Walking Dead, Invincible is the sort of series that you need to read issue by issue: it’s plotted really well. The arcs feel epic and they leave Invincible different after every one. The book is also funny: there are crossovers to other Image series and all the other superheroes in the book have funky powers and quirks, or else they’re meant to be one dimensional parodies of classic comic heroes. The art is super detailed and as the series has gone on, the action has gotten incredibly intense (in some ways, even more so than Walking Dead).

To sum up: I love reading these series because things happen: it’s not like other series where the switch reboots at the end of an issue. Every week, stuff happens. Characters get battle scars inside and out that stick with them. Actions have consequences and they resurface all the time. You can’t miss what’s going on and you can’t wait 5 months for a trade paperback. Get on the weekly train; it’s completely worth it.

My life in Halo, part 2

kip — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 06:04:25 +0000

Part 1 of this post is here.

We continued to play Halo 2, basically until Halo 3 came out. In fact, even after the Xbox 360 launched and we waited in line overnight for it, the game that spent the most time in the console was still Halo 2. We joked that the backwards compatibility team at Microsoft had just 1 title on their list: all the others were just bonus. And that game was Barbie Horse Adventures, of course. Sure other games came and went, but it was always nice to get back to a little stabbing action on Midship. However, the community was definitely getting smaller and smaller.

Halo 3 kicked off with the public beta attached to Crackdown. Surprisingly, Crackdown itself turned out to be a pretty awesome multiplayer game that killed many hours while waiting for the beta to open. The day of the beta was marred by some download issues leading to much online gnashing of teeth, and Adam and I were happy that we hadn’t taken a day off work to play. Clearly, we were learning about priorities.

We had one crazy night with the beta: my friend Jason was in town and so we dragged a bunch of monitors and Xboxes to my place and had a pretty long gaming session: lots of games on Valhalla, testing out the Spartan laser, getting blown out of the sky while riding the man cannons. So we decided that for the launch of the actual game, we should be suitably epic. See, by this time, change was in the air. I was looking to move away from Chicago and so I was putting the feelers out for other jobs. One of our old coworkers had ended up at Google and he had passed my name on to the recruiters there. It was the end of an era: leaving my first place of steady employment after 5 years.

So, Adam and I saw 9/24 as one last day to game together all night while we still had the chance. We dragged his TV over to my place, loaded up on Cheetos. We innovated this year: we used chopsticks so that we wouldn’t get the controllers all orange. We picked up our copies at midnight and then loaded up Halo 3.

The campaign was kind of a mess. We enjoyed playing it, but after playing games that were a little more suited for coop, like Gears of War, Halo 3 was a bit lacking… something. Not like Halo 2′s campaign had made much of an impression – I’d spent some time catching up on Wikipedia. Still that big talking plant was back (Gravemind) and there was Cortana weirdness; it’s a little hard to follow when you’re whacked out on Red Bull and red number 5 food coloring. 9 am rolled around again, we trucked the TV back and then we started back in on multiplayer from our respective houses.

Which is the way we’d play for the next few months before I left for California. We were doing most games like that anyway, with the notable exception of Red Star on the PS2. Halo 3 had some good memories as well: stalking enemies in the Pit corridor, lasering Banshees on Valhalla, etc. However, we noticed that playing Slayer was the most fun: for some reason the objective games had lost a little of their luster. Perhaps it was the Assault Rifle: a big change after Halo 2 had gone mostly BR starts for everything. Eventually the BRs came back in force in matchmaking playlists as well. Maybe it was the lack of inspired ActionSack games: the crazy anything goes playlists of Halo 2 were sadly diminished (or had incredibly weird rules). It was almost a relief when Modern Warfare launched and there was something different, something not Halo, at the top of the Xbox Live charts.

And then… there was ODST. I had high hopes for ODST. The Firefight mode (Halo’s zombies mode, basically) was going to be so awesome. We were going to load up a 4 man team and go to town on the Covenant. And then… it wasn’t. Unfortunately, the networking code for Firefight used the campaign’s token passing methods for synchronization instead of the more lenient prediction methods used in deathmatch. And so when we managed to coordinate our epic onslaught, lag killed it for us. We tried a few more times, but it just wasn’t meant to be. I played the campaign completely solo, which actually sort of fit the feel of the game. I felt vulnerable all the time: health bar flashing, no covering fire. I quickly put ODST down in favor of Modern Warfare 2 and started building my character there slowly to 70 (still haven’t quite gotten there).

Microsoft turned off the Halo 2 matchmaking servers earlier this year, and there were a few stalwarts who stayed online days after the shutdown, just playing more games. Eventually their Xboxes overheated or crashed and they logged off, one by one. I was sad that I couldn’t take part: I was on vacation at the time. And even if I were here, I’ve been through 2 360s since the last time I played Halo 2 and I had no way of getting all the multiplayer maps back again.

The Reach beta launched a little while later and that was when I put my ODST disk back in the console. The game felt much rougher than the Halo 3 Public Beta, but I’m actually sort of heartened by that: it shows that they’re taking more risks. Armor abilities are more fun that equipment already. I’m also looking forward to giving Firefight another shot: I think it’ll be what we were hoping ODST would be.

But the most exciting part of Reach for me is the return of some favorite maps from, you guessed it, Halo 2. I can’t wait to start Ivory Tower and go running for the rocket launcher in the fountain. Or jump throwing the flag out of the base on Midship. Or ambushing someone in the cavern side of Blood Gulch.

It’s 11pm here and there are lines outside stores waiting for the door to open and for Reach to come pouring out. I’m not among the throngs: I’ve given up on local game stores and I’m on the Amazon credit IV line. With release date delivery, I should have it tomorrow midday. I’m not even taking the day off (Adam’s already giving me crap for that).

Sigh, I’ve got a product to ship, and vacation days to save to spend with Lola. Instead of Halo filling the empty spaces in my life, I have to carve time out for it. But carve a little I will. Because it’s Halo Day, perhaps it’s the last one to ever be this good. Thanks for all the memories, Bungie, and thanks for giving us one last huge whopping helping of Halo to last us for years to come.

My life in Halo, part 1

kip — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 06:39:20 +0000

Tuesday’s impending launch of Halo Reach is occupying most of the idle cycles of my brain. I’ve been watching gameplay videos, reading the recently unembargoed reviews, and in general, looking forward to not getting much else done this week. Much has been written about how this is Bungie’s last Halo outing and therefore, may be that last good Halo game (who knows what Microsoft is going to do to it). I enjoyed the public beta quite a bit, even though it was over so quickly. Every new video has gotten me more and more excited to play through campaign one more time, and then to join the multiplayer fray. I must admit, I was a little skeptical when Reach was announced and then turned out to be more of the same (and not the MMOFPS I was hoping for). But here I am, ready for one more installment of a game I’ve been watching for over 10 years.

Halo and I have a complicated history. As a young Mac fanboy, I missed out on many PC shooters in their prime, like Doom, Quake, etc. I had to wait for ports, by which time the magic had sort of passed. Instead, I played Pathways into Darkness and Marathon and was generally a huge Bungie supporter. One of my most memorable gaming sessions was at the computer lab when I was visiting my brother at school. He and a bunch of his friends who worked in the lab had an epic Marathon night while Aliens played on the projector. Sensory overload. I loved all the little details about Marathon such as how you could see what weapon the other people were carrying, unlike Quake, and how you could muck with the physics engine to create guns that shot flies at your enemies.

When Bungie announced Halo at Macworld in 1999, it was like getting a gift from on high. They planned to have a persistent multiplayer world. One of the devs said something to effect that if you fired a round, the shell casing would pop out and be on the ground in the same spot when you logged back on. Now I realize what a chore that would be to handle (to little effect), but as a fresh comp sci major, I was blown away by their ambition. A AAA multiplayer FPS title, developed and released first on the Mac. And so you can imagine the knife in this fanboy’s heart when Bungie was bought by Microsoft and Halo became an Xbox launch title.

I actually resisted Halo 1 for a long time, partly due to this “betrayal.” My friend Adam got a launch Xbox in 2001, but we spent more time playing Dead or Alive than Halo. The few times I picked it up at his apartment, I would spend most of the time getting sniped in the head on Blood Gulch, or shotgunned in the back on Chiron (never could figure out the teleporters) or rocketed on Wizard. It wasn’t until I moved in with Adam in 2003 that I began to play in earnest.

It was my second year out of school. I was living with Adam and another friend, Todd, in Adam’s condo. I lived more like a college student then than I did in college: I had tons of free time after work, and now I had disposable income. I got another Xbox for myself and we convinced another friend to shell out for one and leave it in the place and so we had nerdvana: 4 TVs, 4 Xboxes, a long lunch hour and several other video game junkies who were always ready for a fix. We would walk home during lunch, eat a quick sandwich while watching Sealab and then play a few games of Slayer. I started getting better at the game, especially on Hang em High, where I perfected the art of stealing kills at long range with the magnum, or getting cheap grenade bounces. However, the main event was Nov 9th, 2004 when Halo 2 launched.

We’d had a postcard of Master Chief dual wielding SMGs on the fridge for weeks (preorder bonuses from Gamestop). We even had one up at work and we schedule vacation for that day. Our plan: midnight pickup of the game, play it all the way through on coop until morning, then nap a bit. We grabbed energy drinks at the convenience store on the corner as well as Cheetos, Reese’s Peanut Butter cups and Kit Kats. And then… we executed. We played through the game on Heroic and managed to win around 9am. Passed out for a while, and then at lunch time, everyone else from the office came over to try out deathmatch. I probably would have enjoyed that more if my head hadn’t been trying to fall off my neck. After lunch, more napping and then back into the fray.

I even went into the doghouse with my girlfriend at the time over November 9th: I’d jokingly told my friend Woods that I’d taken her to a nice restaurant the weekend before since I was going to be a bit more occupied after Halo 2 launched. He told his girlfriend, it got back to mine, and man, was I in trouble.

But back to Halo: we ate, slept, and breathed Halo. Woods would even stay over once or twice a week on our ratty old futon (scavenged for free!). That futon was so uncomfortable that we put boards underneath the mattress so he wouldn’t feel the bars through the thin cushion. We’d wake up and he’d be perched on the coffee table with a controller in hand.

Having matchmaking meant that even when our other players weren’t around, we could jump on anytime and find people to frag. And the new modes like assault and 1 base CTF became our favorite. Almost every map was awesome and iconic. Playing Lockout and learning the jump to the flag point from the top of the airlift. Crouch walking the bomb into Ascension while invisible. Driving the Warthog into the base on Burial Mounds. One night, we made friends with this guy because the other team was griefing us on Burial Mounds. They’d taken the bomb and jumped up the wall using a map glitch. Then they were trying to pot shot us. We just took vehicles and messed around for, no kidding, several hours. We weren’t going to be griefed. The other guy’s name was Kunfu Grip and we chatted with him about his work and stuff. We even took a break for food and when we came back, Kunfu was dying with laughter: he’d managed to kill one of the jumpers with the ghost: they’d just left their Xbox on as well and he managed to gradually whittle the guys health down.

Bungie added stats tracking in Halo 2 so now we could experience Halo even while we were at work: we could check up on games from the night before and look at the medals and the K/D ratio. We hardly ever played ranked modes, we preferred to play social playlists because we didn’t have reliable 3rd and 4th players, and so we could never take down a fully integrated team.

We’d sometimes get pissed when the hackers took over with aimbots and the like, but Bungie wielded the banhammer and we left feedback for users and made it a point of pride to make it through every game, no matter how painful. And then the map packs, like the one that added Terminal, which is still an insanely great assault or CTF map. I’ll always remember the first time I played Terminal, and heard the ambient sounds of the train announcer. Do you remember than indie Hope Davis romantic comedy Next Stop Wonderland? The trailer for that ends with that same sort of train announcer voice and I still link the two in my head. Next stop, plant-the-bomberland.

I don’t know if I’ll ever play another game the way I played Halo 2. It’s so wrapped up in that fresh post-college portion of my life. No major responsibilities. Building autonomy. And not really sure where I was heading, professionally or personally. It was really easy to just get complacent and think that those days would last forever, that Bungie would keep adding maps and modes and we’d keep playing them. It was great being surrounded by other guys in the exact same stage of life. It couldn’t last: people started getting married, buying homes, and the like. Game time got harder and harder to carve out of our workday. Woods stopped sleeping over on our ratty futon. I moved out in 2005 and got my own place up the street. We’d still play online, but it took more planning. Time had to be allotted, whereas before, Halo just filled our empty spaces.

Tomorrow: Halo 3 and ODST.