San Francisco (Day 4)

Our final full day of touring in SF went out with a bang, as it was the day that we hit some of the biggest tourist sites and in the process pretty much completed our list of things to see in SF. We started by grabbing a quick bite at a local bagel place on our way to the piers, and then, arriving early to our ferry to Alcatraz, we spent some time walking through the extremely touristy Pier 39 area, including checking out the sea lions there. Pretty soon though, we were on our way to Alcatraz, a trip which, including the provided audio tour, took about 2.5 hours to complete. Alcatraz, as always (I believe this was my third time there) was fantastic, so this definitely got our day going in a big way.

After Alcatraz, we got a bite to eat at Pier 39 and then walked westward along the piers until we came to the Musée Mécanique, a free museum dedicated to old arcade games and attractions, which was an unexpected highlight of the trip for me. Eventually we made it over to Ghirardelli Square, which despite its name doesn't really feature all that much chocolate and was a bit of a disappointment. Shortly afterwards, we headed up to Fort Mason, which really wasn't much of anything to see, but after this we headed over to the Golden Gate bridge, which of course was incredible (despite the fact I've seen it before). We walked about 1/3 of the way across the bridge and then came back, but given how tired our feet were from all the walking thus far and that I seem to get more afraid of heights as I grow older, this wasn't a problem for me.

Our next stop was the Palace of Fine arts, which is essentially just this large classical "ruin" built around a small lake. After this, we took the ride home on the transit system through rush-hour traffic and then got ready to go out for our last dinner in town at this REALLY old restaurant (it opened in 1849!) called the Tadich Grill, which was decent. Overall, Day 4 might have been our most successful and least stressful day of our trip, and now we're just preparing for our five hour flight home (which, with the time change, puts us in town a bit late) and adjustment back to our normal lives.

San Francisco (Day 3)

Our third day on our trip was our chillest of the four days we spent touring SF (our fifth day will essentially be entirely concerned with returning back home). We started out by having breakfast at the hotel, which was still expensive despite having Candace's 50% off discount due to being a Hyatt employee. We then finally attempted to figure out the public transportation system in town, an endeavor which took us around an hour and frustrated us immensely, but once we finally got on our way, we made it over to the Haight-Ashbury district to check out all its hippiedom. This trip began with a stop at Alamo Square to see the "Painted Ladies" - the six Victorian houses made famous on the Full House intro; then, after an aborted trip to Hayes Valley to see a dance music record store, we finally made it over to the Haight proper, eventually checking out the Amoeba Records store there (in addition to the many other hippie/indie stores along the way).

This was followed by a meandering and somewhat confusing visit to the massive Golden Gate Park and then a somewhat desperate return to the Haight for some mediocre burritos at a tourist-trap taqueria. After kinda getting lost on the public transportation system, we happily ended up in the Castro (gay) district and enjoyed witnessing many an assless chap and leather thong. We then returned home to take a nap and ended the night with a late-night visit to a decent (but not fantastic) sushi place, having finally gotten used to the public transportation system after a day of progressively less frustrating attempts to do so.

Overall, this third day was easily the least exciting and perhaps worst day of the trip, largely being filled with stuff that's not all that memorable or that necessary to see (with a few exceptions). That said, I'm still glad we checked it all out, even if only to prepare us for the great last day that laid ahead.

San Francisco (Day 2)

As expected, our second day in SF was busier than the first, despite taking some time to relax from time to time. We started out by getting breakfast at a little croissant place and Starbuck's and then headed South of our hotel to the SF Museum of Modern Art and the surrounding Yerba Buena Gardens. The SFMoMA was definitely the best museum I've been to in the States but was fairly average when compared with similar museums in Europe. The highlight of the collection was a temporary exhibit of modern Chinese art, much of which was anti-Mao and therefore quite flagrant. After this, we made our way over to Union Square and the Civic Center and then started heading North towards Lombard Street.

On our way there, we stopped into the big Masonic Temple and Grace Cathedral across the street, eventually followed by a brief but neat visit to the Cable Car Museum. We then got lunch at a Chinese restaurant on the outskirts of Chinatown and chilled at Vesuvio, a dive bar made famous for being a hotspot for the Beat poets. After this break, we opted for some serious climbing up Russian Hill to see Lombard Street (the world's curviest street with eight curves in a single block) and Filbert Street (San Fran's steepest street at a 31.5 degree incline). After all this walking, I needed a break at a local coffee shop, after which we returned to the hotel to collect ourselves before going out for the evening.

Our night out consisted of dinner at a California Fusion restaurant called The House followed by trying to see what the dance club scene is like in town, making it to no fewer than three clubs. Actually, we just stood in the first club's line, leaving once we found out the cover charge was $40/person to see Deadmau5 spin! Fortunately, we found a couple other places in the SoMa district, one called Harlot which wasn't really our thing, and another called 111 which was having some sort of 80's night. Although we didn't really find the true dance scene on what might amount to our last viable night out (being Sunday now), I'm at least glad we tried.

San Francisco (Day 1)

As it turns out, we do have an internet connection here, so hopefully I'll be able to write at least a little summary of what we've been up to each day.

So, our first day in San Francisco started off with taking MARTA (Atlanta's "metro system") to the airport, flying with Delta to SF, and then figuring out how to take SF's BART line to the city (by the way, the train we took was HORRENDOUSLY loud). After checking into our hotel (which is awesome...more later), we looked for some lunch in the Ferry Building nearby where we had some sandwiches from an Italian deli. Then we toured the area a bit on our way over to Chinatown, which was less impressive than I had remembered but still neat.

Following Chinatown, we made our way up to Coit Tower, where we took the elevator up to the top for its fantastic (although unfortunately often fog-covered) views of most of the city. Then we headed back down Telegraph Hill towards our hotel, passing briefly through the Italian North Beach area (deciding to come back here later for dinner). Just before returning to our hotel, we got sidetracked by an early Oktoberfest party going on at this old German restaurant, complete with two polka bands (one outdoors and one indoors)! Then we raced back to the hotel to catch the first Presidential debate and relax before eventually heading out for an Italian dinner in North Beach and a quick visit to the famous City Lights bookstore.

In general, I feel we covered a lot of ground for a half day (considering we were traveling for the first half), and now we're up, well-rested, and ready to tackle a day full of site-seeing and eating out at interesting local places!

Going to San Francisco!

Candace and I will be catching a 9:45 flight to San Fran tomorrow morning and will be there for four nights, returning late on Tuesday. So, although I would like to post at least once or twice while away, it might not happen. Be sure to expect me to post a bunch of pics when I return though, but be ready for that to take almost a month to happen, as I often procrastinate making Facebook albums.

Anyway, we're planning on hitting all the major sites and already have tickets for Alcatraz. If you know of anything that we MUST see, feel free to let me know, although my guide book and knowledge from past visits will probably take us to as much good stuff as we can squeeze in in four days or so.

Stone Mountain

A few weeks ago, Candace and I went to Stone Mountain to see the laser show and attend the adjoining Daisy Festival going on that day. Here's the Facebook album:

Stone Mountain w/Candace.

The festival was pretty typical, but the highlight was definitely the laser show. That said, as I mentioned in my Facebook write-up, its social/political slant was heavy-handed and kinda offensive, and the production quality of the show hadn't really improved that much since I last saw it years ago, despite this being the 25th anniversary of the show and supposedly having a higher-tech presentation. The one true highlight of the show for me was the "Celestial Soda Pop" portion, particularly due to using a track which really stood out against all the patriotic and Southern rock music featured in the rest of the show.

Still, the day was quite memorable, and it was good to go a little bit out of the city for an evening out.

Raising Arizona

I Suppose Evan and I have a new tradition now of watching Coen brothers movies on our birthdays seeing as we watched The Big Lebowski for mine and now Raising Arizona for his. Like The Big Lebowski, I had never seen Raising Arizona prior to our viewing. In addition, both films generated a kind of humorous bewilderment for me, and I can't quite figure out if that's a good thing or not. Both movies had some laughs, but as a review I recently read said about the Coens' films, these laughs usually come at the expense of a whole group of people they find intolerable, not just the character they represent, so sometimes it's not very clear whether the jokes are actually all that funny after all or rather just somewhat tongue-in-cheek stabs at these people.

Still, I would have to say I liked Raising Arizona much more than The Big Lebowski, largely due to having a more reasonable plot and more relatable characters (relatively-speaking). I was also a bit surprised that this film didn't have that random twist of unpredictable violence that I've come to expect from the Coen brothers' work, but this was only their second film, so maybe that hadn't quite sunk in yet.

So, overall, having seen six fairly different Coen brothers' films now, I'm not quite sure how I feel about their work: while my favorite is certainly No Country for Old Men, and Burn After Reading was nice, these recently-seen older films leave me a good bit colder, despite some genuine humor and the obviously unique style.

Call of Duty 2

I've been meaning to write a review of Call of Duty 2 ever since finishing it on Regular a few weeks ago, so here goes:

If you're not up on the Call of Duty franchise, it's basically just another one of these lines of WWII simulation first-person shooters, so there's nothing particularly new about the concept. As I've mentioned before, the reason I was attracted to this game was that I got to play a free demo version of it that I downloaded from Xbox Live, and my initial impressions were so strong that I went out and bought the game the next day. Now, although the Call of Duty line has three games available for the Xbox (2, 3, and 4: Modern Warfare) with a fourth game coming out soon, I decided to buy the oldest one of the group for three reasons: it was the one I demo'ed, it was the best-received WWII simulation of the lot, and it was only $20.

It didn't take me long to beat the game on Regular, but I imagine the other two harder difficulty levels will take much longer, as you can't really get hit without dying on the hardest level. Overall, the game is kinda both really good and really unremarkable. The biggest pro to the game - that it's pretty realistic - is also its biggest con in that it's real-life and therefore not spectacular, which is kind of what video games (and literature/movies/theatre) are for, right? You know, taking you out of the real world? Sure, I've never fought in the military, but the game doesn't add much to help you get involved with it: there's very little story, the three campaigns involve totally different people (first Russians, then the British, then Americans), and all of the battles kinda feel the same (just like real warfare).

I know this sounds like I'm knocking this game and didn't like it very much, but it really is a great experience when you manage to get caught up in it (brief as it might be). The visuals are great (for the time at least: it was an Xbox 360 launch title back in 2005), gameplay is intuitive, enemy AI is well-done, and the locales feel right.

This said, I would certainly play another Call of Duty game, although I don't think any of them are too high on the priority list. The only possible exception to this might be Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, which is a much more recent game (and therefore probably has more going on) but supposedly is more about online multiplayer, which I'm not really into, so who knows?

Gas Crisis

Well, if it isn't happening in your area and you haven't yet heard, the South is going through a major gasoline crisis right now. Sure, gas prices have been bad all over the States for a while now, but in addition to that, the South is running out of it! Believe it or not, but even in a city as big and as generally important as Atlanta (especially when compared with other Southern cities), most gas stations have closed their pumps due to not being able to obtain gas, so we're left with maybe one out of every five stations offering gas (and usually only low grade). As you can imagine, people are kinda freaking out, and due to the extremely diminished supply, gas lines are now spilling out onto the streets, messing up traffic in the process.

After a couple days of witnessing this from a distance, today I actually sat in one of those lines, which took me a little over 15 minutes. Ultimately, this isn't that bad, but it's also not that good either, and if things get any worse, we might be in real trouble. Supposedly all of this is due to something like nine oil refineries being out of service after our recent barrage of hurricanes, but why wouldn't we just get our gas from somewhere else instead in the meantime?

Hindu Temple w/Candace

At the end of August (yes, almost a month ago), Candace and I made a trip to a nearby Hindu temple. Here's my brief account of what we were allowed to photograph:

Hindu Temple w/Candace

Of particular interest here is the fact that this is the SECOND temple of this denomination that I've been to; the first was in London, as you might remember. Although the Atlanta temple had a nicer layout in the area surrounding the temple, London was a more memorable experience, most-likely due to a combination of being my first time to do so (and in a foreign city) and the fact that, due to being entirely complete, the London temple was better suited to tourists, including offering a guided audio tour.

Still, we had a good, albeit very brief visit and might possibly return someday when the facility is finished and primed for outsiders to experience.

BioShock Glitch

Despite having not yet finished Naruto or Lost Odyssey (both of which have proven frustrating in one big way or another, although the former is almost done), I recently started playing BioShock once again, this time on Medium. Although I thoroughly loved this game the first time around, I think I love it even more now, playing through it a second time. That is, until I hit a BIG glitch in the game today:

Roughly half-way through the game, I came to an objective scene from which I couldn't proceed without killing a bunch of loonies that were supposed to be sicked on me. Unfortunately, the game glitched and didn't manage to send anyone my way, creating an impossible scenario to complete. The real problem here though wasn't the glitch itself, but rather that I had already used my one recent save file after the glitch started, leaving me without an unglitchy backup! So now, despite hours of recent gameplay, I'm going to have to start over!

Although this made me sad, I'll be getting my new Star Wars game in the mail this week, so I don't really mind postponing my re-attempt at BioShock until a month from now or so. And now that I've seen what the game is like on Medium, I think I'm just gonna go ahead and play the game on Hard next time, which will unlock a couple achievements I couldn't have gotten in an easier difficulty setting, so it's not all bad news...I guess.

Escape From Alcatraz

In preparation for our upcoming trip to San Francisco, I made sure we watched Clint Eastwood's classic Escape From Alcatraz, a movie I've watched before every single trip I've taken to SF where I knew I would be seeing the prison. I find it especially good to show to first-time visitors I'm traveling with, as this film really gets you into the world of Alcatraz (quite the opposite of The Rock).

Honestly, I don't have much to say about this film. The lack of a real soundtrack really struck me on this viewing, as did the slow pacing and often unbalanced dialogue volume. Overall though, this film is really interesting, especially considering it's mostly true to the real-life escape of the three prisoners featured in the movie.

By the way: the "trailer" above is all I could find, as this is a fairly old movie, but it's kinda entertaining nonetheless.

Thoughts on Guitar Hero

I think my policy for blogging about my video games is going to be that I'm not going to write about a game until I've beaten it on at least one of its difficulty settings. By this definition, my list of "beaten" games thus far looks like this:

1. Guitar Hero III (Easy and Medium Career Modes)
2. BioShock (Easy)
3. Alien Hominid HD (Easy)
4. Call of Duty 2 (Regular)

You might then notice that I have yet to really devote a post to Guitar Hero, which is mostly due to the fact that there's no real story involved in the game and that the game feels like it's really more about developing your skills rather than "beating" it. That said, a few bulleted thoughts on the game thus far wouldn't hurt...

- I feel I'm MUCH more likely to develop carpal-tunnel syndrome from this than a real guitar, despite the fact that I use the strap for support
- the game is often so mindless that I find my mind wandering to random people I've crossed paths with, wondering how they would react to/feel about the game
- hammer-ons and pull-offs aren't handled as well as I would like
- while some of the songs on the Bonus list are really cool, some of them REALLY suck hard (especially "Avalancha" and "Down 'N Dirty")
- there are too many achievements that require you to play Co-Op
- I still don't understand the HUD entirely (they really should explain this and the Star Power system a lot better)
- I can't wait for Guitar Hero: World Tour to come out, although I think I'm going to pass on everything but the guitar controller...

Cooking Again

When I was living at home with my parents for the better part of this past year, I didn't cook a single time for myself, largely because I didn't want to buy more groceries that would end up getting confused with my parents' stuff (and because I was generally too lazy to cook in the first place). Instead, I either ate out, ate cereal and snacks (usually healthy ones), or let my parents cook or take me out.

Now that I'm living on my own though, I feel independent enough to want to start cooking for myself again, so I've returned to my two common dishes I made in The Netherlands: ground beef w/tomatoes and cheese, and spaghetti with ground beef mixed into the pre-made sauce. I also know how to fix eggs, some chicken, and that 'I Can't Believe it's Not Lasagna' dish I made for Dave and Carla, but I haven't gotten around to doing any of these yet.

Still, it feels good to be cooking stuff again, despite how easy and uninspired my dishes are. Now my next step is to pull out A Man, A Can, A Plan and go to town!

Demo Frenzy

I previously posted about my weeklong preoccupation with Xbox Live Arcade game demos, but I haven't yet told you about my similar (though much more involved) obsession with doing the same for featured titles (games that you buy in the store) last week. Within roughly a single week's time, I play-tested 43 different demos, leaving me much more aware of the wide variety of games out on the market today, and giving me a generally positive outlook on trying games out via demo versions BEFORE buying them.

See, prior to all this play-testing, I thought this might ruin a game for me, taking away some of the excitement of discovering it for myself in a full-fledged version of the title. I've since come to realize that there is a wide range of quality from one demo version to another (mainly in terms of how well they sell you the game via tutorials and storyline material), and this can make or break the game experience for you. As you might expect, some games I expected to be great turned out to be duds in demo format, and on the flipside, there were a few games that truly impressed me.

Four games that really stuck out for me, despite all belonging to genres I previously had little interest in, are as follows:

- Ninja Gaiden II: Although I wasn't sure I would be all that into gory hack-and-slash games and was further deterred by most critics claiming this game was hard-as-balls, I found the gameplay to be quite incredible, varied, and within reasonable difficulty.

- Dead Rising: I'm not really much a fan of either horror games or the zombie genre in general, but after getting to run around a mall killing a virtual army of zombies with weapons as varied as guns, garden tools, AND CDs, I knew this one was for me.

- Burnout Paradise: Once again, I'm not too much a fan of driving games, but putting a gritty driving game inside a really well-designed sandbox environment convinced me to have a second look at this title.

- Call of Duty 2: Although I said I wasn't into lifelike war simulation games, the demo version for this one got me so excited about the game that I literally rushed out and bought it for $20 within 24 hours! More on this in an upcoming post.

Burn After Reading

As promised, here's my review of Burn After Reading, the Coen brothers' newest film. Burn After Reading is a dark comedy centering around the odd connection between some CIA/government officials and some people that work at a gym. As you can imagine, making these two groups of people cross paths requires a bit of imagination, but overall, the Coen brothers' do a nice job telling a strange, funny, and generally pointless story.

What really makes this movie shine though is the stellar cast, including Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, John Malkovich, and Frances McDormand, the latter four being caught up in a strange love rectangle (here we go again with the atypical love-polygons). Although these latter four actors were great, their roles were highly typical for them, which wasn't the case for Brad Pitt, easily the shining star of this movie. Despite playing a flat character who doesn't get a lot of screen time, Pitt's Chad is thoroughly engrossing and steals the screen every time he's on.

Overall, though the movie is fun, it's probably not as solid as some of the Coen's other films, and it's certainly no No Country for Old Men, but to be fair, these two films (released within a year of one another) have very little in common in terms of genre or approach. Considering the lack of decent movies out right now, this is certainly the one to see if you feel like heading out to the cinema.

3rd Athens Trip Recap

As I mentioned before, my recent third trip to Athens with Candace was a bit different from our previous two trips, the first of which was a general first-time tour for Candace and the second almost entirely centered around my DJ gig at Rye Bar that night. This time however, I suggested we go simply to get out of town, so short of eating out a few times and doing some bar-hopping that evening, we didn't really have much of a plan going in, which kinda showed.

After checking into our hotel, we tried to go to the Georgia Botanical Gardens, which were closed; fortunately, we were still able to take a nice (but hot) walk in the adjoining nature trails. After this, we made another somewhat aborted attempt at something to do, this time driving out to the local Terrapin Brewery for a tour that we didn't end up taking because we didn't want to have a ton to drink before we went out on the town later that night (you couldn't take the tour without buying $8 worth of drinks). Following this, we sort of aimlessly walked around downtown before eventually settling on getting a drink at a local coffee place.

At this point, having realized that going in without a plan might not have been such a hot idea, we just decided to go see Burn After Reading at one of the local theatres, which was certainly one of the highlights of the trip (review soon to come). After this, we had dinner at Mexicali, which despite being my favorite Mexican restaurant turned out to have horrible service this time around. We then changed at the hotel before heading out for our bar hopping, which featured the following bars/clubs: 8E's, All Good, The Winery, Blur, and Little Kings (three of which were new for both of us). As is typical, we concluded our evening with a meal at the 24-hour diner, The Grill.

The next day we were a little bit hungover and just grabbed some breakfast at The Grit before heading home and sleeping it off. Ultimately, despite the slight hangover and lack of plans, the trip was really fun. We tried some new stuff, had some great conversation, and got to get out of Atlanta for a bit, which was very needed.

In Yet Another Travelodge...

So, Candace and I are on our third trip to Athens right now, and once again we're staying in the same Travelodge we stayed at both times before. This time, we came up to Athens simply just to get away from town for 24 hours, and thus far our trip has turned out to be quite unlike the other two visits. At the moment though, we're preparing to go out on the town (which is ultimately the main reason we came up), so I'll have to write a complete summary of our trip thus far later.

One Year Back in the States

Well, here it is: the one year anniversary of my unfortunate return from Europe. At no point in the months leading up to my move, nor the time since, have I been all that happy with having had to come back to this country, and I think I still suffer from a deep sense of loss whenever the memory of my time there returns. But, to be fair, it didn't feel all that great knowing I wasn't officially welcome in The Netherlands either, but that sore spot faded quickly and ultimately no longer negatively affects my impressions of my time in Holland.

But, I'm here now, and that's reality. On one hand, trying to be positive, I can't truthfully say I haven't done alright this year. I mean, I made some friends early on (not that they're still around, but still), I've DJ'ed nine times since December, I've done a little bit of traveling, I've eventually moved in with a friend, I've finally settled on a stance on relgion that I feel is both accurate and true to my experiences, I've gotten even more into politics, I'm making really great money for the amount of time I work, I took steps towards possibly pursuing my doctorate, and of course, I'm finally in a serious relationship, which was something I had been wanting for a long time.

Still, something's just not clicking. I don't feel fulfilled OR stable, two things that as a musician are probably diametrically opposed, but still, it would be nice to have at least one or the other (preferably fulfillment). I KNOW I can't stay in Atlanta for much longer and thus am currently weighing my options for moving. Ultimately, I'm not growing enough...I'm stagnating, and that has to change. This might require everything from a change of location or career to a change in lifestyle, but what the exact combination of these elements is, I'm not sure.

So, one year later, I'm still tired of America, and you better believe that were I to be given a good opportunity to move back to Europe (especially The Netherlands or Belgium), I would do it in a heartbeat. No joke.

Scott and Amy

One of my biggest complaints about living in Atlanta this past year has been not having a very strong circle of friends here. While Candace certainly is a friend, girlfriends don't typically count in your friend-count, so although she and I have done A LOT together, I haven't really done much with many other people.

Short of Evan (who, as a roommate also falls into a can't-be-counted category), the only friends I see with any regularity these days are Scott and Amy, two high school acquaintances that have become good friends since we reconnected in late December. Although they're not a couple, almost every time we've hung out it's been the four of us, so it almost kinda functions that way. Unfortunately, the four of us only manage to put our schedules together once in a blue moon, but when we do it's always fun.

The first time we were together as a group was when they came to support me at my first Chi Phi gig. Shortly thereafter, Candace and I met up on a pub crawl for Scott's birthday, after which it took about three months before we got together again for dinner and drinks. And just the other day, again roughly three months since our last time together, we met up for some delicious tapas at a place called Noche.

Hopefully we'll be able to make these get-togethers happen a little more often, but even if this is all we get to see of Scott and Amy, it's definitely much appreciated, as they're really interesting and really fun to hang out with.

My Blogging Anniversary

I know what you might be thinking: this blog, RyanIsInAtlanta, has only been going since January. Right, but this isn't the only blog I've ever done. In fact, I've been the creator and/or the contributor of a total of six blogs over the past four years, and today happens to mark the start of the very first one (side note: it's unfortunate that my September 11th post is commemorating the birth of my blog rather than remembering the terrorist attacks, but at the same time, I'm not so sure I would want to write about that anyway, as I don't know that I have anything meaningful to say, especially seven years out).

Anyway, the five other blogs I've had, four of which come from my time in Bloomington, were a combination of blogs of varying degrees of privacy: one was for myself and wasn't even listed (at least, not after Dave stumbled upon it), one was for my parents, and one was just for my closest friends, while the other two (my Holland blog and the 805 house blog) were entirely public, like this one. I guess I went through a blogging frenzy stage while in my Master's studies, but ultimately, none of those blogs were even close to as well-posted as my Holland blog or this one, which currently has the strongest record of all: a post for every day it's existed.

So, here's to four years of blogging! Thanks to Estel for the initial inspiration and to Dave for giving me an audience to keep it going!

Planning for San Francisco

For a few months now, Candace and I have been talking about trying to make a trip out to San Francisco, especially considering that she now works for Hyatt and could get us a nice rate. The trip however didn't become a reality until we had sifted through the possibility of going to Washington D.C. and then decided we would rather take a trip somewhere both of us were more interested in seeing (mainly in terms of site-seeing), a decision we only made recently. We then quickly reserved four nights at a hotel downtown at the end of September, and Candace's dad was nice enough to let us use some of his Delta AirMiles to pay for our flights, which obviously helps a lot.

So, I recently ordered and received my typical Rough Guide guidebook, the kind I used almost exclusively on all my varied trips in Europe, to help me start planning our trip. Candace has never been to San Fran, and although I've been several times, I've never toured it either without a car (which we're planning on doing) or with my newly developed love for site-seeing that I acquired in Europe. We plan on hitting all the main spots, and if time permits, maybe a few minor ones. We also want to take advantage of the city's reputation for great cuisine and dance music, so it should be a trip packed to the brim with great stuff. Also, considering I haven't really made a real trip since Barcelona this time last year, this will be a REALLY nice change of pace.

Mom and Dad's First Visit

Despite the fact that I've been living here at my new place for over a month now, up until this past Sunday neither of my parents had seen it in its fully-moved-in condition. In fact, although my dad helped me move in, my mom hadn't even seen it at all! So, I took an hour or so to clean the bathroom and tidy everything else up, and sure enough, they were decently pleased. Granted, I don't really decorate my apartments, so there wasn't ultimately all that much to be impressed by (especially considering this is my third generic apartment I've lived in) except that it wasn't messy. Regardless, it was good to have them come see it.

The rest of our time together was spent eating out at a place that used to be called Blue Plate but is currently under new management and thus is becoming Cabaret. This was followed by returning to my place for me to show them my Xbox 360, which I think might have overwhelmed, confused, and perhaps bored them, all in varying amounts. Overall, it was a nice couple of hours, and as always, it's nice catching up with my parents with a formal get-together.

The Mark

Like CosmoLava, for some time Candace and I had been wanting to go to another one of Atlanta's few true dance clubs, The Mark, and the other night we finally went to check it out. One of the reasons we hadn't yet been was that Candace had the impression that we were never dressed well enough to go there at the random times we spontaneously mentioned going, but this particular night, we were. Anyway, turns out the club is kinda small, doesn't require being well-dressed, and was mostly attended by a small but friendly group of fairly serious fans of dance music, most notably drum and bass.

In fact the people there appeared to be so friendly towards one another that I decided to start talking to some random guy to find out if they were all friends. As it turns out, they kinda were: they were there that evening to support one of their DJ friends, and evidently a few of them in the group were also DJs themselves. Ultimately, the club had a kind of MJQish vibe without the pretentiousness, the cover charge on weekends, and the overcrowding, all of this contributing to what I consider to be a great first visit, despite the fact that we didn't really dance or stay all that long. On top of all this, I even managed to give the DJ a copy of my most recent mix, which he was very nice about. Although I love MJQ, The Mark might turn out to be more my thing in the long rung, especially if return visits turn out to be just as good.

Mosselen-Friet en Belgisch Bier

On Friday night, Candace and I had dinner at Tap, a place that kinda specializes in high-quality beers (but nothing like the Brick Store Pub), including a number of Belgian or Belgian-style beers. After we both ordered Belgian beers at the bar while waiting to be seated outside (she had a Leffe Tripel and I had both a Delerium Tremens and a Sint Bernardus Abbott 12), we were seated and given the menu, which features Belgian-style fries as an appetizer. Feeling a bit nostalgic for The Netherlands/Belgium, especially considering I'm quickly approaching my one-year anniversary of having returned to the States, I inquired about these fries and the mussels and fries dish they had on the menu, wondering if it all was in fact Belgian inspired.

Sure enough, they were, so I indulged and got the rather expensive mussels, largely because mussels and fries are considered to be the most unique and common part of Belgian high-cuisine. Although I had never had mussels before and the fries that came with them weren't truly prepared in Belgian style (presumably unlike the appetizer Belgian fries), I thoroughly enjoyed my entirely Belgian-inspired meal, making me feel instantly a bit more like I was in Europe. Despite the fact that the fries weren't really up to snuff, I concealed this by having them in mayonnaise (as they do there), and ultimately, this was the most important part of my memory anyway, so no big deal.

Overall, this was a really pleasant night out, even though I spent a bit more than I probably should have. Regardless, it's still a lot cheaper than taking a trip to Belgium, so I guess it'll have to do for now!

Thoughts on 2008 VP Choices

Well, the two presidential race VP choices have been made, and I've had some time to think about them, so I would like to talk about that for a little bit. That said, I'm not going to go into serious detail here, as I don't want to make my blog too political.

First off: Joe Biden. My initial reaction was disappointment that Barack didn't go with Bill Richardson or one of the more risky, younger possibles he was looking into, but after hearing more about Biden's stance on important issues, learning a bit about his character, and hearing him speak (particularly at the DNC), I was pretty convinced he was a great pick as a running mate. Ultimately, I think Biden has a lot going for him, especially his experience (certainly something that helps out Barack here), foreign policy stance, willingness to speak his mind, and his ties to true middle class roots.

Now, onto Sarah Palin. How do I put this in a way that makes it look like I've got some objectivity while still speaking the almost-certain truth? Not sure, so I'll just say it: John McCain had to have picked the worst possible candidate on his list. I'm not sure I've got too much to add to this conversation on why Palin is a horrible choice, as I'm sure you've heard all of it too many times already, so instead, I would like to make a comparison:

Despite the fact that Barack doesn't have nearly as much experience in office as Biden or McCain, he DID make yet another wise decision for the country by picking a really experienced and qualified running mate. On the other hand, McCain picked someone who could only be seen as a wise decision (arguably) for getting elected, but most certainly not for running the country, unless of course he wanted someone that wouldn't actually get up in his face and challenge him on something, despite the fact that I'm sure Palin and McCain have a few (most-notably religious) issues they disagree upon. On the contrary, Biden WILL challenge Obama if they disagree upon something, and I have a strong feeling Obama is prepared to listen and take it to heart.

Ultimately, a good president is measured not only by his own goals and beliefs, but by the caliber of advisers he puts around him/her. As it turns out, the VP is the only position of this sort that we get to see the presidential nominees decide upon BEFORE we elect them, and thus far, I would have to say Obama made the far superior choice, most importantly in terms of the positive effect his VP would have on our country's governance, not simply the party's ability to get elected...

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Last night, for my last time hanging out with Kendra before she moves again (this time to NYC), we grabbed a beer, played a little pool, and saw Woody Allen's newest film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Having seen a couple of Allen's more recent films (Match Point and Scoop) and not liking them all that much, I was a little hesitant about seeing this film, but when I heard Javier Bardem was in it and it was actually set in Barcelona (i.e. the 'Barcelona' in the title wasn't referring to someone's name), Barcelona being the most unique city I've ever been too, I was pretty much sold.

Fortunately, the movie was really good. The love 'pentagon' (although 'pentangle' sounds much cooler) in the film (yes, five people were involved) evolves in a pretty interesting way, the acting was solid, and the message concerning the eternal question about the meaning of love or of true happiness in a relationship in general was realized thoughtfully and with skill. Thus, this film was much better than the other two Woody Allen films I had seen lately, presumably almost as much to do with the great acting (especially that of Javier Bardem and Rebecca Hall) as with Allen's directing and screenwriting prowess.

One small caveat with the film though was that it didn't quite capture the vibe of Barcelona all that well. In fact, despite hitting a bunch of the famous tourist spots, most of the film's locale might as well have been anywhere in Southern Europe. Still, this film did manage to make me yearn to live in Europe once again, so I suppose it was successful enough!

At the Driving Range 2

Today, for an hour before my lessons for the day, my dad and I met up for our second time hitting some balls at a driving range about halfway between his part of time and mine. In addition to it having been far too long since we last hit some balls, especially considering how generous my dad was a while ago to buy me some clubs, I recently realized that our driving range is also conveniently between my place and my Wednesday client's, thereby giving me extra incentive to make a weekly routine out of it.

I'm not sure I improved that much today, but it HAD been over a month, so maybe next week will be a lot better. Regardless, now that I've moved out of my parents' house, it's really great to have a scheduled time every week to just hang out with my dad, especially considering we haven't had a lot of father-son stuff to do throughout my adult life thus far, so I'm excited.

The Simpsons Game

I've been meaning to write about this for some time now but kept forgetting: I took back The Simpsons Game after having it for less than a week due to both feeling overwhelmed with the four other games I already had and not really digging the game that much. Sure, it had funny bits, but the gameplay wasn't all that fulfilling, especially considering I had bought it for some light-hearted two-player stuff with Candace. And despite being funny, I wasn't really that much of a Simpsons fan to being with, so some of the humor was undoubtedly lost on me.

Fortunately, since I got it used at GameStop, I was able to return it no-questions-asked within seven days. Ultimately, this eased my conscience about the purchase too, as I had just gotten Naruto that same week and still had plenty of work left to do on my other three games I initially got with the system. Sure, I then turned around and bought Alien Hominid, but that only cost $10 (instead of The Simpsons' $30), and it wasn't the kind of game to get overwhelmed by.

Meanwhile, having discovered XBLA in a big way, I've used the trial versions of a number of those games to temporarily stand in as a means to play 360 cooperatively with Candace, so I think all-in-all taking back the Simpsons was the right move.

Alien Hominid HD

As I mentioned earlier, I recently discovered the wonders of Xbox Live Arcade and its simple yet addictive-and-cheap lower-budget games. A couple weeks ago, after looking through the games in the lineup, I decided to make Alien Hominid HD my first purchase, and tonight I have finally beaten it on Easy. It's not that the game is THAT difficult (although it's quite difficult to win in one go), but rather that I've been a bit distracted lately beating BioShock, mastering Guitar Hero, working through Naruto, and wading through Lost Odyssey.

Alien Hominid is a Cartoon Network-ish 2D side-scrolling shoot-em-up where you play as an alien who has been shot out of outer space by the FBI and is now trying to retrieve your ship (which they stole) so you can get on with your alien business. There are 16 levels split between three locales: Urban, Russia, and Area 51, and although the basic military men you are killing throughout the game look about the same, the landscapes and bosses are all really stylized and unique. While you don't really have a wide variety of weapons at your disposal (at least, not without getting limited power-ups), there are two nontraditional ways you can kill your enemies. One is to dig yourself into the ground and pull people under with you, presumably eating them there, and the other is to jump onto an enemy's head and bite it off. Despite being really quite cute and cartoony, the game is rather violent, with lots of gore and screams.

Now that I've beaten the game on Easy, I'm going to try to play through it on the other two difficulty settings, hopefully unlocking a few more achievements along the way. Overall, Alien Hominid was definitely a great first game for XBLA, and I certainly recommend it to anyone looking for some simple but unique gameplay.