Category Things Endured

Entries 53 Total Description

Trials, marathons, or otherwise draining.

Out Of Sorts

Nov 24, ’12 3:22 PM

One of the things I’ve always loved about New York City is the balancing act between the routine and the unexpected. The smooth action of swiping a Metrocard, the jingle of the door at your local bodega, the timing of the lights at a familiar intersection – these mundane acts get balanced against the extraordinary circumstances and events that pop up somewhat regularly in the life of a New Yorker.

It is a balance, though – and too much of either can bring away at your sense of being. And for the last month, my personal scales have basically been knocked over, with uncommon circumstances eliminating much of the routine from my life for a solid month.

Hurricane Sandy came and went at the end of October – a stronger and more noticeable storm than Irene last year. Having lost power and water and being told it was going to be a week before there would be restoration, we nearly fled the area for shelter with Katie’s parents. But our instincts to give it one final night before fleeing turned out to be wise, as the power snapped back on at 3 AM, sparring us from trying to uproot on short notice.

While our building was spared, our neighborhood was not, with many of our friends being out a week. Worse, the PATH train – so vital to getting into and out of Manhattan – remained closed with no word for a solid week. When service was finally restored, the three stations I need service to were not on the list. While walking to a station with service is a tolerable hassle, a 10PM service termination has made regular evenings out impossible.

As the train started to get back into service, the Red Bulls post-season ended unceremoniously, giving up a goal with 5 minutes left to their biggest rival. This was not so much of a surprise – the team has fallen out of the playoffs at this point nearly every year. But having my well worked routine of sports journalism end abruptly was just one more pain point in a month that was already going south.

And then came the sickness. Two weeks to the day after the storm hit, I came down with a dry, painful cough that seemed like it would be easily shaken. It would not, of course, and I spent the majority of the week in bed, coughing every few minutes. In the second week it transformed into muscle aches and a night cough which deprived Katie of what little sleep she could get.

Monday will mark four weeks from the day Sandy hit, and it only now feels like the balance is being restored. The sickness is mostly cleared, enough that karaoke last night didn’t kill me. The PATH just announced our stations are opening on weekdays again, which is a start.

The routine is coming back, just in time for some big crazy events to keep life interesting. I can’t tell you how good it feels to have my regular life back.

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Games of 2011: Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Dec 19, ’11 8:56 PM

I’ve spent a lot of time in 2011 playing games, but not a lot of time writing about them. Instead of my usual end-of-year game recommendations, I’d like to tell some stories or share some thoughts about the ones that meant the most to me this year. I’ll be posting one a day until Christmas. See all Games of 2011 posts.

The original Deus Ex hit the market in 2000, and it was a revolution unto itself. It combined the first person shooter with role playing elements and strong writing. It offered the player real choice and branching story lines. Adversity could be worked around, fights could be diffused peacefully. The game brought with it an implied promise: first person games didn’t need to adhere to a formula.

Sadly, that promise wasn’t met. The 2003 sequel Invisible War was garbage, the franchise was shelved, and few developers wanted to try and replicate the Deus Ex experience.

But like other historic franchises, this was finally the year that Deus Ex was booted back up. After four years in development, Deus Ex: Human Revolution was released in August. From the moment I touched the game, I felt that familiar rush again. The stealth, the conversations, the gunplay, the lock picking, it was all just so brilliant. I started to mentally mark it down as a clear frontrunner for the best game I played that year.

Then I hit a boss battle, and those thoughts evaporated.

Much has been said by press and players alike about how out of place the boss battles felt. This is a game where you can specialize in stealth and subterfuge, building your character so that you can slink through each level without killing a single enemy guard. And yet this same game forces you into a guns-blazing do-or-die battle with an overpowered enemy. Players who went in with stealth-heavy builds were severely disadvantaged in these fights.

Player choice is a dangerous tool to wield. For every dimension of character construction you allow, you open yourself up to players working themselves into a position where it is difficult to advance. Regular adversity isn’t a problem – players need a challenge, and there shouldn’t be a build you can just blow through the game with. But games should never make it practically impossible for standard builds to advance, and sadly, that’s what the boss fights in DX:HR did.

Eidos admitted a month after release that they had outsourced the boss battles to another company, one that “didn’t know much about the Deus Ex world before the project began.” What a statement that is: to not only add gameplay that people generally disliked, but to farm it outside of the core team working on the game, to people who didn’t understand the history or vision for the game.

Developers, remember this: make the best games you can. Don’t compromise. And don’t add boss battles if they don’t fit into your game.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is available for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC.

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Games of 2011: FIFA 12

Dec 13, ’11 8:11 PM

I’ve spent a lot of time in 2011 playing games, but not a lot of time writing about them. Instead of my usual end-of-year game recommendations, I’d like to tell some stories or share some thoughts about the ones that meant the most to me this year. I’ll be posting one a day until Christmas. See all Games of 2011 posts.

FIFA 12

I’ve had a love-hate relationship with “serious” sports games.1 They are rarely intuitive or come with strong tutorial modes. With manual size decreasing and annual releases churning out regularly, there’s a certain expectation that you’re intimately familiar with the series even before you touch a controller.

This is especially pronounced in EA’s FIFA 12. A scant manual of about eight pages highlights a handful of changes but doesn’t concern itself with telling you how the core game works. The game does launch with a tutorial, but mostly of a new defensive control system that doesn’t do a great job of explaining itself. Then, you are thrust into a giant menu system and left to find the mode you maybe heard about, once.

The gap between what you’re told and what you are expected to know how to do is greatest during the Virtual Pro career mode, where you join your favorite team and attempt to break into the starting XI over the course of a season. You typically only control yourself, and the first thing that will jump out at you is a numerical score next to your stamina bar. It starts at 6.0 (like most actual player rating systems do) and will fluctuate over the course of the game based on your performance. But the game never really tells you what raises your score and what lowers it. It’s pure trial and error in the hopes of eventually learning how to play in a way that the game feels is acceptable.

I understand that as the world’s best selling sports franchise, there’s little impetus in EA Vancouver spending time on a well written manual, or a tutorial mode that goes beyond “well, here’s a penalty kick, take it already, you fool!”. But I worry that so many sports games seem to be going down this road.

That said, I can’t be entirely down on FIFA 12, as it finally fulfilled my dreams of a online multiplayer sport. Shockingly, all of the FIFA 12 games I have played online have been lag free, have not been subject to any griefing or abusive voice chat, and generally have people who are not terrible playing. Strangely, it may have been the best multiplayer experience I had this year.

FIFA 12 is available for PS3, Xbox 360, PC, Wii, 3DS, PSP, iOS, PS2, and the Mac.

  1. By “serious”, I essentially mean “not NBA Jam, Mario Kart, or anything with motion control.” ↩
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The End Of The Crisis

Jan 23, ’11 6:35 PM

In 2007, I had what I dubbed a “crisis of blogging faith“. Movable Type, my blog tool of choice, had been stagnating on the personal blogging front, while Six Apart was making a lot of noise about the enterprise. Within a day, I had a comment from Anil Dash:

We know we’ve been, honestly, focused elsewhere as we built up all the other work we’ve been doing. But, especially with the success of the other platforms and work like MT Enterprise, it lets us focus resources on the personal version of MT.

After four years of waiting, today I gave up — and migrated to WordPress.

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AT&T: Redefining Hilarious

Jan 11, ’11 11:36 AM

Most of the tech world knows that Verizon is having a press conference today to announce they would be offering the iPhone. What I didn’t expect was that AT&T would try their best to push me away just minutes before the event started.

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Tokyo 2010: 26 Hour Party People

Jan 4, ’10 2:38 PM

A blow-by-blow description of what is necessary to get from Shinagawa, Japan to Jersey City, New Jersey:

1/3 11:30 AM JST (1/2 9:30 PM EST) – checked out of the Prince Sakura Tower Tokyo. Discovered that the Airport Limousine bus would not be running due to a marathon. Directed to use the train system instead.

1/3 11:50 AM JST (1/2 9:50 PM EST) – with two heavy suitcases in tow, departed Shinagawa Station on the JR Yamanote, bound for Tokyo Station.

1/3 12:15 PM JST (1/2 10:15 PM EST) – arrived at Tokyo Station. Purchased two Narita Express (“NEX”) train tickets. Proceeded to platform.

NEX

1/3 12:33 PM JST (1/2 10:33 PM EST) – boarded NEX.

1/3 1:27 PM JST (1/2 11:27 PM EST) – arrived at Narita Airport. Queued up at Air Canada ticket counter.

1/3 2:00 PM JST (1/3 12:00 AM EST) – ticket counter opens. I am told I should check my coat since I may not be allowed to bring it onto the plane to Newark. Despite both suitcases being full, I manage to do so.

1/3 2:20 PM JST (1/3 12:20 AM EST) – while going through security, I am forced to throw out my can of FFXIII “Elixer” soda. The only reason I had it with me was because, as a duty free item, I was supposed to have it with me in case Customs wanted to see it. I discard it, sadly. I am happy to note that Japanese airport security does not force you to remove your shoes.

1/3 2:30 PM JST (1/3 12:30 AM EST) – we pass through Japanese immigration and customs. I am not asked to show my duty free items, meaning I’m not needlessly carrying an extra bag full of things.

1/3 2:40 PM JST (1/3 12:40 AM EST) – I purchase a new set of headphones at “DUTY FREE AKIHABARA”, having misplaced my regular iPhone earbuds. An hour later, I would find them again.

1/3 2:50 PM JST (1/3 12:50 AM EST) – we settle down to eat at one of the three restaurants in the terminal. I have a cheeseburger; it is acceptable. I am fascinated by gum syrup.

Waiting At Narita

1/3 4:25 PM JST (1/3 2:25 AM EST) – we begin boarding for our flight. We are in row 42 out of 44, troubling for someone who needs to catch a connecting flight less than two hours after landing (4:45 PM EST). Our legroom is less than ideal, and I miss being in an exit row.

1/3 5:10 PM JST (1/3 3:10 AM EST) – we take off. Watching a video about Toronto arrivals, I learn that I have to clear US customs while in Toronto, rather than in Newark – which includes claiming my baggage and then re-checking it post customs. Again, troubling given the amount of time we have for the connection, never mind the unknown additional security.

1/3 8:10 PM JST (1/3 6:10 AM EST) – I begin to get scattered amounts of sleep, in two to three hour pockets. I am frequently interrupted by food service.

TIME ZONE SWITCH ... JST -> EST ... -14 HOURS

15000 Miles?

1/3 2:30 PM EST (1/4 4:30 AM JST) – the pilot announces that we are being asked to hold in the air for an extra 15 minutes, which means we probably won’t reach the gate until 3:30. I notice that the in-flight map says we’ve gone 15,000 miles, which would mean we had been traveling over 1000MPH on average. You would think a navigation system could deal with the international date line and the fact that we’re now in the past, but seemingly not.

1/3 3:45 PM EST (1/4 5:45 AM JST) – we deboard and speed walk towards immigration.

1/3 3:55 PM EST (1/4 5:55 AM JST) – we arrive at the US connections baggage claim. I notice that our flight is delayed by two hours to 6:45 PM, thus replacing the fear of not making the connection with the frustration of not getting home when we had intended.

1/3 4:15 PM EST (1/4 6:15 AM JST) – our luggage finally appears. I withdraw my coat and replace it with the bag of goods I had needlessly been carrying. We clear customs without incident.

1/3 4:25 PM EST (1/4 6:25 AM JST) – we go through another regular security screening. This time, the shoes come off.

"Enhanced Search"

1/3 4:30 PM EST (1/4 6:30 AM JST) – on the way to the gate, we see two large gender-separated lines. The one additional measure that has seemingly been added post-Christmas scare, the “Enhanced Search” is an individual bag check and pat down. I am asked to turn on each electronic device once (phone, Kindle, PSP). I am asked to undo my belt, to lift the soles of my shoes, to spread my legs and grab the table. I am asked how the David Foster Wallace book (Broom Of The system) I am reading is. (I am unclear whether that was a security test, small talk, or a sincere question from the guard.)

YYR

1/3 4:50 PM EST (1/4 6:50 AM JST) – I finally clear the screening, having been in a longer line than Katie and opting to go to the bathroom before queueing. It is noted that had our flight been on time, we would have missed it.

1/3 5:00 PM EST (1/4 7:00 AM JST) – we spring for an hour of Boingo wifi. Twitter updates are quickly sent, email is checked.

1/3 6:00 PM EST (1/4 8:00 AM JST) – flight is pushed back again, this time to 7:45. I get in line at Tim Horton’s and buy a 10-pack of Timbits. They make me feel much better.

1/3 7:30 PM EST (1/4 9:30 AM JST) – an announcement informs us that the plane has arrived, albeit at a different gate, and it will be here shortly. We remain incredulous.

1/3 7:45 PM EST (1/4 9:45 AM JST) – flight is pushed back to 8:00. The crew heads down to inspect the plane.

1/3 8:05 PM EST (1/4 10:05 AM JST) – we board. We are in the last row. The pilot informs us that the plane picked up a lot of ice on the way in, so we have to stop at the central de-icing station before we can take off.

1/3 8:35 PM EST (1/4 10:35 AM JST) – we take off, having been de-iced. We are offered free headsets and free drinks (including wine/beer/cocktails) as an apology from Air Canada.

1/3 10:10 PM EST (1/4 12:10 PM JST) – having just passed the 24 hour travel mark, we touch down in Newark. The pilot informs us that we are being held on the tarmac for 15-20, though, because our gate is not available. There is a collective groan. During this time, we learn that Terminal C at Newark is shut down due to a security situation. I am happy to be traveling to terminal A.

1/3 10:45 PM EST (1/4 12:45 PM JST) – we deboard.

Baggage Claim at EWR

1/3 11:05 PM EST (1/4 1:05 PM JST) – our luggage appears. We get in the taxi line, doing that wonderful NYC thing where you avoid having a conversation with the illegal limo hacks trying to prey on unsuspecting tourists. A man behind me tells one of them off, to which the driver gets defensive, saying he’s just “trying to do us a favor” since it is cold out. I laugh, while mentally noting that it is about 40 degrees colder than it was in Japan.

1/3 11:30 PM EST (1/4 1:30 PM JST) – we arrive at our apartment building. We collect our mail, unlock the door, begin unpacking, and invite over Bruce and Alanna to exchange gifts and catch up.

It has been exactly 26 hours of physical time passing since we left the hotel.

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Tokyo 2009: Getting There

Dec 28, ’09 1:46 PM

Farewell, Newark

A few jetlag-induced thoughts/observations about getting from New Jersey to Shinigawa.

Ticket counters at Newark International Airport don’t open until around 4:30 AM. As someone who is habitually early to any air travel, it was hard to reconcile that we had gotten up exceedingly early only to have to sit and wait out about an hour until they opened.

Keeping in mind that this was an outbound flight, not an inbound flight – there were no noticeable additional TSA measures or screenings. Getting through security at Newark was trouble free, perhaps even more so than a few flights I’ve taken domestically this year. We’ll see how this goes on the return trip, where we do a quick up-and-down flight from Toronto back to Newark.

We flew Air Canada for both legs of this trip, one from Newark to Vancouver (~6 hours), and then Vancouver to Tokyo (~11 hours). This wasn’t a choice we consciously made (we played Expedia Roulette for booking the trip), but it is one we’ll make in the future. Air Canada’s planes are comfortable, their crews are pleasant, their in-flight entertainment more than acceptable, and their food edible. Hopefully the remaining two flights back will continue to bear this out.

Speaking of in-flight entertainment: really enjoyed The Informant. Glad I didn’t have to pay for A Serious Man. Rewatching Inglorious Bastards reminded me that my Japanese is going to be akin to Brad Pitt’s Italian. And how have I not been watching Better Off Ted? Also discovered that someone at Air Canada considers the Fresh Prince a mystery.

Vancouver International

Vancouver International feels more like a mall than an airport, and gave me some of that empty creeping feeling that I got when I flew out of San Diego a few years ago. Way too big for the number of people there at the time.

While flying into Haneda Airport would have been preferable given the proximity to our hotel, most flights come into Narita, about 40km outside of Tokyo. While the process to get through the airport was lengthy, it was happily multi-lingual and pleasant. Japan’s customs office, like everywhere else, has a cartoon mascot dog named Custom-Kun, but I only saw him once.

Waiting For The Bus At Haneda

At the recommendation of practically every guidebook under the sun, we took the Airport Limousine Bus to get to the hotel. 3,000¥ per person sure beats a potential 300,000¥ taxi ride. The bus experience is pleasant and somewhat bi-lingual; only problem was that after being on an airplane for 17 hours, the seats felt a bit cramped.

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Introducing: Wrong Remy

Sep 30, ’09 9:35 PM

Like so many others, I have found Twitter a simultaneously fantastic and mind-numbing portion of the internet. For every good thing (extremely rapid notifications for breaking news, lots of good links from friends), there’s an equal and opposite bad thing (inane trending topics, spam bots). While most of these are universally shared, there’s one particular quirk that is not common.

Twitter makes it easy to reference other users – sticking an @ symbol in front of their name is considered a “mention” and most clients will flag this as relevant to the interests of those mentioned. This is theoretically good, but in practice a number of things become clear:

  • With characters at a premium, many people can’t be bothered to type out full user names.
  • Because a lot of people are using cell phones to post to Twitter, the habit of heavy SMS users to shorthand text continues here.
  • Because a lot of people don’t understand how mentions work, they tend to throw @ symbols wherever they feel like, or spaces in the middle of user names.

What this adds up to: if you were on the Twitter train early enough to get what could be called a stem username – one that might be used at the beginning of other user names – you may be subjected to mentions not intended for you.

There are a lot of Remy’s on Twitter, and I get a lot of mentions for them. I’ve taken to answering them on a Tumblr blog devoted specifically to such endeavors.

Sighing frustration + helpful cheerfulness + Twitter anthropology = Wrong Remy. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.

(This is one of two side projects I’ll be introducing this week.)

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Project Moon Language: Prologue

Aug 25, ’09 8:59 PM
“Let’s never come here again, because it will never be as much fun.”

While my interest in Japanese culture has existed for nearly as long as I’ve been cognizant of Japan’s existence, I never really considered going there until Lost In Translation was released. I am easily swayed by love letters to cities, treatments that shine warm light on the best and worst parts.

Lost In Translation always struck me as the film most reflective of both how I do travel (bewildered, often eating at the hotel, trying and failing to blend in) and how I would want to travel (see introductory quote). But I am rarely afforded the opportunity to fulfill this wanderlust when out of town; my travels almost always comes with primary motivations like weddings, or conferences, or family gatherings.

The film forces me into a parodox: while it is one of my favorite movies, it is one I cannot bring myself to watch. This is largely out of jealousy – I have been dreaming of going to Japan and wandering the same streets, and never finding a chance to act on it…until now.

At the end of the year, I will be making the trip I’ve been waiting six years for: a visit to Tokyo, and an attempt to cram in as much sightseeing, shopping, eating, and exploring as possible over the week of a major holiday.

First, though, there is the small matter of a language barrier. For despite as many times as I’ve rushed to consume imported media, I know an effective naught of Japanese. Abortive attempts at learning character sets have been made nearly every year, but now I have definite purpose. If I fail to learn Japanese this time, I will find myself in a strange land and being able to communicate only through hand-waving, pantomime, and apologies.

Thus begins a series of posts that I’m dubbing Project Moon Language: my attempts to fight through Rosetta Stone Japanese Levels 1, 2, and 31, as well as possible explorations into other methods and cultural oddities2. As a 29 year old well past the age where learning a new language is natural, this should (if nothing else) be entertainingly frustrating.

The installation is done; the learning begins tomorrow.

  1. I’d like to point out that unlike most geeks who use Rosetta Stone, we in fact purchased a legitimate copy through Amazon. This either shows my commitment to taking this seriously, indicates that I am a complete fool, or both. ↩
  2. Expect a post about mahjong that can only be described as “overkill”. ↩
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The Other Shoe Drops: The PS3 Repair Odyssey

Jun 16, ’09 9:03 PM

In May of 2007, my Xbox 360 suffered from what is commonly referred to as the Red Ring of Death. A series of four posts followed, in which:

Last, my launch Playstation 3 began to routinely crash after 30 minutes of use. This, as far as I can tell, is not a widespread problem – the closest parallel that Sony has is the “Yellow Light of Death”.

(Strangely, my RRoD occurred while playing Crackdown, a free-world adventure game where you play as a crime fighter with superhero powers. My PS3 issues occurred while playing inFamous, a free-world adventure game where you play as a crime fighter with superhero powers. I will not be buying Prototype, largely for the safety of my hardware.)

After the frustration I had dealing with Microsoft – a combination of poor materials, shoddy business practices, and a cavalier attitude towards the customer’s experience – I figured it would be worth documenting whatever hell Sony would put me through. Horror stories are easily found regarding service for launch units, include time frames of “months”, due to Sony no longer manufacturing that exact type of hardware. And given the bile that was spilled regarding the 360′s failures, it would only be fair to hold the PS3 up to the same light.

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