Advance Wars DS2: Days of Ruin

ive been playing Advance Wars DS pretty much every day for the last month. i beat the Campaign, and now am going thru unlocking everything and playing Combat mode. the more i play.....the more stuff gets unlocked. theres seriously an undending amount of things to do in this game.....easy/med/hard mode, map editor, CO editor, multiplayer...

the next version, dubbed AWDS2: Days of Ruin, revisits the turn based stategy format, but takes on a darker theme. the planet has been razed by meteors and few humans survive, but as in reality, they find a reason to go to war. from the screens, it appears much darker, theyve gotten rid of all the old CO's (sniff...sniff. i'll miss Andy), and revised all the units. this game and the upcoming Fire Emblem DS and Final Fantasy Tactics 2 will suck what little life i have left from my bones.

Skate

ive been spending alot of time with EA's Skate game for the 360 (or at least whenever jesse lets me come over and play) and am quite addicted. the new skate mechanics of using both analog sticks to control the tricks works so much better than the setup scheme of any Tony Hawk game. instead of skating mach one at all times, as in Tony Hawk, your skater is more ground in reality. no more 20 trick combos that lift u 40 feet in the air off of a four foot quarterpipe.

learning even "simple" tricks like 5-0 grinds and frontside flips take a gentle finger on the controller. combining tricks, like say....a nollie flip to nose manual to 180 out is a pretty advanced move, and after practicing it over and over, once landed, you get a feeling that you actually learned the trick.

the city you skate in is enormous with no load times for unlocked areas. of course theres the standard create your own skater options, but unfortunately, no create a skatepark in this first version of the game.

another fun thing about the game is the video editor. you can piece together your runs, change the camera angles, and edit your own video section. here, someone recreated Guy Mariano's entire Mouse part.

soccer bound

i caught a Sounders game last nite with matt. it was my first live soccer game, and i was a bit surprised at how....slow....things moved. it felt like one long game of keep away. we were up by three points when we left midway throught the second half. it was also my first time at Quest field. soccer is the bastard sport of the US, which was evident by all the empty seats last nite.

we also caught dinner in pioneer square, and went to first thursday to see Steven Miller's new show, bound. it was amazing. i dont usually use that word for art, but it's fitting in this instance. i had seen a couple of the pieces prior to the show, but standing there looking at them all hung up and big is a totally different experience. i felt like i could relate to them much better. i wont go into details. go check out his stuff. you likey likey.

SF

went down to SF for labor day to go to Mie and Rob's wedding. everything went pretty smooth. weather was really good, and i got to see everyone that i wanted to see. the wedding itself was dope. heres some pics from the weekend...


we had a party at mark and matt's while mark and matt were away.

we sat around, drank beer, and ordered pizza.

jason and jay compare notes.

alliewoo!

dorks.

the beautiful bride and that one guy who kind of looks like me, but not exactly, but enough that people in high school used to mistake me for him all the time. that guy.

i had the chicken salad sandwhich. we sat outside, but i forget the name of the spot.

frenchy and tim.

this butterfly just randomly landed on my board while we were on our way to deluxe. it just chilled there for like three minutes and then took off.

i ate the hell out of these.


mr. serious and that one guy.

mad love

you know all those bowls of pho that i post on here? this little lady has made every single one, and i love her. my family and i have been coming to the same pho joint ever since i was a little asian boy, and suppose i will keep doing so until i am an old dirty asian man. thanks to dan for the photo.

lincoln logs

heres a few pics from lisa's cabin a couple weeks ago.









basically, we just relaxed all weekend. played on the beach, raced go-karts, tried to get pat to eat a centipede, played with the dogs, drank beer, and ate a bunch of awesome food.

footsies

ive taken the past two months off from running because my left foot has been giving me problems. my feet are pretty flat, so some parts of my toes and joints dont have the full range of motion needed for walking/running/doing anything useful. i got some orthodics from my podiatrist last month and have been slowly breaking them in. at first they caused my ankles to hurt, and then my knees, but lately theyve been feeling pretty good.

i ran twice this week....a short 30 minutes each time just down to the fremont bridge and back, just to see if there was any pain afterwards. things seem to be in full working order.

my boss had a shower put in this past month downstairs, so that the runners at work can wash up after running, instead of going back to our offices all stinky poo. i tried it out for the first time today, and its about ten times better than my shower at home.

everybody say Word.

pho

karrie bought me a bowl today.

teh winnar

i declare the best snack food of all time to be trader joe's Chocolate Covered Sunflower Seeds.

sunset

go see this show.

31

had an eventful birthday this year. spent the weekend with my moms and granny in my hometown of (nameless). called up an old friend who just bought a house there and we had lunch at my moms and sat and talked about art for a while. she offered me a painting, and normally i would have turned it down, but i LOVE her stuff so i greedily took it into my possession.

ended up back in seattle for dinner with friends/family. a pretty good turnout; there were about 11 of us at Sea Garden pigging out. Gravedigga and the ever elusive Gramsel Rose made an appearance, and afterwards we ended up at Smith and got pretty lit.

big ups to everyone who bought me drinks.

40

had korean BBQ with some of my family last nite for my oldest brothers' 40th birthday. i can still remember when he turned 28 and i thought that that was old, mostly because at the time i was 18 and didnt know anything about anything. still dont.

my family is weird. sometimes i love them to death, and sometimes i wanna kick some of them in the brain. i dont suppose that will ever change.

the korean BBQ was great; id been there before but not with the fam. we all caught up on what was going on with each other. my brothers' car got hit by his neighbor, my neice had her car stolen from her highschool parking lot, and was also involved in a weird drug situation. apparently an undercover 30 year old cop befriended her in school, got all chummy, then started asking where to get drugs. my neice doesnt do any of that, but some of her friends got arrested for it. total 21 jump street.

blurnsball

went and caught an M's game with my boss and some friends yesterday. lost to the Oriole's 9 to 4, even tho we were leading 4-0 at the bottom of the fourth. they closed the roof because of the rain.

it was my first game of the season, but probly not my last.

reared

having not even fully taken care of the insurance claim i filed for the last time i got rear ended, i somehow succeeded in getting hit again today, this time by a co-worker. we both backed out nearly at the same time, but i had the sense to stop when i realized that she was also backing out. she was on her phone and didnt see me and thats how the accident occured, officer.

here, Dr. Doom examines the latest damage to my vehicle. its not so much the damage to my car, as it is the inconvenience of taking time off work to have it repaired; not to mention im travelling the next two weekends, so i have to plan around that as well. depending on Doom's assessment, i may have to nullify my coworker. or at least implement her in a devilish plot to overthrow earth's superheroes.

i swear tho, the guys at the body shop should just install a revolving door for me. itd make things easier for everyone.

sun...day

had a lazy sunday this weekend. gram called and a bunch of us went to pho (yes, twice in one weekend), then we met up at Interbay with some other friends and shot some buckets.

later on that nite we all got into some mario strikers, and then some texas hold em. i ended up getting second (again) and colin walked away with the booty.

sun

joel and i went and ate pho today. he's getting married in two weeks, which is still a bit strange. his bachelor party is next weekend in portland. we'll see how that goes.



we rode around red square for a little while. joel filmed this line and i got sunburnt from lying on one of the blocks too long. then the cops showed up so we cut out and sat in traffic for a half hour.

the sticks

this is a crappy dark picture of a comic strip i made for karrie for her birthday. i used to make stick figure comics for her back in highschool during math class, but its been a good 9 years since ive drawn any. most of the stories were about us doing nothing, but i also poke fun of how mean she used to be to me back in grade school. (note to karrie: its troo..!)

Ed Wang

go see this show.

mulch

so here are the remnants of my house/office plants. they didnt last very long. this particular plant, i left outside in hopes that the bug infestation that it sheltered would freeze and die off. well, unbeknownst to me we had a landscaper mow the outside of our building at work, and i guess he got a little crazy with the weedwacker.

im thinking of getting a cactus, or maybe a pet rock. something that doesnt depend on my caretaking to survive.

The Ker vs. Pho

went and had pho with the Ker. here she demonstrates exactly how to drop bean sprouts into the bowl with her claws.

five star bowl.

new fam

i decided to start a family the other day. here we are enjoying a nice television program. dont ask me why seattle is in front of the TV.

balls

went and hit a bucket of balls at Interbay at lunchtime. a large bucket, nine bucks, an hour of golf. it was the first time this season id picked up my clubs, and i did better than i thought i would. thats not to say id be good playing an actual nine, cuz last year i couldnt buy a good game....

40 minutes

i ran the bridges in 45 minutes on tuesday, and in 40 minutes today. for some reason i cant beat 40 minutes. maybe if i didnt stop for a smoke break in the middle of the run...