We went out to eat with Andrew, Lindsay, and Jeremy at Zeni. It was delicious, but not the best idea for a dinner before the dancing games. We then went back to Jeremy’s place to play the game Just Dance, which was the knock off version of Dance Central. We had a great time, and it was much more tiring than expected. Steph and I called it a night early, since we had an early morning from the diving. Many of the dances were hilarious to watch people do.
Steph and I went to Breakwater to dive the metridium fields. Metridiums are pretty 2-3 foot white anemones. We took the pipe out to the end and then went due north. I was able to spot a Sea lion along the pipe when looking back at Steph, and I saw one again when we were out at the fields. We also say a sea hare, which is a 1.5 foot long slug. It was the size of a rabbit and looked like a purple land slug. Steph got a headache after the first drive so we headed back. We went into Palo Alto for lunch at Umami burger. We then headed back to our places to clean our gear.
I had a great time playing trucker with Iliya, Adam, Tina, and Eva. I did really well on the first two rounds, with a gunboat on the first round, a rolling cargo sphere for the second, and another gunboat for the third. The gunboats worked pretty well, but the lasers got be a good bit. I ended up giving up the last round, but did better than the others since I mainly gave up instead of getting shot down. I won out of the people doing the same level of difficulty, Eva had more, but did an easier route.
This was an interesting overview of Buddhist practices and their spread to the West, specifically the US. The way things changed were to open more to everyone and less focused on the teaching and efforts. This was great to look at how some Buddhist practices were getting really cult like, and some had died from these practices. The teachers teaching that there don’t need to be teachers kind of got me. I thought that part was pretty funny.
I did very poorly at Caverna last night, even though I got third. I went super military, but didn’t get the military point buildings. There were also too many people going military that game, and since I was so specialized it took a toll. I managed to get 3 level 14 weapons pretty early on, but that wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t able to place the 14 level weapon people since all the adventure spaces had been taken. It was a very low scoring game, and nobody took the office. Adam and Tina were decently far ahead, and I had Erik and Cynthia at about my score level.
This was a very strange book, although I knew that going in. The ideas in it are ones that I’d like to think could never happen, and some of them won’t due to the internet. At the same time, things like wikipedia being changeable make it possible for untrue things to become commonly accepted. There are many examples of this, and the way it can become the readily accepted facts makes it very interesting. The full acceptance without thinking is something that I don’t think could happen. The double think is also something I don’t believe could happen. There is too much going on for it to happen now, and the internet is too untamed, and untamable. The base story itself is just depressing.
I had a rough time today getting back from Seattle. There are many ways I could have had it go better, but most of the bad things weren’t predictable or fixable. I went to the airport in Seattle last night, and took a nap before heading in for my red eye flight. The flight was delayed, and when we got on the plane there was an issue with the door so we had to get off. A few hours later we got on the plane and headed to SFO. I jumped on the sky train, then got on BART, then switched on BART, then waited 30 minutes for Caltrain. Once I got back to Palo Alto I noticed the distinct lack of my bike in the racks. The space where it should have been was flanked by a few lonely wheels locked to the bike racks. I then hoisted my bags and hiked all the way back home. Once I got there I again noticed the distinct lack of something, the hidy key. Steph had moved it inside after Lindsay had taken care of the kitties. Luckily she was nice enough to come by after lunch and give me the key that she still had. I’m not sure exactly what I’ll be doing about the bike, but I’ll probably be buying used or from an outlet site. I’m not going to hold out hope of finding it, as the bike isn’t fancy enough to be sold as a unit; it will most likely be parted out.
Candice was nice and picked me up for a trip to the Fremont GameKastle. We got a group to try out the multiplayer app version, and got some really good feedback. It worked really well, and they were able to understand it pretty quickly.
This book was very interesting, as it really dived into what we know about the lives of these great people. Besides the religions they started, and the traditions surrounding that, there isn’t much in the way of written records of their lives. The written records also tended to be written years to centuries after their lives. The similarities in their teachings was also interesting, with the Buddha being the most different. All the others were dealing with how to live well with others and how to have good lives. The Buddha taught about how to let go of life, and not worry about earthly things anymore. The others taught variations and specific instances of the golden rule.
I had a good time at PAX Prime. We spent most of our time on the floor at the Indie Megabooth as well as the PAX 10 booth. These are mainly the indie games, which are the games doing the interesting things. I really liked the games we played, although some were not well done. The ones that weren’t well done were at least pretty. The puzzle games I found to be a little simple, but I can’t expect too much out of them, especially in the demo. I look forward to playing a number of them when they come out, and I need to buy a few now.
Steph and I went to a few panels about Kickstareter and indies. They were pretty good, but we left the Kickstarter one early since it was pretty much the same as the PAX Dev one.
Steph and I also took Sunday morning off, and walked around the Aboretum in Seattle. It was very peaceful and relaxing, especially after the people and noise of PAX.
I had some delicious food from Piroshky Piroshky to How to Cook a Wolf. I also got to play some Super Fight with the Google Games Services team, as well as some MTG Drafting.
The early morning flight out was a little rough, but not too bad.
It's an Exciting World 