Saturday: "And your pal, Friendpatine."

From this joke:

I finally went to see the new Star Wars.  Review after the jump.

And had a banh mi.

I also finished my puzzle:

I've come to the conclusion that separating pieces by shape is a good thing, too.  The names I came up with: A, B, C, 3, 4, X, hook.  A has one pip, B and C have two (with C being the right angle one), 3 and 4 are obvious, and X has zero.  Since hooks need matching hooks, they also need to be considered separately.

But in any case, done.

• Did I mention the new Pokemon expansion?
• How social security numbers are made.

Thursday: it's good I have a blog to tell me what day it is

 Airport peanut butter and bacon bagel.

 The spawn rates here are crazy.

 Star Wars and Chipotle. The question want as good this time. I liked the movie, and now can read Twitter without muting phrases.

 I herd you lik mudkip.

First Groudon raid was successful. 

And then sushi for dinner that I didn't take pictures of. Also there are lots of cookies here, which might be my fault.

No captions because captions on phone are hard to format.

Friday: Ugh.

Today I got two pieces of bad news.  One of which is probably just going to annoying (and slightly painful) over vacation, and the other one that is significantly worse.

The number of permutations I need to put here is ridiculous.

• "Oh boy!"
• Pokemon.
• Animal Crossing.

Friday: Arrival and a two movie day

Art at SFO.

Which makes it a pokestop.

For me to enjoy my breakfast pastrami at.

Don't be mean, BART.

Google now automatically supplies directions to Target when I visit Julie.

And this helpful notice.

 Then attempts at sleep, and the first movie, Loving. Not bad, and fills in more of the story thanr the picture book.

Then lunch to get an OK patty melt.

And pineapple sherbet.

Movie two was the new Star Wars.

 My quick thoughts are that this was good too, although they kind of introduce a lot of back story and lore details quickly. It's not as bad as the one last year requiring homework to sort out why some scenes exist. Also: Peter Cushing is dead. Recast Tarkin. The CGI one was not believable.  And my initial thoughts from the quick reviews were correct. TPK.

Then more Pokemon.

I like Venomoth.

Friday: Ugh. Malls.

Since they redesigned it, Ala Moana is not a terrible place to park.  I assume part of that is them preparing to be the terminus of the rail line, but there are always parking spaces now.  I think the sign said there were like 2000 open ones.  However, people are remarkably stupid, and I saw a bunch turning onto floors that were clearly labeled as having 20 open spaces.  People are dumb.

The other problem is that getting to, and getting out of the mall is still difficult.  Keaaumoku is a pain to get down, because there are so many lights, and people always want to turn left.  It's the same problem leaving the mall: everyone has to filter through the same exits, and it takes forever to do that.

You'll also notice that this katsudon is at home.  There were no seats in Shirokiya, because the tables were filled with people who were drinking beer and don't know how to share common tables.

I mean, what could possibly be better than that?

I also decided today that this is my new favorite song ever:

Utada Hikaru: Boku wa Kuma (I am a Bear).

• Similarly, I decided today that "The First Noel" is objectively the shittiest Christmas song.  It's like get to the fucking point, song.  Don't repeat yourself ever other line.
• I guess Vine is sticking around?  Cool.
• Werewolves.
• Rowlet.
• I'm glad to read this about Moana.
• YOU KNOW WHY, DOGGO!
• "since 1851."
• I'm not saying that I'd welcome Leopard Women on Giant Saurians discharging their Intensified Comet Fire on the Earth right now, but I'm also not not saying that.
• I was literally thinking about this scene last night, and how it's Batman at his best, and Harley at her best, and it's just great, and here it is, showing up in my RSS stuff.
• This probably means we get the TPP.
• There's a new Ducktails coming.  I like how everyone knows all the lyrics, except for David Tennant, since he's Scottish.
• Also, this comment on the casting almost killed me.
• That song is called "Sex with Ducks".
• Let me tell you about this television ad.

First up, my grandparents had a console television like that one on top.  I always thought console televisions were cool.  But the main point is that it lists the size as 295 square inches.  "How big is that?" I thought.

Old TVs were 4:3 aspect ratio, and measured based on the diagonal length (because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ but that's at least what I vaguely know).  So that means that:

1. r^2 = 4 * a^2 + 3 * a^2 = 25 a^2
2. Area = (4a)*(3a) = 12 a^2
3. Area = 12 / 25 r^2; r = sqrt(25/12 * Area)
4. It'd be r = sqrt(337 / 144 * Area) for modern 16:9 TVs.

So it's a 24.791 inch television, which I think makes it roughly the same size as my old TV.

Friday: Music, and other things.

I don't understand Amazon Prime music streaming.  "Why?  It's like free music!"

Yes, but it's like literally free music.  I wanted to listen to a song, saw the album had free prime streaming, and tried to listen to it on my computer.  Except Linux isn't supported for prime streaming, so it doesn't work.  

But I can download it on my phone.  I know this, because during my Christmas/New Years travelling last year, I was able to use the airport wifi to identify a song that was playing as I boarded a plane, and since it was available for free prime streaming, and I could download it, I downloaded the song, the album, and two more from the same group.  Given that the band name was Thievery Corporation, I thought this was kind of funny.

Are the files encrypted on my tablet, then?  I guess so?  Also, what's the point of having "stations" if the station list is just a jumbled pile of everything?  I have something like 800 songs that I've added to my amazon mp3 library (between albums with auto-rip and directly buying things).  That isn't enough for it to come up with some sort of "maybe you'll like this station" recommendation thing?

Also, this cookie perfectly represents "Gimme Chocolate".

Since I couldn't use my work computer to stream things, I bought the newest Passepied album, "Shaba Lover".  It's pretty much the same as their previous ones.  Very good synthesizer work and complementary guitar and bass, with aggressively high pitched lyrics.  This album is a bit over compressed, so some of the peaks are saturated, but it's not as bad as other albums.  Conveniently, the publisher has one of the songs from this album on youtube, because it's a theme song for the newest Rumiko Takahashi anime:





In any case, I still wanted to listen to that Babymetal album, and I couldn't decide what to have for dinner, because nothing sounded good.

But a drive over the Pali to Kailua to get a burrito would solve both of those.

It was pretty good, but I wish they'd pull the ribs from the lettuce.

To interrupt the music discussion, why would you go to a burrito place and get a bowl?  It was super busy, and everyone had to have a bowl.  Clearly it's not for health reasons, given Mr. "Can I get double meat in my bowl?"  Burritos are better than bowls, and burritos with queso would be superior still.


Anyway, Babymetal popped up in my youtube videos yesterday, because they were on Colbert sometime this week.  I'd heard "Gimme Chocolate" on the jpop station here back before the jpop station went away.  Listening to the whole album, it's mostly just standard jpop with some heavy metal paint slapped on.  I was surprised when I got to "Headbanger."  That's explicitly a Visual Kei song.  Here's a far better discussion of Babymetal than I could ever come up with that I found when I searched to figure out what the connection was.

Because I'm talking about music today, I'll put this Bad Lip Reading parody song about Star Wars here.  It's good, and worth listening to.





Finally, because I keep forgetting to talk about it, Minecraft on my tablet has supported maps since the last update, so I'm finally able to see what my first world looks like.

The green dot is the location of the map, inside my main fortress.  You can see a gap in the trees leading south towards the lake, where I have the lake house built on that peninsula.  There's also the bridge to the west that leads to the world spawn point, where I have a small outpost with important things that I can use to get back to the main base if something bad happens with my bed.  Finally, there's the bridge to the east that leads to the plains hut, which is the starting point for my explorations of the abandoned mineshaft that's over there.  This has also forced me to start farming sugarcane (needed for making paper) and cows (needed for the leather for the item frames to display the maps on the wall). 

The rest of the links start with another youtube video.

• This was recommended by youtube, probably because I watch lots of shows about cartoons.  It's weird, because two and a half years ago,
• I watched this weird Lilo and Stitch anime in Taiwan.  Except, based on that video, it's actually Lilo and Stitch and Some Other Not-Lilo.
• Have you heard of Bassnectar?  No?  He's a jackass, so now you know that important fact.
• Kitty.
• Bunnies.
• Damn it, Manwë.

Saturday: It turns out I still don't like people.

Mostly because they're perpetually too loud and too filling places I was going to go.

I did get ice cream today, though.  So that was good.

The ice cream was designed to kill time, but also worked as a late lunch.  It's conveniently located, as I had driven way out to Koko Marina to go to the theater there.  Unfortunately, it was not as empty at the theater as I was hoping.

Yes, I know, but I'd hoped to see it in a nice quiet theater.  That didn't entirely work, but at least there wasn't some dumbass clapping every time he recognized something.

The other part of the plan was to get steak for dinner, due to the influence of very convincing gifs I saw yesterday.  You can already see the next picture, so you can tell how well that went. 

Not well, obviously.

It turns out everyone in existence saw those gifs, and so the steak place was stupid busy, with no places to park even.  I then failed to go to two other places before saying "fuck it, let's get a burrito," and then driving over the Pali to get a burrito.  I luckily arrived six minutes before they closed, and so I took my burrito to go.  Home.  Back over the Pali and twenty something minutes away.  This wasn't the best solution, but it was a decent burrito.  And had steak in it, although it doesn't really count.

I was going to put a discussion of doomsday devices here, but it's already kind of late, and I have like a billion links to get through.  Most of those links are Star Wars related, as this seemed like a good time to clear out all the Star Wars stuff in my saved RSS feeds.

• Star Wars stuff.
• Even Paul Krugman went to see it twice.
• Lego scene 1.
• Lego scene 2.
• Obi-Wan and Anakin.
• Anakin and Kylo.
• Boba Fett and Disney Princesses.
• Boba Fett's real face.
• Wookiees.
• Poe's flight vest.
• Rey's purse.
• Luke.
• Force powers.
• Not Star Wars stuff.
• I found another Marnie link while scanning for Star Wars.
• Cookie Monster Cat.
• Dog and baby chick.
• Best cooking show.

Wednesday: I totally didn't waste two days discovering that the bug is in someone else's code.

And boxes are no longer allowed in the hallways at work.  So the ones outside my office were finally moved somewhere.  This tiny gecko has been dead behind them for so so long.

The links today are either Star Wars or animals.

• Star Wars.
• I'm not a giant fan of the show, but I really enjoy these Always Sunny title card posts.
• Yeah.
• This is pretty good, as it's pretty much what would have been going through Obi-Wan's mind.
• Force ghost.
• I really want more Ahsoka Tano, too.
• Animals.
• Lazy dog.
• Learned from the birb boss.
• Dog wreck.

Saturday: Epcot Center

Epcot.  Not the cool concept glossing over some kind of corporate/fascist paradise.  The educational side of Disney World.  Maybe "educational" is the better way to say it.  

It's still rather fun, if you go in accepting that you're going to pay a lot of money to visit.

Not the best sign when waiting for the bus.  This fog implies high humidity, which becomes a problem later.

 It also didn't help that there was a marathon around the park, which closed roads and screwed up traffic.  This made the shuttle bus late, meaning a longer wait.  It did eventually work out, though:

See?

The science stuff in the "world of tomorrow" is pretty cool, even if some of them have corporate sponsors that don't even try to hide their agenda.

This is from Color-topia.  Or Color-o-rama.  Color-pa-looza?  Something about color, sponsored by Glidden paint.  Color is pretty cool.  I'm pro-color.

 Later, when I talk about buying things, this is where I bought things.  I'd rather just put that all at the end.

The "The Seas" thing is run by Nemo from Little Nemo.  He has removed pretty much all the science from that section, except for the aquarium section full for animals.  Since aquariums without animals are just pools.  Anyway, huge manatee.

 And then it was basically lunch time.

Ok, so this is an odd restaurant design.  The best description is "ride with food."  There's a rotating restaurant that overlooks the "The Land" ride below.  The meal is prix fixe, with all options coming out "family style."  Since the restaurant rotates, they're timed so that you end the meal after a single revolution.

There's a decent amount of food, too.  This is for two, although I had the added benefit of a vegetarian second, allowing me to have my choice of the yummy animals.

It's full of characters, too.  Farmer Micky stopped by like 99 times.  I think we were the only ones in the place at the end, so that explains it.

Giant shortcake dessert.

Then we moved to the world tour area.  The main things to notice are that the various country pavilions are largely restaurant based, and that since this is the only place that serves alcohol, the majority of the adult only groups are kind of drunk.

Squirrel!

I'm sorry, Pooh-bear.  We need to have a discussion about this.  This kind of thing just really isn't cool anymore, so I think you should reconsider what you're doing.

Pooh was in here too, with Tigger.

Morocco.

Koi pond in Japan.

Pikachu.

I should explain the phone-based game that they have where you get a phone and do Phineas and Ferb scavenger hunt-like things with park interactions, but I'm tired, and it's more complicated that I care to cover.  Read this I guess.  We did France, Japan, and China.

Italy.

China.

And this is where things kind of fell apart.  You can tell from the pond that it's raining.  It started raining.  A lot.  A lot of rain.  Boom, rain everywhere.  This makes walking around outside less fun, so we kind of stopped the game, and tried to find inside places to be instead.

Three Caballeros ride in Mexico.  I thought that move was the propaganda one, but it was an earlier one.

 It kept raining.

And so that was Epcot.

Upon getting back to the hotel, it was pretzel time.

Pretzel power.

The things I got.

In science world there is a "health game/thing".  We did not play the extended search game, and everyone gets a rubber wrist band thing.

Wow!  Five tsum-tsum pins!  What a deal!

HOLY FUCK, TWENTY-FUCKING-SEVEN-DAMN-DOLLARS?  FUCK YOU, DISNEY!

And those aren't even that great of a selection of tsums.  There are a lot of blind-bag things.

My park ticket is Donald flavored.

I wanted a magnet for my fridge, and this one is Epcot themed and spins.

Frozen is still everywhere.  I got a pin for it.

And I had the thought that since Star Wars is everywhere too, I'd try to get a Rey pin, since she is the best character in the new movie.  That should be easy, right?

Of course not.  She's a female character, so she has less presence in products than the robot, generic storm troopers, and Captain Only-In-The-Movie-For-Five-Minutes.

She's an option in a blind-box thing, but fuck blind bags.

Eventually I found one in a pin-specific shop.  She's limited edition, I guess.

Japan had animal shaped paper clips.  So.  You know.

 Remember how it rained a lot?  It rained.  A lot.  We were in China when that happened, so:

I had to get the best umbrella ever.  I plan on using this as my office emergency umbrella from now on.