Good Times
Not much to talk about lately — because everything has been great. This has been an excellent week, and so far, one of the best weekends I can remember having in a while.
My parents spent Memorial Day week with us, so we got to eat out at some new (and old favorite) restaurants, and my dad and I got to enjoy some good video entertainment as per usual. On Monday we went to see the new Star Trek movie, which we both thought was excellent. I consider myself a fairly hardcore Trek geek from way back, and while I’m not one of those guys who gets into ferocious flamewars over mundane questions like “Who was the best captain, Kirk or Picard?” I do find myself interested in maintaining continuity of events, histories and actions that took place throughout Trek history. Despite that, I very much enjoyed the new film, which essentially throws out most of the original canon (but employs a “trapdoor” excuse that keeps us old hats from flipping out).
JJ Abrams and crew have done a great job with the film, and their up-to-date treatment of it will no doubt bring a great many new fans into the fold. Despite all the “new-ness,” though, there were still a ton of shout-outs to the original fans, stuff that I really found awesome. When we first meet Scotty, for example, we find that he’s been banished to a Federation outpost in some frozen wasteland for trying to beam Admiral Archer’s prized beagle from one planet to another, causing the dog to vanish irretrievably. (After that terrible Enterprise episode “A Night In Sickbay,” I thought this was an excellent just desserts for bratty old Captain Furrow.) Perhaps my favorite character was Karl Urban’s Leonard McCoy — the man was straight-up channeling DeForest Kelley through the entire movie. Just completely awesome.
So yeah, if you’re a Trek fan, go see it. And if you’re not, go see it.
Later in the week, Dad and I also watched Battlestar Galactica’s series finale, which he had not yet seen. This was a good choice because he doesn’t get Sci-Fi HD at home, so he was able to see the last episode in glorious high-def. And for me, it was cool to see the finale again on my home theater screen, which was a lot more impressive than that computer monitor I watched it on the first time, out in Thailand.
The week was good, but this weekend has been far more than good. On Saturday, Apple and I had lunch at a new restaurant called AZN; it’s another of those ubiquitous “Asian fusion” restaurants, but unlike most of the others, it has pretty good prices and a nice variety of stuff, plus pretty darn good sushi. My entree was more on the Western side of the “fusion” recipe (a trio of three miniature hamburgers made with Kobe beef) but was nonetheless excellent. As is my routine these days, I took half of it home to enjoy later. Apple had a big bowl of spicy noodles that was filled with everything imaginable, from shrimp and scallops to chicken. AZN also has a very good iced green tea, which was nice and sweet, just as I like it.
After lunch we went to Whole Foods for some grocery shopping, and got everything we needed for a change…except orange juice, which was overpriced, so we stopped off at Publix on the way home to get a better deal on it. Most interesting of all about this trip was that we found a clutch of Apple’s favorite fruit — guavas — at Whole Foods, looking like they’d just been put out, but bearing absolutely no signage whatsoever, so we had no idea if they were organic or conventional, what they cost, or where they came from. Deciding to chance it, we bought one. When it rang up as 60 cents, we hurriedly packed our groceries in the car and I went back in the store to buy three more guavas. 
They taste great, too. Normally guavas are much more expensive than this in the U.S., so I don’t know if it was an error or what, but if it was, we made out like bandits. We even paid more for guavas in Thailand, and they’re as common as apples over there!
Life Shambles Onward
I’ve been so busy with my “New Life Experience” (sounds like “New Xbox Experience,” har har) that I haven’t bothered posting anything here. So far, I’m happy to say that everything has been going quite well — and quite according to plan. I’ve done my 8 a.m. bike rides every weekday morning without missing a beat, have taken to reading during breakfast and lunch instead of watching TV, and enjoying a variety of new foods and new activities. Not all of these new experiences have been quite what I expected — for example, the humongous hot food area of the Whole Foods market is really lacklustre once you start putting it in your mouth — but it’s better to have tried it and hated it than not to have tried it at all.
Through it all, I’ve been trying to bring a more mellow attitude to everything and avoid getting bent out of shape by dumb little things. I admit that I did lose my cool a bit and had an old-fashioned fist-shaking, throttle-rapping moment when somebody stole the parking spot I’d been waiting for at the library a few days ago. My defense is that it was a one-time freak accident.
Overall, though, it’s all been going quite well.
Having Netflix back is lots of fun. Apple and I have been watching all kinds of stuff — between the saved shows on our TiVo(s), the new Netflix instant streaming features and the wealth of DVDs and Blu-rays we can get by mail, there’s certainly been no lack of things to watch. We’ve already discovered a few new favorites, the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers among them — and Apple really liked The Reader. (I thought it was good too, even though I walked into the room with the movie halfway over.)
Speaking of Apple, in the time that I’ve been neglecting this site, she’s put up one of her own. Her new Appleland blog is a primarily photo-centric effort, with a side order of life commentary and random tidbits. Since we’ve come home from Thailand, in fact, I’ve seen her take all kinds of initiatives on the road to her own “New Life Experience.” Besides doing yoga and working out at the exercise room, she’s experimenting with lots of new recipes, making her own bread and salad dressing, and getting quite involved in reading mystery novels. Seeing her engaged in a variety of enjoyable things makes me very happy! (Sometimes I feel like I’m hogging all of the hobbies here.)
Today was particularly exciting for me, because the two new Knight Rider soundtrack CDs I ordered from Hitchcock Media Records arrived. Don Peake and Ron Hitchcock have put together a top-notch effort with Volume 2 of the definitive Knight Rider scores. Even though the two episodes featured are not among my favorites, the quality of the mastering is simply astonishing. And there’s a much healthier dose of excellent music here than I remembered, including an awesome cue from the episode “Hearts of Stone” that apparently went unused in the final production. To my satisfaction, the sometimes oppressive echo from Volume 1 has been toned down, leaving us with a brilliantly clean digital copy of these 26-year-old scores.
Don Peake himself says that Volumes 4, 5 and 6 are on the way, as well as a nearly complete score to Knight Rider’s famous “Goliath” episodes. If they’re anything like the tracks I just spun this afternoon, I can’t wait.
In addition to the reading, movie watching and exercising that Apple and I have been doing, I’ve also gone back to revisit one of my other old favorite pursuits: Wolfenstein level editing. (I guess it’s all these World Ward II movies we’ve been renting lately.) A few nights ago I poked at MapEdit for awhile and really couldn’t come up with anything that great. So I did what I always do when that happens: I loaded up some of my favorite classic levels and played through them again, refreshing my memory as to what great level design is about. With those layouts in mind, I’m going to try again tonight. This time I’ll also cue up some old tapes I used to listen to while mapmaking in the mid-’90s. Gotta get that total retro atmosphere going.
Huh…Knight Rider…Wolfenstein…seems like everything I’m into lately is a throwback to an earlier time. Seriously, though, when you read the day’s headlines, can you blame me? Wake me up when shit starts looking up, that’s what I have to say. Now that we’re home, I’m absorbing even less news than I was in Thailand, somehow or other — no websites, no TV news channels, nothing. Okay, once in a while I read the local paper’s front page, check out the CNN website or check the news out of Detroit. This usually serves only to remind me of why I swore off such things, after which I’ll abandon any further attempts for a while more. The important stuff has a way of finding its way to me through Apple, however, who is like my news correspondent. I think that arrangement works perfectly.
We’ve got a long weekend coming up, thanks to the Memorial Day holiday. My boss is making it a four-day weekend, so it may be a quiet day for me tomorrow. Next week my parents will be in town, and I’m finally going to get to see the new Star Trek movie with my dad. Maybe the new Terminator flick as well. And of course there will be lots of catching up, socializing and dining on the schedule. Ought to be a good time.
Shortly after that, Apple and I are taking a little jaunt to one of our favorite beach resorts for a few days. Part and parcel of my “chill out” attitude, I’m taking my GTO — normally I would just scream “But what if bugs get on it!!” and leave it at home — lots of books to read, my iPhone, and no computer. It’s going to be three or four days of total disconnection, sorta like what we had in Koh Samui earlier this year. Except, y’know, a U.S. version. I could go for some more of that.
Work has wound down for the day, so I’m going to call it quits and go have dinner. I’m already looking forward to this evening, when I’ll be diving back into the book I’m currently reading — it’s called “Death’s Door” by Gail Lukasik, apparently part of a series. Apple picked it up at random when we were at the library last week and immediately fell in love with it. She blasted through the book faster than I’ve ever seen, and after she finished, I decided to read it. I started last night, and sat up until 2 a.m. reading the first 164 pages. Yeah, it’s pretty good. I think we’re both mystery buffs, but the story has to have enough constant momentum to hold our attention. “Death’s Door” reads almost like one long, contiguous scene that you don’t want to interrupt. Perfect.
Bankruptcy Is Our Game
“We’re here to kick ass and make money…and we’re all out of money.”Title of 3D Realms’ last quarterly financial statement (just kidding)
Barely more than a week after eulogizing Pontiac Motor Division, I’m back again to say “Sayonara!” to another staple of my formative years: game development studio 3D Realms, formerly known as Apogee Software LTD, makers of Duke Nukem 3D. Yesterday, in a sudden announcement that has taken the world by surprise — and has even rocketed to the top of BBC News’ list of most popular stories — it was revealed that 3DR was “shutting down” by the end of this week due to a lack of funds. All of their employees have already been let go.
All throughout the ’90s, Apogee/3D Realms gave me plenty to do. From publishing the iconic Wolfenstein 3-D to developing witty shooters like Duke and Shadow Warrior, the company’s games always topped my “must-have” list. I famously spent the entire holiday seasons of 1994 and 1995 waiting, respectively, for the release of Rise of the Triad and Duke3D. While ROTT was a bit of let-down for me, the critically-acclaimed Duke3D fully redeemed 3D Realms, and kept me occupied for a record-breaking two solid years of fun. It became a source of pop culture in-jokes, woven into practically everything I created in 1996 and 1997. I played countless head-to-head modem games (“Dukematches”) with my high school friends in the off hours. The game was an epic success around the world.
My friend Reaper and I were even creating our own respective takes on our high school in Duke’s level editor — his featured the infamous auditorium rocket launchers that you had no chance in hell of escaping, while mine sported a hidden “war room” off the cafeteria where school officials could keep watch for troublesome parents who had come to question the administration’s insane policies. Ah, those were the days.
Following the incredible success of Duke3D, 3D Realms — whose tagline was “Reality is Our Game” — first revealed news of an upcoming sequel, Duke Nukem Forever, in late 1997. Somewhere, I still have the issue of PC Gamer whose cover sported the exclusive announcement, which I picked up from the local Egghead Software on my way home from school one day. (Count the anachronisms in that sentence, why don’t you!) Duke Forever, or DNF, was billed as a revolutionary shooter that would essentially be the best game ever made. Fresh on the heels of Duke3D, everyone was taking about it — and hotly anticipating it.
Unfortunately, a ridiculous 12 years later, we now know that DNF stands for nothing more than “Did Not Finish.” The only thing finished here is the now-defunct 3D Realms.
Root Beer Float
Some point, over a decade ago, Chief Oddball and a couple other friends were at my house, hanging out in my bedroom. Some time beforehand, one of those friends had given me a tiny cutout of Peter Tork’s head, taken from some magazine. Anyway, I was drinking a root beer, and at some point I spilled said beverage. Droplets of sugar water fell on the picture of Peter Tork, prompting me to scream out something along the lines of, “AAAAH! I spilled root beer on Peter Tork!”
Why do I mention this? 
Because, several days ago, something similar happened. I was sitting at my computer desk, with a tall, frosty glass of root beer next to me on my desk. I reached for the glass and — horror! — I knocked it over (mind you, this was a full glass of root beer I’d just poured). My desk (not to be confused with my computer desk, which is next to it) was immediately covered with root beer, and I went into panic mode. I immediately grabbed a load of towels from the linen closet and went to work. My wallet, my keys — and even a CD I had lying there — weren’t spared the wrath of the root beer. Even worse, some stuff not even on the desk was badly hit, as I found out once my panic had died down: both my sketchbook and every single page of a comic I had been dabbling with for the last several months were now brown and soaking wet. They had been sitting under my desk and had bore the full brunt of the root beer as it swept off the desktop.
Needless to say, I was crushed. But then something happened: I realized it could have been a lot worse.
You see, on the other side of the floor under my desk — opposite where the sketchbook had been — is a power strip. This power strip not only has my computer, monitor, and what not plugged into it, but also my cable modem — which supplies my house with not only internet access, but also cable television and telephone service. As soon as I realized this, my anger began to subside into an awkward form of relief — if I’d spilled the root beer in the other direction (and if the bookshelf on my desk had been set somewhat differently), there’s a good chance I might not be writing this post right now. If the worst that happened from my accident was a few soaked drawings and a sticky keyfob for the car — instead of potentially losing my PC, internet, phone and TV access — then maybe things weren’t so bad.
The Greatest Inspiration of All
We’ve finally made it back home. And home, as it turns out, is the greatest inspiration of all.
It was a bit of work getting here. You know how it goes — nearly 48 hours of nonstop travel across four separate flights, some lasting an hour, some lasting 13. Countless carrying of heavy bags, sitting in cramped quarters for a veritable eternity, and feeling the ever-increasing desire to just lie down and sleep, even though you can’t. But as these excruciatingly long trips go, this was about as smooth as it gets: Perfectly-sized layovers in each airport, no delays, no luggage snafus, everything exactly according to plan.
Except one thing.
I wrote in my last post that I thought my wife Apple was getting a minor cold. And it probably would have been minor, if she’d been able to rest and recuperate in bed as she needed to. But instead she had to travel and go without more than an hour or two of sleep for two days, in the exceptionally dry recycled air of one airplane after another. Let me tell you that by the time we got home, “miserable” doesn’t even begin to describe poor Apple’s feelings.
But here’s how my new outlook on life — and the lessons I learned in Thailand — came in handy during what could have been a very painful journey home. Normally, I admit, I’m not the most patient guy in the book. If things don’t go according to the plan I’ve laid out, or the routine I’ve set, I can get very irritated and unpleasant. While traveling, things are apt to take a detour from your expectations, so it would occasionally be stressful to travel with me. And Apple doesn’t like flying much either, so we were not a good pair when things went wrong.
I’d like to think, however, that such behavior is behind me. This time, even as we were in the airport waiting for our first flight, I could see that Apple was suffering terribly with her runny nose and a headache. My first, base inclination was to become annoyed at life, ask the rhetorical question of why she had to get sick, and be upset because I didn’t want her to suffer. But then I realized, if I’m in a foul mood, that’s only going to make her feel worse. As her husband, it’s my job to care for Apple, protect her and support her. And I couldn’t do that if I was being a grouch.
Departing
Tonight’s our last night in Thailand. Tomorrow, the festivities begin! I kid, of course. Tomorrow the trip home begins. Which may seem like a festive occasion, but is really just a hurdle to be crossed before we get home. Long flights are always a chore. A chore that may seem a little bit more comfortable this time, I realized, because I’m more than 30 pounds lighter than I was the last time I got on a plane.
We’ve packed everything, disassembled my desktop computer and returned its components to their original boxes, and cleaned up our room. Tomorrow we’ll get up around 8:30 and have a light breakfast, then some family members are coming to pick us up and take us to the print shop. Apple’s getting her hair washed and prepped for the trip, we’ll have lunch and then head for the airport around 1:00.
From here in southern Thailand, we fly to Bangkok’s Don Muang airport, the nation’s major domestic hub. Then we have a good number of hours to journey by taxi to Suvarnabhumi, Bangkok’s “other airport” through which all international flights travel. We have a connection in Seoul, then another in Atlanta, before we finally get home to Florida on Sunday. As David Hasselhoff said after every turbo boost, “Whew.”
Apparently though, the word didn’t think we had enough disasters to contend with, so it gave us swine flu. I wouldn’t be at all concerned, except we’ll be traveling on planes in very close proximity to other people, but there’s no choice. So we’re taking face masks and hand sanitizer. Ironically, I think Apple managed to get a minor cold from her nephew, so it’s probably us who people will be looking at with abject horror. So the face mask might work both ways, in her case. It figures!
I’m taking Monday and Tuesday off from work, so I’ll have time to ease back into the groove of U.S. time. I’ve pretty solidly acclimated myself to GMT+7, so that might take more effort than usual. I also might be dealing with a technology crisis straight away: I fired up my Slingbox today for one last channel-surf, and found my TiVo HD stuck at the “Welcome – Powering Up…” screen. At some point it rebooted for some reason or other, and during the reboot it locked up. The only way to fix it is to physically pull its plug, and there obviously won’t be any of that until I get home. (I’m at least glad it didn’t crap out the week we got here!)
The bad news is that a TiVo getting stuck at the “Welcome” screen, if not a fluke, usually indicates a failing or failed hard drive. Which would be ridiculous and maddening, because the 1-terabyte drive I put in there myself is less than a year old — and because we’ll then have lost six months worth of recordings that we’d planned to catch up on. Hopefully the damn thing is just stuck and a reboot will cure it. But if worse comes to worst, I’m bringing home a 500GB hard drive that I’ll throw in there to get up and running fast. And I guess not having hours and hours of shows to catch up on would be freeing, in a way. 
It’s hard to believe that we’ll be back in our own house in just a couple more days. Our nice clean house, I might add, thanks to my parents, who brought in a housekeeper to freshen the place up. We’ll be ready to jump right into our new life…or is that our old life?
During our travels, you can keep up-to-date on what’s happening over at my Twitter. Or, y’know just look at the sidebar.
Seeya back in GMT-4!
