Chris In Wonderland
by Cristian Sandu on Jul.18, 2010, under Life
Hello,
It’s been a while since I have blogged and there are several reasons for that. For one, I was on a vacation to Seattle for two weeks. Seattle may seem like an odd choice for a vacation. For me, it was an opportunity to learn as much as I could, as a tourist(I know…), about the American way of life. Two weeks is clearly not enough but hey, I have a full time job here at home.
I will state the obvious: Seattle is not New York nor is it Los Angeles. Seattle is the Pacific Northwest – at least for me who haven’t visited any other city in the area. It is a heaven for nature lovers and city bugs alike. Seattle dwellers have the woods right in their backyard and plenty of lakes and bays to go sailing on. They even have beaches for when it is warm enough. And if nature isn’t all you’re craving, downtown Seattle has the urban feel of the all-American metropolis with its skyscrapers, museums and heavy traffic… If that’s your thing.
Yup, Seattle has it all.
Seattle in the Clouds
There plenty of things to see in the city and around it as my trusty Lonely Planet guide advised me. The first day of our trip was all about discovering the city, the architecture, the landmark buildings. It was a day of walking around and looking up 
. And there’s no way we could have missed the Space Needle!
The Needle Poking at the Sky
The next day, we headed back to Seattle to visit its large Aquarium. Needless to say, if you like fish, it’s a worthwhile experience. They have a large amount of exotic fish, on par with London’s Aquarium I would say, and they even have a sea lion.
The Waterfront, Near the Aquarium
A Sea Lion
If you don’t already know this, Seattle is the place were aircraft giant Boeing started out. Their first workshop where they built wooden airplanes became a museum which expanded into the rather huge Museum of Flight. If you are an airplane freak, there is a lot for you to see here including a real Concorde and JFK’s Air Force One.
The Majestic Concorde
JFK's Magic Plane
Around Seattle you will also find one of USA’s top 10 zoos – the Woodland Park Zoo!
Jaguar Taking a Nap
Ostrich, Up and About
Like I said before, Seattle has it all – even all at once, for example, there’s this beach right next to the woods.
Hang out at the beach or go for a stroll in the woods?
In downtown Seattle you will find one of the biggest public marketplaces – Pike Market Place. Here you can shop for things like fresh fruit and vegetables, fish and meat but also for the weirdest souvenirs and such. It’s one of the most crowded pedestrian areas and it has several underground levels!
If you have your sea legs about you there are a lot of cruises and boat rides to be enjoyed around Seattle. The view is usually pretty great.
The Seattle Skyline
And if you thought that is all, you are wrong! Near Seattle you will find Mt Rainier National Park with a large active volcano that is covered with snow all year long. It is a must do experience should you find yourself in Seattle. And if hiking is what your craving, or maybe skiing, then you need to look no further. Yup, that’s right snow at 23 degrees Celsius. Pretty sweet…
Oh dear, I hope he doesn't blow his top!
There’s more to show but hey, I am trying to keep it short and sweet. I have just realized I didn’t mention “Sleepless in Seattle” in my post – not even once! Well, here it is – go see Meg Ryan now 
!
As for what I have learned about the American way of life… well, I am sure I only touched the surface, a very pleasant and polite surface – I feel I am not entitled to an opinion but I dare to say Seattle is a nice place to live – at least until you find out what’s what .
Well, that’s it folks, promise to blog more often – should you be interested 
!
Have a nice summer everyone.
Another Useless Advertisment For A Game – That’s Right This Is A Very Long Title
by Cristian Sandu on May.13, 2010, under Games
To whom it may concern,
I couldn’t be bothered to post anything these past weeks because I’ve been playing inFAMOUS on the PS3. And I’ve finished Final Fantasy XIII – finally!
Yeah, inFAMOUS rocks.
Keep in touch,
Do You Have Conviction?
by Cristian Sandu on Apr.25, 2010, under Games
Quick gaming update.
In case you haven’t been living under a rock you know who Tom Clancy is. Bringing him aboard for their games has probably made Ubisoft a boat load of money. And for good reason. I am not a big fan of the Ghost Recon series and I wasn’t too impressed by Endwar and what not but the Splinter Cell series remains one of the best action/stealth game offerings. One thing I am confused about is the main character’s evolution. I mean, Sam Fisher. It’s all very blurry. Each story seems to be somewhat independent from whatever happened in the other games. He’s like James Bond I guess in that respect. But not the Daniel Craig James Bond – Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace share the same storyline. The thing I enjoyed most in these games, apart from the actual action of sneaking up behind bad guys and taking them, out is the intricate political back-story. Being written by Tom Clancy really makes a difference. For me, Splinter Cell games are like a video game version of the show 24 – which I love.
But life is not all skittles and beer. The PC version of the game, which I had my eye on, uses the same DRM system as Assasin’s Creed 2. You know, the stupid “always connected” system. I might have bought the X360 version if there wasn’t going to be a PC version with better graphics. The PC version materializes April 27th – in 2 short days. Steam is offering you the possibility to pre-purchase the game for 50 cold ones(euros, on this side of the world) – new games are always this pricey. I am afraid I will have to decline, this time, Mr. Fisher. My faith in Ubisoft is somewhat shaken. It’s nothing personal.
Is isn’t he awesome?
Top 5 Things The TV Wants You To Believe Are True
by Cristian Sandu on Apr.17, 2010, under Life
Back after a week of hibernating. Here is this Saturday’s morning rant.
The evil TV wants you to think all sorts of things that I simply find are not true. I’ve given up actual TV some 5 to 7 years ago (not sure on the actual moment I stopped watching) so I am almost constantly disconnected from the “real world” and the news. The only news I usually care about are technology related and I get that from the web, sorry TV. However, I do have a flaw – I watch recorded TV shows – mainly drama and some comedy. I’ve enjoyed lots of shows over the years – in no particular order: Lost, 24, Supernatural, Smallville, The Simpsons, Dexter, Lie To Me, FRIENDS(yes, the best show ever made!), Joey(flawed spin-off, sorry Joe), Star Trek(all of them!), Burn Notice, Modern Family, Men of a Certain Age, United States of Tara, Weeds, Desperate Housewives, V, The 4400 and much more. Yeah, I’ve seen a LOT of shows. Some brilliant, some flawed and even bad. I watch them to escape from “the real life” so I am not surprised that what goes on in these shows has nothing to do with reality most of the time. So here are, based on my experience, the top 10 things that the evil TV wants you to believe are true.
1. You are or can be hero. Or at least you are person of great vision who can and will change the world. Most of the shows I watched over the years including 24 and Smallville are about people who constantly change or/and save the world. It’s a beautiful concept but it is also very FAKE. Unless you are the president of the USA or some Russian controlling have of the world’s gas reserves, your powers are somewhat limited. You see, in this world power is about money. Or is simply about political power which you get with, well, money – not necessarily yours. Of course, it occurs to me, that you could be some Greenpeace volunteer trying to save the whales, but nobody will really know what you did… And you will not really save or change the world.
2. If you want something bad enough, it will be yours. Let’s face it, we are limited. We can battle it all we want but in the end it will only brings us misery. I admit I like to think I can have it all. I think this is what they told us in school too. But you can’t. Mainly because between you and what you want are many other people who don’t want the same thing as you. Again, unless you are the president of the USA, yada yada. This is a depressing one.
3. It all happens for a reason/ Life has rules. There is karma. I love this concept but…it simply doesn’t apply. Of course, men have their laws intent on trying to keep at bay those who deliberately try to destroy other human beings. But these laws fail often enough. Well, not the laws themselves but the men who are supposed to enforce them. I think most things happen because of the chaos that humanity has built on this planet. The ecosystem had its perfection without us meddling everywhere. Maybe we are not of this planet? God knows. And He won’t tell.
4. Love can save you from a miserable existence. I won’t even comment on this one. See pretty much any TV show out there.
5. I was gonna bitch something about spies – but I realized they are pretty cool. But…not very real, either.
Yeah, I am dull and pessimistic today.
Later.
Nothing To See Here, Move Along!
by Cristian Sandu on Apr.10, 2010, under Life
I am partial to the band All American Rejects. The first song played this band that I ever heard was “Dirty Little Secret”.
Move Along
Dirty Little Secret – Love it!
Gives You Hell
It Ends Tonight – Saddish…
P.S.
Working to improve my Gomoku and fighting through FF XIII. Damn, life is hard .
Gomoku
by Cristian Sandu on Mar.28, 2010, under Games
I dug up one of my old projects, an implementation of the game Gomoku – a game played on a Go board where the goal is to build a row of 5 stones.
The goal of my project was to apply the minimax algorithm using a pruning heuristic to reduce the game states search space.
It was written in Java; the labels are in Romanian because I was too lazy to recompile it. But I will…
P.S.
I am 25 hours into FF XIII – I am halfway there!
P.P.S.
Updated my gomoku code a bit. It now attempts to show the winning line. There are still a few bugs.
FF XIII – If You Don’t Know What That Means, I Don’t Want To Know You
by Cristian Sandu on Mar.20, 2010, under Games
Here are the facts: Final Fantasy XIII has been out for a while now – got mine a week and a half ago. I am only 9 hours into the game and alas, it seems it will take me a long time to finish this. The Final Fantasy series has always prided itself on offering a deep experience and that is great. However… I find myself lacking time. It’s been a very long time since I spent that much time on a game. One reviewer claims it took him 60 hours to complete the main game. That is a lot. Enough complaining.
I thought I’d take this time to remember my Final Fantasy experiences. I haven’t played all the games of the series – mainly because when I was younger I couldn’t get my hands on a Playstation so I am not a hardcore fan. But I did play at least two Final Fantasy games and loved them both(three if you’re counting XIII as well).
My first was Final Fantasy VIII. The first one is always the best . This was made over 10 years ago – 12, I think – on the PS One. The fine folks at Square Enix were nice enough to port it to the PC as well and so I got to play it too. It was an interesting and emotional experience (yeah, well..) but I have to admit I choked at the end – I simply couldn’t finish the final battle. This is what usually happens if you don’t develop enough your characters or don’t master the battle system. But that was a long, long time ago. In a galaxy not so far away. Moving on.
A few years later, I played Final Fantasy IX. I was in high school and the PS2 was all the rage. However, FF IX was a PS One game. FF IX had my favorite FF character, the melancholic, cute but all so powerful dark mage, Vivi . I don’t know why but he simply feels like he was the bast character they ever created. This one, I actually finished.
I played a bit of Final Fantasy X & X-2 and XII but lacking time I put them off to a later time which probably will never come. I never touched Final Fantasy XI which is an MMOR{G – I don’t like the genre very much and my past WoW addiction should keep me away from any MMO for a while. Supposedly FF XIV will also be an MMO – what a waste of good talent .
At some point, when I was in my teens, the Final Fantasy movie came out (The Spirits Within). It was, at the time, the most accomplished CG movie. Unlike Toy Story from Pixar, they had human characters closely modeled of real people and the movie felt more like an actual live action movie than a cartoon. Trust me, it was revolutionary at the time. Aki Ross, anyone?
Which brings us to the Fantasy at hand – XIII. Like I said earlier I am only 8 hours or so into the game and I do have some trouble mastering the battle system. I find myself fearing I will not be able to handle the final battle. So in a way – this game is a lot like life (shorter, though) – it makes me fear the future, the lack of preparation for what awaits. Brilliant…
My favorite character so far is Lightning (for obvious reasons). I leave you with this nice trailer.
P.S.
Seriously, you don’t know what Final Fantasy is? Leave the rock you live under and fire up youtube. And then get a Playstation or an Xbox 360. Geez…
Reverse Surprise Party
by Cristian Sandu on Mar.12, 2010, under Life
I just had a thought…
How about a surprise party where those surprised are the guests? I mean, you organize it and then invite friends over, one by one, making sure they will keep it a secret and then surprise them!
I call it a “reverse surprise party”. And I can use a poll:
Loading ...Poll This
by Cristian Sandu on Mar.09, 2010, under Site Updates
Added the nice wp-polls plugin to my wordpress instalation so I can do some…well…polling.
Check out the lower right corner . I will post an actual poll in the coming days. It would also be a nice way to check if people actually visit this place 
.
P.S.
The same poll can be included in a post, like this:
Loading ...Ubisoft: Just Give Up!
by Cristian Sandu on Mar.09, 2010, under Games
In case you haven’t heard all about Ubisoft’s brain-dead DRM scheme, read my previous post.
Here’s a quick update: it seems that for the last few days legit owners of Silent Hunter 5 and Assassin’s Creed 2(I haven’t gotten mine yet…) have been unable to play due to the fact that Ubisoft servers were down during last weekend and then some.
Ubisoft reveals that they are the victim of Denial of Service attacks. Well, it kinda figures guys, just give up already. Trust me – just focus on making good games that sell. We will buy your damn games but don’t make us suffer for it.
I feel that, while they do have a right to protect their intellectual property, it should, and must not be at the expense of the honest players. It defeats the purpose, people.
Stay frosty.
Polls
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