Rather be ashes than dust » Nerdy

Finally a Day Off From Winter Camp

ryguy — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 06:09:08 +0000

So between my 2nd and 3rd Winter Camps at BGV, I got a day off. It’s surprising how full you can make a single day off when you haven’t had one in so long. I only had two plans for my day off, 1) to recover from the inevitable hangover from the night before and 2) to start putting together my beer brewing kit. I accomplished both of this things and had plenty of other surprises along the way too.

Probably the best part of the day was finally meeting back up with Kenny since he is now back from the US of A. After meeting him, we found a rocking kitchen supply shop in Haeundae that has some awesome deals; I was really tempted to buy a big cleaver that I had absolutely no need of, thankfully I was reasonable enough not too. I did pick up a strainer and a kimchi fermenter that I’m going to use as my carboy for my brew kit. After Kenny and I picked up these supplies we went out for some Chinese style dumplings chock full of spicy ginger pork…love that stuff.

Sadly this is where Kenny and I departed from each other. He had to go meet his lovely little lady and since I had no where to be I decided to walk back home. Fortune must have been smiling on me that day because it was a great walk home. First the weather was the best it had been in a long, long time. Which meant that there were tons of people all over Haeundae beach, including colorful locals like the kite man or Mr. Busan in his speedo. But probably the coolest part of my walk home was stumbling upon a Sci-Fi Toy Museum. It’s name is Movie in the Box and it was fantastic! The dude who runs the place hand makes a lot of the display items in his museum. The ones he doesn’t make are usually mint condition collectibles. He also has everything labelled in multiple languages, etc…. Really cool place that I totally recommend visiting. It’s nearer to the Westin Chosun side of Haeundae beach, located one street back above a GS25. After that, I stumbled across another museum. This was a museum of photography featuring pictures of Busan from half a century ago. Great stuff! I’d say this day was a success!

TL;DR: One day off, I begin constructing a brew kit, meet old friends, eat good food, and stumble upon two museums.

Another Cinematic Escape into Middle Earth

ryguy — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 14:49:28 +0000

I love the Lord of the Rings movies, so needless to say I am excited for The Hobbit coming out next year. I can’t say that I’m as excited as I was for LOTR…I don’t know if I have any good reason for that, it’s just how I feel. But I’m fairly certain that I’ll be ready to watch the movie on opening day! Here is a trailer…enjoy.

My phone is now smart

ryguy — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 02:04:21 +0000

I finally have a smart phone. I feel this will be a good thing.

Star Wars and Trekkies unite against Twilight; George Takei you’re my hero

ryguy — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 13:24:28 +0000

I wish I would have known of him from and earlier age but George Takei makes my day. The dude bleeds wit. Anyways he decided it was time that Star Wars fans and Star Trek fans stop rattling their sabers at each other and raise their arms against a common enemy; the twilight series. I agree, one because I am both a fan of Star Wars and Star Trek, but I also have a healthy dislike for that wet-dream that Stephanie Meyers has inked out on paper. Without further adieu, watch this clip by George Takei and then read this Gawker article.

Softmod of Wii Successful

ryguy — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 13:22:08 +0000

Recently, Yeye decided to jack her niece’s Wii and bring it home for us to play with. Apparently her niece doesn’t use the system enough to noticed that it disappeared. So I took this opportunity to softmod the thing and put the Homebrew Channel on it for a little more…control. Well first off I’ve never softmodded a Wii before so that was a big thing to learn. This was only compounded by the fact like everything else Korean, things just don’t work the same as everywhere else. So I had to go through some special steps that weren’t always well documented to get the Wii into a state where I could alter it. Totally pain in the ass. Anyways whatever, it’s done and now I have a functioning softmodded wii. I feel lots of old school games are in my future! SWEET!

Old Addictions: Zelda

ryguy — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 02:06:56 +0000

Insignia of Hyrule

So Jake recently bought a Wii and along with the unit came Zelda: Twilight Princess and needless to say I’m hooked. Bring back the old days where I spend hours most of my free time playing a game. I’m fucking loving it! Oh how I missed the days of blazing through dungeons and trying to find every little collectable item in the game. Looks like I’m doing this just in time to, because this week we see the release of Zelda: Skyward Sword. Looks like December for me is going to be all Link-tastic.

Also I don’t know who created this art piece, but I love it. You’ll have to click this link to see it because it’s gigantic. The artist made a mural depicting most of the major characters of the Zelda Universe. Good stuff.

Back into Gaming

ryguy — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 15:29:27 +0000

Jake recently bought a Wii and with it Zelda Twilight Princess. This investment he has made has rebooted my old gaming addictions. So here is some video game music…

and some ridiculous one about Mega Man 2

Jaipur: Jantar Mantar

ryguy — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 05:40:36 +0000

Since I’ve got sometime to kill today I thought I should start getting back on posting old (now they are old) pictures of India. Here are some pictures of Jantar Mantar in Jaipur. This place was awesome! Here is a little excerpt about it from Wikipedia:

The Jantar Mantar is a collection of architectural astronomical instruments, built by Maharaja (King) Jai Singh II at his then new capital of Jaipur between 1727 and 1734…It has been inscribed on the World Heritage List as “an expression of the astronomical skills and cosmological concepts of the court of a scholarly prince at the end of the Mughal period”.

Basically Jantar Mantar is a badass place chockfull of awesome, giant astronomical devices. Like samrat yantra the world’s largest sundial which is 27 meters tall and accurate down to 2 seconds. This place was a nerds playground. While I was there I wished 2 things…1) that my Uncle could have been there to explain to me how the hell you use most of the instruments and what they measured, and 2) that it wasn’t so F’in hot that day so I could have played longer before melting. Pics now…

Faster than light

ryguy — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 15:54:11 +0000

I know you probably have already heard the news that scientists have found neutrinos traveling faster than light. I hope there is no errors in this discover because it is just too damn exciting! The idea that Einsteins relativity might get turned on it’s head after standing for over a 100 years is fantastic. Anyways here is a groovy news article about it and an awesome picture of the Super-Kamiokande neutrino detector in Japan.

Super-Kamiokande Neutrino Detector

Interesting thing about color

ryguy — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 16:47:41 +0000

I remember a few years ago talking to my old coworker Kailey (I’m 90% sure it was her, I have a terrible memory) in South Korea. She was telling me that she was frustrated that her students kept insisting that sky blue was not blue and she just couldn’t get it through to them that sky blue is just a shade of blue. I remember thinking that was really interesting at the time. Colors are one of those things that I just assumed were pretty standard across the peoples of the world. So I was stoked to run across this video on Reddit that shows how different peoples develop different words to describe colors differently than we do in the West and how that actually changes the way they perceive color. Might be to nerdy for some to watch, but after teaching language for a few years I find it terribly interesting.

BBC Horizon: Do you see what I see? “The Himba tribe”