Graffiti Art at 11th St and 1st Ave, Manhattan, NYC via Instagram
Graffiti Art at 11th St and 1st Ave, Manhattan, NYC
Category: Hobbies
A New Addiction: Ingress
I recently came across the blog post of a friend in Rome who has been playing Ingress consistently for about a year and recently reached level 16. I remembered trying to play Ingress when it was first released but I didn’t have a phone that was capable of it, and my tablet at the time was wifi only, so I gave up. After reading my friend’s blog post, I checked to see if Ingress had been released on iOS and found that it had, last year. So, I got it right away.
The app is kind of buggy. Using the Comm often causes the app to lock up entirely, which is bizarre, since that doesn’t happen with a 3rd party app that accesses the web-based version of the Intel map and Comm. Maybe Google wants people to get interested in Ingress and then go buy an Android phone that it will work better on? I don’t know, but I’ll just wait and hope the bugs are ironed out.
Anyway, figuring things out was a little difficult, but that’s mostly my own fault. There are training modules that you can use to get a sense of what you’re supposed to do be doing, but I just threw myself into it. I was lucky enough to find a few neutral portals in my area that I could take over, surprisingly on my own street. When my name started popping up on the map, players from both factions welcomed me to the game and the neighborhood and started sending me tips on how to improve my level and gameplay. I quickly found out about portal keys, fields and Mind Units.
My mission? Turn the neighborhood blue by capturing and maintaining portals (the things that look like sun flares on the scanner image above) and fight off the green team, which is working for aliens who want to destroy human society as we know it, which may not be a completely bad thing, given people’s propensity for violence and stupidity, but what about art and culture? What about self-determination and the preservation of a uniquely human history? What about beer? So, yeah, I’m working for the Resistance.
Chiese Food Restaurant Sign
When I lived in Singapore, I used to joke about the misspelled English words I saw everywhere, or the jumbles of random phrases used as shirt slogans. Having English on the shirt made it foreign and cool, I suppose. After working on learning two foreign languages (Arabic and Hebrew), I’m not nearly so critical of spelling mistakes by non-native speakers. Remembering vocabulary is a pain.
However, I can’t help but find it amusing that a person would misspell their own nationality on a manufactured neon sign placed in the window of a restaurant that sells said nationality’s food (or the Americanized version of it anyway).
How do you open a Chinese food restaurant and put up a sign for Chiese Food? Was it really poor business management, or a clever attempt to draw attention? Or did the guy purposefully misspell it because he knew that what he’s selling isn’t truly Chinese food? American Chinese food is nothing like what I ate in Singapore, which in most ways is far superior.
This particular establishment is on Amsterdam Avenue between 169th and 170th.
November 2013 Loot Crate
The contents of this month’s Loot Crate are nice but I guess I’m not too excited about them because I’m not that into Batman or Doctor Who. I always preferred X-Men comics and I just recently decided to actually have a look at Doctor Who. Maybe it’ll be cool. I haven’t decided yet.
The breakfast drink is nice, though. It’s something I can actually use. I checked the nutrition information and it is comparable to a Slim Fast. It’s 180 calories in a small bottle so you can drink your breakfast on the go.
I also like the shot glass and the playing cards. I’m not sure I’ll ever use the South Park speaker, because when I’m out I use headphones. I don’t think everyone around me should have to listen to my music. When I’m home I use my big speakers. I’ll probably hang-on to the Doctor Who balloon for a few months and then throw it in the trash. The wallet I think I’ll send to my nephew.
Next month will probably be better.
Twitter Banner on New York Stock Exchange on IPO Day
My wife took these photos this morning. She said it was ok for me to try to take credit for them. 😉
I’ve seen a lot of people saying they think Twitter’s stock is overpriced, but didn’t a lot of people say the same thing about Facebook? I was under the impression that turned out ok. Maybe the difference is that Twitter hasn’t found a very effective monetization method, yet. But, I think they’ll do ok. I wasn’t really keeping up with this until my wife sent me these photos. Now I wish I’d planned ahead and jumped on the bandwagon early. Maybe next time around.
The October “Zombie Apocalypse” Loot Crate
Getting a monthly box of surprise goodies every month is always a lot of fun. Sometimes, the anticipation is better than what actually comes out of the box, but this month the guys at Loot Crate really outdid themselves. I really love zombie movies and zombie shows, so the theme of this month’s box (“Survive”) was great to start with, but they really picked a great set of items to include. I was really surprised to see a book in the box, but it fits the theme perfectly.
The shirt is awesome. I’ll be wearing that tomorrow. I filled out the card and gave it to my wife. She thought it was really awesome and stuck it on the fridge.
I’m not sure when I’ll have a chance to read The Zombie Survival Guide. It’s been on my reading list for a long time already, but I’m always bogged down with reading for classes. Maybe this winter. Maybe.
The September 2013 Loot Crate
The monthly loot crate was a welcome distraction from my homework. I can’t say I loved everything in the box this time around, but the Stimpy plushie, Simpsons keychain and Andy Warhol-esque Stormtrooper magnet are pretty cool.
Wednesday Paint
The August Loot Crate: Cake, Caffeine and Zombies!
This is the fourth Loot Crate I’ve opened. The Loot Crates seem to be a little hit-or-miss for me in terms of whether or not I like what’s in them, but I suppose that’s the nature of a service like this. You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time, right? This time, I was pleased.
My favorite item from the box this time around is definitely the shirt. It has the chemical structure of caffeine shown in a cartoon way with the molecules smiling and holding coffee cups. Underneath there is a set of stat changes, as if caffeine were an item in an RPG. Very fun. Very cool.
My second favorite item is the AMC Walking Dead Mystery Mini. This little guy is really cool, and I’m definitely interested in checking out the other figures in the series. It’s sort of an anime looking take on the zombies from The Walking Dead. More of these can be found here: Funko: The Walking Dead Blind Box Mystery Mini Figure
The other stuff in the Loot Crate wasn’t bad either. The theme for this month was “Cake”, and as almost any person who regularly plays games can tell you, even if they haven’t played Portal, the cake is a lie. Well, except, this time it really wasn’t. I got cool Aperture (fictional company from Portal) branded stuff. I think I can manage to get some use out of the lanyard, though I’m not sure about the wrist band or the fake tattoo. I’m not sure who I know that might want those, but I’m not sure I want to just toss them either.
The Cake booklet marked as issue 1 is a better and much improved version of the informational card that used to come in Loot Crates that let’s you know what it is, exactly, that you’ve unboxed, as well as providing a theme introduction, information about a featured looter, the monthly Mega Crate, and some photo contest details. It’s very well done and full of bright, colorful pictures. I suppose that plays into the second purpose of Loot Crate as a business model: send out samples at reduced cost in return for drumming up business for the companies that provided the products.
So, will I do more business with the people that provided the products for this month’s Loot Crate? I’ll definitely be checking out Shirt.Woot!, considering a $5-off coupon was included, and even with Loot Crates, I’d still buy Jelly Belly jelly beans.
*Disclosure: The Funko Walking Dead link is affiliated, meaning if you buy something after hitting Amazon through that link, I get a kickback.
The June 2013 Loot Crate
This month is the second month that I’ve been subscribed to the Loot Crate service. I know I got my money’s worth, but somehow I just didn’t feel that excited when I opened the box. Maybe it was because the shine is wearing off, but I think it’s more likely that the items in this box just weren’t as personally interesting to me as what I received last month. That’s ok, though, because what I can’t use, I’ll pass along to friends and family. Maybe that’s part of Loot Box’s insidious plan to dominate the market. You give stuff to your friends and then they sign up too?
Anyway, the motif this month was “Mashup”, which means they found items that combine two different characters or stories in a single item. The items in the loot box that fit the motif are the Dead Pool-Aid T-Shirt (the Kool Aid Man made to look like Dead Pool) and a sticker that shows both Mario and Rafael from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The sticker is pretty cool, and I wore the t-shirt today. Maybe that wasn’t the best choice, considering the shirt is black and it’s really hot out, but it was fun to sport the Kool Aid Man.
I miss seeing those old Kool Aid Man commercials on TV. Don’t skip the video below. It mentions nostalgic and funny things, like Pogs and mailing things with paper!
Other nifty items in the box were 8-bit glasses, a BIC Stylus 2-in-1 pen, a neat robot sticker, some Warheads, a Loot Crate Wall Tangrams and Stan Lee’s Comikaze Golden Ticket.
My wife claimed the 8-bit glasses right away.
I can give the stylus pen to my mom. She was just talking about needing one and I never use a stylus myself.
The robot sticker went on the side of my bookcase, along with the Mario/TMNT mashup sticker and a Cat Vs. Human sticker I got as an added bonus when I ordered one of Yasmine Surovec’s posters. I also went ahead and put the Loot Crate Wall Tangrams thing up there. I’m not quite sure what it’s supposed to be. The stickers just looked good arranged like that. Better than a box anyway. It sort of reminds me of a giant robot that can destroy cities. The best part is, these Wall360 stickers can be rearranged up to 200 times without losing their adhesive backing. They don’t seem to leave any residue either. I took a look at the web site and I saw quite a few things I’d like to stick on my walls. I’ll definitely be ordering from them in the future.
The Comikaze Golden Ticket has a code on the back that offers a random chance for a free or discounted ticket to the Comikaze event in Los Angeles this November. It is useless to me, since I don’t live anywhere close to Los Angeles and I don’t plan on buying a plane ticket just to take advantage of a discounted ticket. I’m not sure what the Loot Crate guys were thinking when they added that into the box. Does that high a percentage of their subscriber base live in LA or California?
Last month I was happy. This month, not so much, but I suppose that’s part of the deal. It’s a random selection of stuff. I wonder what I’ll get next month?
Bradley's Old Fashioned Weblog 