Master of the Ocarina

Today's post commemorates another video game victory in the Life of Yours Truly. Some of you may recall many many months ago that I started playing the Ocarina of Time: Master Quest, the "upgraded" version, so to speak, of the Nintendo 64 classic, which was released as part of a promotional package for the Gamecube. I didn't realize it at the time I started, but technically, Master Quest is actually a more difficult version of the original Ocarina of Time, and not just a direct port of the original. That made me pretty happy, since I really enjoyed Master Quest - Now, in a few months or so, I can play the original Ocarina of Time and not feel like I'm just doing everything over again!

Now, it probably seems like it took me forever to finish Master Quest. In retrospect, it did take me quite a long time. After all, I think the first post about me playing Master Quest was almost nine months ago. Granted, it is a pretty long game in its own right, but nine months is a long time for any game. Part of the reason it took me so long is because of my magnanimous nature in wanting to share experiences with other people that I think might enjoy the same experience. I always put off doing something I want to do in order to do it with someone else. This goes for many things - for example, if there's a movie out that I think Cherrie would enjoy, I would make myself not watch it until I have a chance to watch it with her, or if there's a vacation destination I think would be really nice to go to together, I would put it off until she could go with me. In this case, I had played a part of the game when Ed was visiting over the summer, and he had a pretty good time in helping me figure out some of the puzzles that I was stuck on. As a result, ever since then, I didn't play until Ed would have a chance to play through with me again. That would happen yesterday.

We started at Ganon's Tower yesterday, and were able to fairly efficiently figure our way out through each of the barriers and make it all the way to Ganondorf himself. After getting pummeled by him for a few minutes, I finally figured out that I had to do that same ol' tennis trick to beat him. After beating Ganondorf, we escaped the collapsing tower to face the final boss, the transformed giant Ganon. Very cool. One of the things I love about Ocarina of Time are its larger than life bosses. However, Ganon was fairly easy as well, and we finished the game. I think there is a bug with my rom though, because after the final cutscene, the screen just goes black. No "The End" or credits or anything...

So, that was the end of Master Quest. Somewhat anticlimactic, with the lack of an end credits, but maybe that's what I deserve anyway. I did have to use the save state feature quite often to be as well equipped as I was, and I also had to take a few peeks at the FAQ on IGN for some of the puzzles. Hopefully, I'll be fully prepared for my run at the original Ocarina of Time, though!

Return to Orange Lake

Man, this December is turning out to be a rough one here at Grant's Pad... y'all need to start spreading the word about Grant's Pad. Brighten someone's holidays with the gift of superb blogging!

Anyhow, Cherrie, Ed, and I spent the weekend in Orlando this weekend, thanks again to my dad's friend Subrata, who, for the second consecutive year, couldn't find the time this year to use his holiday at the Orange Lake Resort, where we spent a few days last year. Cherrie and I left the apartment on Friday evening and made our way to the Florida Mall, where I picked up Mario Kart DS, so I can finally check that off on my Wish List! It's an incredible game (I love the tracks, especially the one that looks like it's at a National Park in the mountains somewhere), and I implore anyone I make fairly routine contact with to pick up a Nintendo DS Lite if for no other reason than to play with me over Wi-Fi! Ed ended up playing for more time than I did, however, since I was doing most (read: all) of the real, non-Mario Kart driving around this trip.

While Cherrie and I were at the mall, Shawn and Ed made their way to a Vietnamese eatery to pick up about a dozen and a half sandwiches. Apparently, Shawn's ex-girlfriend, whose name escapes me at this time, introduced them to these excellent sandwiches, which are made with great bread, a number of meats including Cha Shao (叉烧), or Chinese barbecued pork! They also come with a bunch of veggies to top the sandwich off with - basil leaves, white radish, and hot chili peppers! Yum!

That night, when we all finally got to the timeshare unit, we watched Wheel of Life, the Shaolin stage show created to demonstrate and spread interest in Shaolin Kung Fu around the world. The show is pretty good - but I think the shows that we produced with the Meihua Student Association of Martial Arts aren't all that far behind. At least our staged fights, anyway. I'm not so sure about the qigong demonstrations - I don't think I would be able to get lifted up into the air on a few spears...

The next day, Ed, Cherrie, and I made what is likely to be our last trip to Sea World for some time. We sure have made some serious usage of our Silver Passports over the year, but I think I really have enjoyed the park quite a bit. This time around, I decided that it was about time we fed the dolphins ourselves, so I splurged the four bucks (I got a dollar off because of my Silver Passport status! Yeah!) to get three fish to feed to the dolphins. Not entirely too surprisingly, this did cause the dolphins to warm up to us much better than when we were just standing by the pool with no food to offer, and we were able to get some great pics of us right up close and personal with the dolphins! Make sure to check out the Photo Albums to see them all!

Sunday was a much much slower day. Cherrie spent most of the day shopping at the Premier Outlets, while Ed and I watched another Tampa Bay Buccaneer's heartbreaking loss at the timeshare (although they did make a huge comeback effort, forcing overtime despite being down 24-3 late in the third quarter). When Cherrie finally finished shopping, we headed back to Melbourne, where we decided to stop and see the Space Coast Light Festival, a display of probably around a million or so lights set up for the holidays. I hadn't seen one of these in a while, and I thought it would be a good experience fo Cherrie to see one, since we didn't see one last year! I made Ed run around and take pictures of the lights so you all can enjoy them too in the Photo Album - so check it out to make his hard work worthwhile!

So, this weekend's trip to Orange Lake didn't really feature a lot of actual Orange Lake activity, but we plan to go back early this week, so check back for more fun filled action!

Lean and Mean!

In the midst of one of my more unproductive weeks of the year (both in terms of productivity at work and blogging, as evidenced by my low visitation this week), I enrolled into a Lean Associate seminar here at work. What's Lean, you ask? It's exactly what it sounds like - Not Fat. Okay, well I guess that's not really what it is, but basically it's a business/manufacturing philosophy not entirely unlike Six Sigma, which I referenced a few months ago (you know, the one with the Black Belt ranking system). The ultimate goal of Lean Electronics is increase value to the customer by reducing waste and improving overall efficiency. So, in essence, we want to "lose fat", with the figurative "fat" being waste, be it wasted time, effort, and ultimately, money.

So, after a long day that started at a very unappreciated 7AM, I am now officially a certified Lean Electronics Associate! Right off the bat, my group took this to mean that I am now the in-house consultant on streamlining processes, and it looks like I have yet another set of responsibilities for Fiscal Year '07. Good for career, hopefully not too bad for free time!

In other news, Cherrie (as she's requested that we now spell it) and I watched Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest yesterday. I thoroughly enjoyed Curse of the Black Pearl, the original Pirates of the Caribbean movie that came out in 2003. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I've added it to my list of favorite movies in my Facebook profile. My expectations for Dead Man's Chest, however, were not very high, despite its record breaking opening this past summer. I'd heard bad things about it, and frankly, I was a little turned off at the thought of all the supernatural things going on in the sequel. However, after watching it, I thought it wasn't all that bad at all! It didn't surpass the original, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected it would be, and now I'm really looking forward to At World's End, the third installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. Apparently, Johnny Depp is pretty excited about it too - in an interview, he stated how he would be happy to reprise his role as Captain Jack Sparrow even if they got to Pirates of the Caribbean 7. Oh, and Cherrie read on Wikipedia that Depp even got a tattoo featuring sparrow with the name "Jack" written above it. So yeah, that kind of tipped me off too.

Not much else to write about today - we're going to Orange Lake again this weekend and for part of the upcoming week though, so stay tuned!

One last thing - I saw this awesome little ASCII art of my favorite handheld while messing around the Nintendo forums:

[=[_]=]
[+[_]::]

You know you love it.

SEC Champions Wallpaper

It's been more than a week, but GatorCountry hasn't provided us with a bad ass SEC Champion wallpaper yet. So instead, I'll bring you this one, from the St. Petersburg Times:


And, while we're posting wallpapers, here's an inspirational poster for all you Meeechigan fans out there!


In case you're having a hard time reading the fine print, here's what it says:

"Defeat. For Every Winner, There Are Dozens Of Losers. Odds Are You're One Of Them."

Another Shuttle Night Launch Photo

The photo below was taken by one of my co-workers, Rick, who's really into astronomy. He was the same guy who took the pictures of Saturn a few months ago. This one was just taken at the Hilton, so probably there wasn't as much preparation for it, but his photos came out way better than mine, so I figured it merited a post all of its own! Enjoy!

Space Shuttle Night Launch!

Man, I just realized that the Tom Brady Mancrush post below was the landmark 200th post here at Grant's Pad... that kind of sucks!

But anyway, a couple of days ago, on Pearl Harbor day, a space shuttle launch was scheduled. It was to be the first night launch in four years, and the first since the Columbia disaster. The launch itself was scheduled for 9:35, but for some reason, the launch clock read 41 minutes at around 7:45 in the evening. It took me a while to figure out, but eventually my coworker Shawn cleared it up for me - apparently, the launch clock used at NASA has these pre-determined stoppages at key moments, like T -9 minutes, for example, to do final checks. Good to know.

So Cherry and I decided to drive up to Satellite Beach to see the launch with Shawn at around 9:25. We stuck around in around 60 degree weather (which is pretty cold, by Floridian standards). It was cold enough for Cherry to break out her snowsuit, but Shawn, who is from Ohio, came out in shorts. We waited and waited, until it was about 9:50, and Shawn decided to give up and go home. Cherry and I, who drove about 20 minutes to get to Satellite, waited it out a few more minutes, but finally, we gave up and went home as well.

On getting home, we found out that the launch had been delayed due to weather and was rescheduled for December 9th (tonight). Again, Cherry put on the snowsuit and we headed out to Satellite Beach, where Shawn and his shorts and Nick and his roommate Chris met up with us to view the launch. Check out the photos from the launch in the Photo Album or the little photo flipper in the sidebar! Some of them are really cool, like the one below, caused by my wobbly picture taking. "Commander, have you been drinking again?"

Tom Brady Mancrush Tribute

In the wake of the UF-Michigan controversy, this might lighten things up a bit. This is one of the funniest things I have ever seen on Youtube...





Some favorite lyrics:

• Your cleft chin makes me such a fool, Your eyes captivate, And though you have good protection, Won't you just throw me your ball?
• Brady, you're my QB in tight pants and I love you, You're the starter in my fantasy league for two, Brady, there's so many ways I want to catch your passes, Won't you throw me something softly down the field
• I'm a tight end but I hope one day to be your wide receiver, How I long for you to hit me in the slot, Forever, let there be two-a-days when we can play together, Let me hear you call your audible in my ear
• Brady, your balls are the only balls I need, and my endzone is where I want you to be cause Brady, there's a touchdown I want you to throw, You're the qb of my life, you're my Brady

Some of the comments are pretty, uh, classic too:

• msterliz123 (1 month ago):
  It's not that I have a man crush on Tom Brady, I just wanna run my fingers through his hair and rock him to sleep
• erikmelvin86 (2 days ago):
  You know, Brady's one of those guys who's so good looking that even a straight man would have trouble saying no if asked to pleasure him in the locker room...

Pretty creepy...

Banged Up

So, more than one month stands between today and January 8th, the date of the NCAA BCS National Championship Game. That kind of sucks, in a way. It means I don't get to see any Gator games for more than a whole month!

On the other hand, it's good because we will get to heal up some of our injured players. It's pretty astonishing how many players we have that are banged up. Tailback DeShawn Wynn, who would have had a great year if it had not been for all the injuries, is still nursing that shoulder that by now (after two years of repeatedly injuring it) must be pretty close to mush. Defensive lineman Ray MacDonald hyperextended his arm against Arkansas and had to sit out for the rest of that game. Starting strong safety Tony Joiner got rolled up, and one of our offensive linemen (Drew Miller, I think?) also got rolled up. Yeah, so the Gators could definitely use this time to freshen up.

Speaking of being banged up, I'm a little banged up myself these days. I twisted my calf a bit making a hard cut on a kick return over the Thanksgiving break and also might have taken a hit to the ribs at some point. I don't really remember taking the hit, but I've been feeling pretty sore around there for the past two weeks. Of course, I had to go and play some more tackle football this past Sunday because it was just so much fun the previous weekend. Nick and I were supposed to go to the park to toss the ball around. I ended up getting to the park a bit earlier than he did, and saw a bunch of kids playing tackle football. One of the kids invited me to join in, and so I did.

I was still a little sore, but the kids were mostly little (around 13 or 14 I guess). Except for one 13-year old who was probably around 5'7", 220 pounds and the black kid Josh that invited me to play, they were all pretty small, so we weren't going to do a lot of hitting. Josh claimed to play varsity for Satellite High, which I think isn't really that good. Still, I remember the varsity players at my high school were pretty athletic. Josh had a pretty good arm, and for being 15 or 16, he had decent size too - probably around 5'8", 170 pounds. He isn't as strong as I am though - he said he benched around 200 pounds, but I am almost a decade older than he is too.

The game was pretty fun - most of the kids were afraid to get hit by me or get run over by me, so I had a field day scoring on short, dump-off passes. One of my favorite plays of the day was when I caught a short pass, made a double-move, then burned Josh, who claimed to have a 4.6 40-yard dash, for the score. I was also able to defend quite number of passes thrown to Josh, so either I have better than 4.6 speed, or he doesn't! He was a pretty good tackler though. Probably better than me. He was able to get out of my tackle several times, but he hit me really hard once.

Which brings me back to the being banged up. That hit gave me a pretty good headache for the remainder of the day, and all that running around and juking really aggravated that right calf, which is still pinching even as I type. And it's been like two days! I don't know how those athletes do it!

Still, lots and lots of fun.

Gator All-Americans

It's somewhat old news, but I haven't mentioned it before. For the first time since 2003, UF players were selected as All-Americans (not counting Freshman All-Americans)! The two players to garner the honor this year were the aforementioned Ryan Smith, a graduate student transfer from Utah who leads the Gators, and the SEC, in interceptions this year, and the incomparable Reggie "Freakin'" Nelson, the "Eraser" himself, the monster free safety who has terrorized wideouts all year long and is candidate for the Thorpe Award, this year. Smith and Nelson were 3rd team and 1st team All-Americans, respectively!

In addition, freshmen Brandon James and Percy Harvin were selected as Freshmen All-Americans. We've got a great team going into the National Championship, and it looks like we're gonna have a bright future as well!

Last, but not least, I heard a funny story yesterday when my buddy Kaveh called. He told me that one of his classmates from business school knew a hot black girl who once dated Chris Leak. Apparently, that girl dumped Chris for a baseball player, and that Chris was "weird" and never wanted to do anything fun, like go out and party. I can kinda imagine that - Leak really seems like a quiet guy who likes to play by himself. Even in that picture from the end of the SEC Championship game, poor Chris is buried behind Dallas Baker. Still, getting dumped for a baseball player's gotta burn a bit! Maybe that's what caused all those bad games he's had!

Gators to Glendale!

It's official! The Gators are officially Number 2 in the BCS rankings and on their way to face Ohio State for the first time ever. And, what better venue to do it in than in the National Championship Game in Glendale, Arizona?



With the 13-9 loss by USC to UCLA and the Gators' solid victory against Arkansas, Florida was able to just barely leapfrog Michigan (to the disgust of quite a few Michigan fans, like the ones who write MichiganZone.blogspot.com. While I usually thoroughly enjoy reading that blog and am a supporter of Michigan on most days of the year, I have to say: "Poo on you, Michigan!"

I'm not going to sit here and rant (much). Florida's offense, while shaky, has been just as prolific (thanks to explosive plays) as Michigan's. Our defense is stellar, holding two of the top running backs in the country to less than 140 yards combined on Saturday - two running backs who combined for 300 rushing yards a week ago against the then number 2 LSU defense. I think we match up fairly well, albeit very interestingly, against Ohio State, and deserve the chance we got. Besides, we've never played them before, and it would be great to finally settle things on the field!

We've got four weeks and change to prepare for the biggest Gator game this century. Let's go out with a BANG, Gators!!

FLORIDA GATORS: 2006 SEC CHAMPIONS

38-28, Florida Gators win the 2006 SEC Championship over the Arkansas Razorbacks/Pigs/Hogs!

This was one of the craziest games I have ever seen (although I have to say, I've said that about at least 3 or 4 games this season - see the South Carolina game, for example). The Gators came out guns blazing, stuffing the vaunted Darren McFadden/Felix Jones rushing offense and scoring 17 points in the first half, started by a 33-yard field goal by Chris Hetlund - his longest of the season - on his birthday! The next touchdown was on a short field caused by a blocked punt, and Chris Leak rushed it in from nine yards out. Shortly after, Chris Leak tossed a 37-yard touchdown to Percy Harvin, making the score 17-0, before Casey Dick completed a long touchdown pass to Marcus Monk to make the score 17-7 at halftime. The long pass vaulted Chris Leak to the top of Florida's record books for Career Passing yards, who now has over 11,000!

The second half started abysmally for Florida. Leak was had two crucial interceptions - one returned for a touchdown, as Arkansas stormed back with 14 unanswered points, including a touchdown pass by Darren McFadden, to make the score 21-17. On fourth and long, the Gators ran a fake punt, pitching to Jemalle Cornelius, who kept the drive alive for another set of downs. That set of downs was wasted, however, and Florida was forced to punt again. This time, Eric Wilbur boomed the punt all the way inside the 10-yard line, where the kick returner, a freshman named Fish, muffed it. Freshman defensive back Wondy Pierre-Louis recovered the muffed punt for a TD to make it 24-21!

Arkansas wasn't done yet, though. They would drive down the field and score another touchdown on a double pass by their wideout to retake the lead 28-24. We quickly responded by intercepting the ball and scoring on our own trick play - a reverse pass by Andre Caldwell to tight end Tate Casey to take the lead 31-28. The great Percy Harvin would end all scoring with a 37-yard counter run to make the final score 38-28, and Utah transfer Ryan Smith's eighth interception on the season allowed the Gators to eat up all but four seconds on the clock to win the game!

A few thoughts:

• Percy Harvin was absolutely amazing in this game, and all season for that matter! I can't wait to see what he will be like with a few years under his belt!
  
• Cornelius Ingram was also solid. He should have gotten way more looks in this season.
  
• How good is Ryan Smith? I simply can't believe he was on the bench his sophomore season. His replacement must be friggin' phenomenal, because he has been as good a corner as I've ever seen at Florida!
  
• Five players threw touchdown passes in this game, and only two of them were by quarterbacks!
  
• It's great to see Chris Leak finally get his ring!
  
• The unthinkable happened earlier today. The Number 2 USC Trojans were upset by unranked UCLA. So much for the awesome Trojans, who were defeated by an unranked team for the second time this year!
  
• The SEC Championship victory, coupled with the upset of USC, could vault Florida into the BCS National Championship game against Ohio State! Here's to hoping for the best!

China 2002, Part VIII: Dating

Wow, it's already December! At the beginning of the year, I noted how it was a bit of a chore coming back to work after a long break. I believe I was referring to the whole "getting back into the groove" effort and trying to remember what it was you were doing prior to the break. Well, this week, as you know from the previous post, follows another somewhat long break in the form of the Thanksgiving break. While the break itself wasn't nearly as long as the wonderful winter break that we get every year, it is still a fairly long break, and coming back to work this week has been just as hard. The week has seemed to just drag on forever, and heck, it's still not over yet! Usually, weeks that drag on and on are victims of having little work to do. This week, however, there actually is quite a bit of work to do. Still, the week drags.

As a result, I don't really have much journal material to write. I'm not sure you guys would want to read about what I'm doing at work (nor do I think I would be allowed to write about some of the stuff anyway), and non-work life is not particularly exciting at the moment. So, I've decided to take us back to my China 2002 Flashback series! Today's topic, our dating lives in Xi'an! Enjoy!

June, 2002. Kir-Wei and myself had gotten to know Candy and Cherry quite well, respectively. Both girls were in Kir-Wei's group in our first visit to the English Salon. One day, Kir-Wei was studying, or something, with Candy when Cherry called, asking to chat with Kir-Wei. As Kir-Wei was occupied, I decided to make a move, and Cherry and I went on our first date that night to downtown Xi'an. Over the next few weeks, Kir-Wei got very close to Candy (as evidenced one morning in class by a rather large hickey!) and I got close to Cherry (as evidenced by the lack of my appearances at group functions and staying out late at night). We went on a number of dates to the City Walls, around Shaanxi Normal University, late night ice cream and snacking around the town, and her college, 西安翻译学院, or Xi'an Translator's College, as well.

I've mentioned before in my other college flashback posts that I dated a lot in school, and my reputation among the other students in Xi'an was something of a player, though really, that's an exaggeration. If you want to see a player, see my boys Chris and Kaveh, the other members of the Tri-fectorate! Me, I enjoyed company, and was fairly proficient at obtaining digits and getting dates, but I wouldn't really consider myself to be a player. However, with both Kir-Wei and I hanging out regularly with Candy and Cherry, we weren't doing much to shed that label.

I have to admit, Kir-Wei was more capable than me. Candy really liked him a lot, as she would later even go with us on our vacation to the south. However, Cherry, as she often reminds me to this day, didn't really like me much when we first met. She says that I looked like a thug, and that the humble, book-smart kind of guy was more her type. I suppose there is some truth to her stereotype - after having dyed my hair red, not only was I often mistaken as a Korean tourist, but I looked so thug that I was actually stopped at her school by security to make sure that I wasn't there to stir up trouble! Little did she know at the time that my own academic achievements probably exceeded the vast majority of the bespectacled, academic types that she liked!

Eventually, the days came when Candy, and shortly afterwards, Cherry, had to leave Xi'an. Kir-Wei was pretty lonely for a while, but we would later meet up with her again during our vacation. He and Candy would eventually make a trip to Beijing after the rest of us had returned to Xi'an, and they both came back to Xi'an for much of the rest of our stay there, somewhat to my dismay (since I was kind of a perpetual third wheel). However, Kir-Wei is one of my best friends (not to mention the most regular visitor of Grant's Pad), so I tried to be a good sport!

When Cherry left, however, I didn't know when I would see her again. She didn't want to come with us on our trip, and left me with a farewell letter and a small pendant to remember her by. During our trip to the South, I tried to contact her many times, but on the one time that I could have crossed paths with her, I decided to continue with my friends to the rest of the trip. Eventually, she told me that her phone number had changed and gave me her home address, but I wasn't able to call her for a long time. Eventually, I wrote a letter to her, mostly in English, except for the introduction that I was able to piece together with my lousy command of written Chinese, and sent it to her in Shanghai, hoping that she would call me, but somewhat expecting that it was over...

Almost every day, I waited for her to call me. Towards the end of our stay in Xi'an, we were forced to move because of some math symposium that was going to be held in the hotel that we stayed at. As I had not yet heard from Cherry, I was pretty disappointed. However, our move was delayed, and once again I was given a little more hope! Miraculously, on the very last day before we actually moved to the International Student dorm of the nearby 外语学院, or Foreign Languages College (Candy's college), Cherry finally called. She had gotten my letter, which I had addressed incorrectly. By chance, her grandfather had walked past the pile of undelivered letters and saw on addressed to Cherry in horrifically poor Chinese penmanship. Cherry had read the letter and was so moved that she immediately called me after reading it and gave me her new phone number.

Of course, her new number was a pre-paid phone, and wouldn't you know it, she had run out of minutes before that call ended. It wouldn't be until Kir-Wei, Eric, and I were in Beijing on the last leg of the China 2002 trip that I was able to talk to her again. We kept in touch and I visited her in China several times over the next few years, getting to know one another better, and the rest, as they say, is history!

So, that's the story of how Cherry and I met, and the most important reason (among many many other wonderful ones) that my trip to China in 2002 has such a special place in my heart! From her initial dislike of me to the letter that finally brought us back together - it had ups and downs, but ends happily ever after, like my own personal fairy tale!