Wii Game Review: Order Up

I like Diner Dash like games (Diner Dash, Cake Mania, Hell's Kitchen). And I thought I'd give this game a try. And to my surprise, I found Order Up to be one of the gems in the flooded Wii game market. I found myself unable to put this game down for a week, until I finished it. And then played it again in hard mode. When I finished that, I was left wanting more.

One common critique about this game is that its just like Cooking Mama. That may be true to some point, but Order Up is a lot more. There is a progression in this game. As you get more money, you can hire additional and more qualified help. You buy recipes, ingredients, better equipment, and evetually higher class restaurants. The cooking gets more complicated as the games progress. You must learn learn your customers and sous chef's to manage your time wisely. There is a tremendous amount of attention to detail in this game and the effort they put in to give you as much variety as possible without leaving the realm of what this game is all about. At being on the boarderline of overly ambitious, I say they pulled it off in spades.

The only critique I have about this game is that it could have been a little harder. By the time I finished the game in Normal mode, I was at a point where Hard mode was too easy. And there were many things to make this game a bit more challenging as line cooking would be in real life. I hope there is an Order Up 2. I would highly recommend this game if you like dash games or cooking games.

Basic Pancake Recipe: This one is a keeper

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg, slightly beaten
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
milk, just enough to make pourable batter

Source:
http://southernfood.about.com/od/pancakesandwaffles/r/bl30320u.htm

I had been using premixed stuff all my life, but after this recipe, I would never go back. The premix stuff always seems dry, off color, or just never able to be cooked where the pancakes actually look like pancakes (that flat dark brown color). It always just looks like a mess. Anyway, this is a really good basic recipe where you can just about add anything, and I think it should turn out delicious. I made some red bean soup today. I think I'll even experiment that in my pancakes and put less milk. Make some sort of asian pancakes. Now if I can somehow figure out how to make warm green tea syrup, I may be onto something. I'll have to go pick up some green tea powder.

The Aspi32 service failed to start due to the following error: This driver has been blocked from loading

Trying to do a cleanup of the installed programs on my computer, I made the mistake of uninstanlling Roxio Media Manager that was packaged with my Blackberry Desktop Software. After the uninstall, I started getting one of those "One of the services failed to start on startup" messages.

My immediate response was to go to the Administrative Tools -> Services but that offered no indication of anything failing to startup. Searching through my event logs, I found that aspi32.sys was failing to load.

Trying to reinstall Roxio Media Manager actually did not help. During the reinstall, the installation failed. So I just decided to just take Aspi32 out of HKLM...CurrentControlSet...Services (and other control sets). That seemed to do the trick.

Post election comments

How can we elect a black president, and at the same time, have multiple states ban gay marriage? It seems like we take 2 steps forward, and 2 steps back.

The mormon church has nothing better to do with their money than trying to take away rights from people that has nothing to do with them. And notice the key word in all this is marriage. While the catholic priests treat the boys choir as their own private halloween basket, as long as marriage isn't involved, it must be okay. I haven't been to church in a long time, but I don't remember the sermon where we're told we're supposed to impose our beliefs on people. We can influence and let people make their own decisions. God will judge them at the gate. Us preventing them from getting a certificate is really meaningless, and is a downer for all the civil rights progress we have made. Mormon church probably could have spent that money and actually accomplished something useful, not this garbage.

What do I remember from church? I remember that divorce is just as bad as gay marriage in church. But what if Prop 8 was about banning divorces. Would it pass? Would it ever get the support from the church as it did? No it wouldn't. Why? Because it would take the rights away from the heterosexual couples. And no one wants to lose rights. And this is why this is so messed up. They are fine banning people from doing something as long as it doesn't take away their rights.

Anyway, I'm glad Obama won. I'm all for investing for the future, not protecting the little that we have left. I forgot where I heard it but there are 2 types of people in this world. One of the types of the people are the people who have a high amount of negativity to losing their money. For example, they would feel worse losing $1000 than feeling good making $10,000. And this was the basis for McCain's campaign. He brought the feel of loss in people, especially in the people mentioned above who hates losing money, no matter any amount, down to the core. His campagin of "If you're rich, hold onto your money tight, and lets see what happens" didn't sound like a good plan. And "vote for me because Obama sucks" wasn't a good campaign.

Is there something about republicans that democrats don't understand? Are they all making 250k a year farming corn living in $40k mansions? I always thought they made less, but it didn't matter because their cost of living was low? Maybe they live the good life, but don't try to convince the others on the continent to switch over. Because to me, if I made less than 250k a year, it would not make sense to be republican. Further investigation on this is necessary.

Huntington Beach, my new home

I had been planning to move to LA for some time. An opportunity to move to HB came up that I couldn't pass up. The rent and util rates are really good, and I would be sharing the place with one of my good friends from college. The place is on the top floor, so there are vaulted ceilings (it makes a huge difference), and its a mile from the beach in a nice area. The rent is month to month. I had planned to move up further north, but for the time being with the cashflow, I couldn't say no to this place. As an added plus Trader Joes is across the street. That itself should help me save money.

The move went well. The challenge was that I had to move stuff to a place on the 3rd floor with no elevator. Where 2 people could easily load the truck, I needed about 8 people to unload it. I had to really call in some favors. Just like how it was in a seinfeld episode, asking a guy friend to move is kinda like asking a girl friend to go all the way. You can't ask friends you have just met or someone that you don't know that well to go all the way. That just would be a ridiculous proposition.

Anyway, I discovered I had about 4x the amount of stuff that I thought I had. It doesn't appear that anything got damaged. The only bump in the road was literally a bump in the road. While on the way to the u-haul in huntington beach to return the truck, I was trying to make a call, and I hit a center divider/island, and we rode that one for a good truck length. It gave the truck a good jolt, but luckily nothing that would cause any noticable damage to the exterior and probably to the interior of the truck. It was a lot more humorous than I'm describing it. Especially for my brother who was driving behind me. I did say no to insurace because I would be covered under my regular insurance, but during a move where you are trying to coordinate so many things, it would have been an absolute nightmare.

After 12 years in San Diego, it hasn't hit me that I have left just yet. First things to do here is get a network switch and a coffee grinder.

Vote No on Proposition 8 in California

I hate to go back on what I just said one week ago, but I have found something that I think is going to be worth my time to vote. This time, I went out of my way to register. Why? Proposition 8. I would have never thought something like this could ever have the chance to pass, until I saw all the people campaigning for it (especially my neighbors). And I really think there is some chance my vote will matter. And I have made some effort to spread the information so its not just my singular vote that I'm trying to make a difference with.

What really pushed me over the edge was a (most ridiculous) TV commerical. Basically, it was implying that if you don't vote Yes on Proposition 8, they will teach your kids to be gay in school. No, I'm not oversimplfying, spinning, or misinterpreting the commercial. It was that blantly stupid. But looking at the signs my neighbors have posted on their lawns, they must believe it. The commericial is paid for by the Momon Church who believe being gay is wrong because God says so. Nothing wrong with that (believing in what your religion tells you, its how religious operate), but why do they have to lie to the public? I am disgusted.

Do they really think that someone can learn to be gay in school? If they really believe that, they must be living a lie. Because they must have *learned* to be straight in church, and they believe their *problem* was corrected.

For rest of the normal people out there, including myself, I strongly believe you are born with your sexual preference. And being a heterosexual male male myself, I would vomit at the thought of someone trying to change that because its flat out impossible. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I also believe that its unfair to vote against something that you have nothing to do with. Its trying to enforce Jim Crows laws all over again. We have come a long way from banning people's rights on things that doesn't have to do anything with you. All the arguments I've heard against it are rubbish. More taxes for local gov? No there are not enough gay people to make a significant impact. If they really want to save a few dollars, there are a billion other things that are more effective than prop 8.

Another dumb argument for prop 8 is that if gets passed, churches will no longer be tax exempt. This is a flat out lie. And it is a lie by so called christians which is more sickening. If Prop 8 doesn't pass, and all the churches and religious organizations lose their tax exempt status, I give them the right to stone me to death. But in return, all the ones preaching that they are going to lose their tax exempt status should kill themselves if they don't lose their tax exempt status when Prop 8 doesn't pass. Do we have a deal? Come to my door on your bike with your white shirt & black tie, and we can shake on it.

How would Mormons like it if non-Mormons had the right to vote if they can have Sunday service on Sundays? It would be outrageous. Outrageous just like Prop 8. Vote No. It is unclear where I am with my Christian affiliation these days, but at least with the little bit of affiliation left in me, I would be very disappointed if regular Christians and Catholics were buying into what the Mormons were preaching, and where they have taken it with these campaigns. Don't Mormons believe that it is a sin to lie? I know that the officially recognized Christians (Prebyterian, Baptist, Lutheran, and even the non-denominational and also the Catholics) don't believe that Mormons are going to heaven because they really are not real Christians because their beliefs are out of whack, but I would have thought Mormons would believe it is a sin to lie.

The worthlessness of a singular vote from a non-advocate

I've registered to vote maybe half a dozen times during college. But I never went out to vote. Maybe if there were some people standing outside the markets with a pen in hand approaching me to take my vote, then I may have done so.

I have never seen a presidential debate. I don't bother to learn or read about the candidates or any of the propositions. So I don't/can't get involved in any arguments/discussions about a candidate or a proposition. Discussions (especially arguing against something I disagree with) usually take a tremendous amount of time and energy. And I don't think anyone will disagree with me that time and energy is our most precious resource.

Lets just think of this as a math/probability problem. What are the chances that in my lifetime, my single vote is gonna tip something in my favor? And say that I did hit the jackpot and "I" did tip something in my favor by a 1 vote margin. What is the probability that the one that I made all the difference in is something that's really gonna make a serious impact on my life where if it swayed the other way, it would not be something I can't just shrug my shoulders about? Lets say that luck was on my side, and I am 2 for 2. What is the likelihood that whatever got passed or whichever candidate that got elected is all that I was hoping it would be? (The candidate kept all his promises (like healthcare for the masses?), or the proposition got got passed wasn't veto'd or nullified shortly after.) I would say that likelihood of hitting 3 for 3 is boardering on 0.0%.

By not participating in these activities, I save myself generally 10 hours a year. Possibily 40 hours during an election year. I base that on the amount of time and energy I generally spend on arguing with people on points I disagree with, not necessarily politics.

I do believe that advocates for a candidate or proposition who spawn other advocates are indeed effective. I have not come across anything or anyone where I am willing to do that just yet.