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Back from a great time in NYC. Leslie’s blog has a short run down of most of the trip, and I should be putting up the pictures as soon as I have a few minutes at home not spent showering or asleep. WE LOVE SIGGRAPH WOO.

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Comments

Susan — 2006-01-05 06:50:46

Hook ’em, Horns! Should we send you a T-shirt?

bryan — 2006-01-05 10:54:50

luckily i stocked up on UT gear when i was in austin for thanksgiving! Unfortunately I’m not sure I can wear my colors with pride since I can’t actually name any of our football players…

It’s amazing after having been away from Austin for 1.5 years until this thanksgiving that I should be back only a month later. We only had a day down there, leaving yesterday morning from Dallas and turning right back around today to head back. Still, the trip was worth it. We saw some of the development that’s been going on downtown (including a visit to the huge new Whole Foods on lamar, it’s like the IKEA of hippie food or something). We also had the chance to spend some quality time with my parents, who had us over for dinner on Friday (ham, yum). We also exchanged gifts, although Jeff wasn’t there (he’s in SoCal with Sophie and her family) it was still nice to get to sit around and talk a bit.

The most amazing thing happened last night–an old friend of mine got a bunch of other old friends from high school together in some random bar east of 35. It was quite a crowd… something that hadn’t coalesced at least since ‘99 (6 years ago? Really?). It was great to talk to people I hadn’t seen for so long, and I really hope that lines of communication that were reopened last night will survive.

Now it’s 24 Dec, and I’ve still got quite a bit of time (8 days!) away from SIGGRAPH to look forward to, including 4 bopping around NYC, which should be a blast. We’ve been using the new fancy camera we bought, so expect some pics on gallery soonish.

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Comments

Matt Owen — 2005-12-26 22:16:56

It was nice seeing you again, hope you have a Happy New Year. If you want to go grab a few drinks next time you’re in Austin let me know, I should be around until June or July.

Matt Owen — 2005-12-31 16:12:28

Last Message was for George Chamales, sorry.

bryan — 2006-01-04 19:41:10

I was a little confused :)

I’ll have spent about 60 hours this week working on my SIGGRAPH paper. Still 1.5 months to go. Ugh.

The semester is almost over. I’ve got two more meetings of my oh-so-painful math class, but I “finished” (or at least turned in) the last two homeworks so I can focus on the SIGGRAPH paper, which will basically be my life until 25 January at 5pm. Which is okay, really, considering how relaxed things are for the rest of the year. I do still have a week or so in late December for Texas and Christmas that I’m not being forced to give up, and I’m sort of mentally separating the remaing time before the deadline into two death marches, one from now until the 22nd, then from the 2nd until the 25th. Seems much more manageable that way.

Almost got to see the Trey Anastasio show on Friday, but after getting patted down we were bounced at the door since it turned out our tickets were for Saturday, not Friday. Oops. Transportation made it hard to get there yesterday so we ended up selling our tickets (or at least one, I gave the other away) on craigslist and staying in for the night, which was fun anyway since Doug and I were starting work on our FFVII reunion tour. Sephiroth, Cloud, the whole gang.

Now, back to work.

If any of you were like me back in 1989 sitting in front of the TV with your NES powered up, playing Dragon Warrior, then we should talk. Just in case you’re not sure, here’s a Rorschach test of sorts for you:

Does that picture make you twitch? Awaken some dark memory in the recesses of your brain? Then you’re like me, and you should definitely check out the latest iteration of this same franchise, 16 years later: Dragon Quest VIII. Square Enix is still the publisher, and there are still frickin’ slimes!

And drackies! You know you remember the drackies. Apparently Square is doing all they can to cash in on nostalgia just such as this and has actually produced a slime controller

I’m not saying you should buy this for me for christmas. But I’m also not saying you shouldn’t.

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Comments

danny — 2005-11-30 12:39:49

Everytime I think I’m almost out, the slimes pull me back in.

Looks like this is a rental now.

Cameron — 2005-12-01 06:53:32

So, how’s the game?

bryan — 2005-12-01 08:42:41

So far, nothing revolutionary. Combat is turned-based, a bit simpler than FFX, but has almost WoW-like attribute points that you allocate to get special abilities. I’m sure I could look up what all the abilities I will gain are, but I’ve been going for the “just me and the game” style of play so far. Honestly I’ve only played for a couple of hours, but it’s really been scratching my RPG itch.

Cameron — 2005-12-01 21:37:48

Heta gained two levels yesterday when I got bored. Amazing what rested XP will do for you!