Bungie Budgie, The Trip, A Loss and a Scanner.

[stellarwind]

And sadly, they'd do a better job than 343i seem to be doing.

(Insert five hours of nerdrage about Cryptum, Primordium and how bears named Greg do not belong anywhere near writing things even vaguely related to the Halo series).

Ahem.

Anyway, needless to say I've been back here for a while. Landed on August 22nd, and been kind of derping about since. I figured that since I haven't updated LJ in bloody ages I might as well ramble for a bit about what's been going on with me as of late. Caution: This post is going to be a huge fucking novel.

So, first and foremost: the trip.

To save up on the traveling expenses, I made my way to New York with a Ukrainian airline by the name of Aerosvit... through KIEV, believe it or not. It was a short connection - not that I was in a hurry, but everyone else was Russian around there (*badum-tish*) - but I never imagined finding myself in Ukraine of all places. I also never imagined hearing so much rapid fire near-unintelligible English in a Russian accent (on the planes themselves) and seeing an airport run entirely by charades (where the English part of the announcements sounded like a cross of an answering machine and Google Translate, I kid you not). It was an... experience, to say the least.

(Could have been worse. Couple of decades back the planes would probably fly US.)

So. A whole bunch of hours in the air later, we finally make landfall in NY - where my passing through passport control went off pleasantly fast and my suitcase made the trip perfectly fine, taking very little time to locate. An hour or so later Megan and her 'rents landed as well (obviously they had to fly in from Orlando xD). There indeed was a slow-motion-run-glomp except we didn't bother with the slow motion because we missed each other too much. XP

There followed a quick cab ride that took us to our base of operations in the city itself - The London. Nice place. Verrrrrrrrrrrrry nice. Epic rooms, and the Gordon Ramsay powered restaurant made it even nicer (for the record, Eggs Benedict + Lobster = One hell of a combination).

NYC itself is probably one of the most what-the-hell-were-they-on-when-they-built-this-place cities I've ever encountered. You could have a crazy gothic-looking building of the sort that would make Count Dracula himself question his own gothness and right next to it a building that looks like it's escaped from a bad sci-fi movie (complete with triangular glass panels of what)... and right next to THAT, a building in a completely different style. Any transportation laws appear to be nothing more than recommendations and everywhere you go you find swarms upon swarms of delis, questionable looking electronics and souvenir shops, scaffolding (I swear some of those scaffolds have probably been around since the STONE AGE), hot dog/ice cream/pretzel/mafia body storage vans, tourists, people trying to rent other people bikes... and over-sized pigeons that defy aerodynamics by still being capable of flight. I'm normally not a huge fan of omg cities (understatement of the year), but what can I say, NYC is NYC. It's an experience.

~*~

On our first full day in NY we visited the American Museum of Natural History. Aside from its inexplicable hard-on for Theodore Roosevelt and gift shops (I swear, multiple floors of Museum and EACH FLOOR HAS ITS OWN GIFT SHOP, IF NOT SEVERAL) the place utterly rocked, and I'm not just saying that because we spent an unnatural amount of time in the mineral exhibit. Well, we did, but there was also quite a bit of space-related awesomeness, biology-related awesomeness (including a neurobiology related special exhibit that Megan and I were rather squee-ful about) and the occasional paleocritters (Cue me nerding out about parasaurolophii and muttering at the lack of gorgonopsids. XD).

We had this sort of lunch/dinner/whatever in a little place in Brooklyn named Rye, run by friends of one of Megan's cousins (who, along with a few other people in her extended family, were with us for the Museum as well as said dinner - even though we broke off and went off on our own explory adventuretiems as soon as we got there xD). Megan and I attacked a "Grass Fed Ribeye For Two" - which is a code word for 'One Ginormous Slice Of Cow'. They brought the meat over to the table before actually preparing it just to show us the nature of the beast - meet the meat, if you will - And I swear it was a slab of meat larger than my head. Nevertheless, between the two of us, Megan and I managed to skeletonize the thing, and it was delicious. Everything was, really - pretty much everyone's orders went around the table and everyone tried a bit of everything (this is a very common thing with Megan's family, actually. And is awesome).

~*~

Day Two started off with a visit to Sam Ash, a musical instrument store with, apparently, quite the history. You know. The sort of places that actually have their instruments open for ze public to try out. A childhood friend of Megan's father works there, specifically responsible to the acoustic guitar segment of the place - and after we made our introductions, I got to actually play a guitar with a ridiculous price tag and a rather nice sound for a bit. XD

In other news POKEMON CENTER! *YAAAAAAAAAAAAY~*

It had to happen, really. For us, a pair of Pokemon Nerds in New York, to NOT visit Nintendo World? That would have been sacrilege. After I got my own personal hands-on experience on the 3DS (The 3D effect is actually really awesome, and if the damn thing had ANY games to speak of I would have totally considered getting one after the price drop) we left the place armed with a Rampardos Minifig (apparently Rampardos merch is extremely rare - probably on account of them butting their way out of the plastic and seeking vengeance upon their captors) and an array of PokeDolls - two of which were for Megan (an adorable freakin' Snivy that I got for her because I could, and a Giratina with the greatest disgruntled owl face ever) and the others were to be delievered to the spawn of some other relatives of hers (A Mew, a Munna, a Sandile and the most angry looking Chibi Ho-Oh I've ever set my eyes on, probably because it had to be in the company of all the terrifying pink things). Hurdadurdalur.

Also we got photobombed by her Flareon-Pokedoll-toting dad.

Anyhow. As we were already at the Rockefeller Center, we decide to take the Iconic EVERYBODY LOOKS LIKE ANTS! View-Of-NY-From-A-Tall-Building thing at the Top of the Rock. Everybody, indeed, looked like ants. View was insane. And there was a particularily high-flying ladybug hanging on one of the glass panels. HOW did it get all the way up there is anybody's guess.

~*~


The next day was slightly less fun - Megan's been brewing some sickness for a bit and Tuesday is when it decided to hit the worst. So we spent most of the day in the room and/or hunting doctors. Biggest highlight of the day was the escape of a peacock from their zoo, which proceeded to settle down on some sixth story window on 5th Avenue, just chillin', being a peacock. And we got to see it hanging out there as we were headed back to the room after visiting aforementioned doctor. Things got better after that.

On Wednesday we went to see a Broadway show with yet ANOTHER set of relatives. It was a musical adaptation of Catch Me If You Can (And as much as I disliked the movie, the musical adaptation was excellent. Curiously, the relative that was pushing for this one specifically did not like it. I don't think he expected a musical XD). Later in the evening we all met up again for dinner at a restaurant with the most ironic name ever. The place was named "Butter". All the butter they EVER got you was like... two tiny medallions of the stuff, and THAT'S ALL YOU GET. NO MORE. They did have pretty great steaks though, along with rather good crab cakes and this sort of ricotta/peach flatbread that was also great. One common thread about the food in NYC - it's usually great. XD

~*~

Thursday morning was largely dedicated to Central Park - which is, to me, easily the most attractive part of the city (other, of course, than the one that was walking by my side and being adorable simply by existing - but she was only temporarily a part of the city XD). What can I say, I'm a sucker for awesome nature-y places with less humans wandering about. Once we've covered what there was to really cover, we returned to the hotel, packed up, signed off, and launched off to a magical mystery tour... of Queens. Megan's Dad got in a nostalgic mood and simply had to show us all where and how he grew up. Epic stories ensued. Mostly involving explosions and aircraft.

And then we headed out to Long Island for the last three days of the NY leg of the trip. Along the way we landed in the Landmark Diner - where the executive chef is yet another relative of Megan's (yes, her extended family is indeed a running theme of this part of the trip, and yes, she has a bloody hell of a lot of relatives). Again, rather good food. Although I probably should have been more careful with that... roast-beef-mozerella-mashed-potato-supreme-mountain-of-oh-my-gods-what-was-I-thinking-when-I-ordered-this. Delicious, but heaaaaavyyyyyyyyyyyyy. @_@ Megan opted for a grilled cheese sandwich. It happens.

Once that was done, we proceeded to the hotel where we spent the next two nights, the Hyatt Place in Riverhead - a recently-finished and still rather full of construction dust hotel that was a bit of a disappointment. Only highlight of this hotel was the fact that Megan and I got room #222 (Cry, Sem, Cry) and that the card keys had a pattern that was distinctively bloody POLKA DOTS (Da Fuck?).

Well, that and the fact it was right next to a REALLY good largely seafood based restaurant named Jerry and the Mermaid. We hit the place for breakfast/lunch on Friday. I personally tackled a seafood crepe with Newburg sauce (whatever that is) which was delicious. Megan, who is slightly less adventurous than me as far as food goes, simply went for a cheeseburger. Which of course leads to the staggering realization that my girlfriend is a lolcat. Well at least she doesn't nyan. On the same friday we visited more of Megan's relatives at their house (which is REALLY nice), and that's the gist of it really.

Saturday we gathered up again and visited the Long Island Aquarium (or, as it calls itself, Atlantis), also neighboring the hotel. It had the typical aquarium attractions - A pool full of rays that one could pet and actually feed (I got my hand lightly nibbled on by a stingray I was feeding, actually! It was ridiculous XD), A Sea Lion show (because Sea Lions are awesome), a shark tank (SHARK. ROOM. SHARK ROOM WEDDING. Err... Long story. XD) also starring large grouper-type fish and a romantic green eel (Why romantic? ... That's a moray~ o/`) and Penguins (Oh, intercourse the penguin!). That evening we had dinner in a place called the Cooperage Inn - another place with great food. Megan and I were apparently both in a chicken sort of mood as she had a Chicken Pot Pie and I had Chicken Tuscano. And it was good.

Sunday was our last day in the general area - we spent most of the day visiting Megan's relatives again - this time was pretty much a huge gathering of everyone. During that day I've discovered a fascinating phenomenon of elemental particle physics: wherever Megan's relatives gather in one place, they tend to form a cloud that hovers as a singular unit and generates audio at noise levels comparable to that of a small, continuous sonic boom. Great people and all, but they're even louder than I am and that's saying something. xD Following this gathering, we returned to Orlando via airplane - although because the airline involved has a dumb "oh you can just sit anywhere" policy re: their planes, Megan and I couldn't sit together (which was annoying as fuck, but eh.at least we were right across the aisle from each other. XD

~*~

Anyway. We got back to Orlando - and the two weeks from then on zoomed past at a ridiculous rate. We've spent much time just being together, cuddling, playing video games (Primarily Sengoku Basara 3 and the traditional Halothon, with Halo: Reach thrown in) and watching stuff (Appleseed, Appleseed Ex Machina, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, Bender's Game, AMV Hell 3 and 4 and Dogma) - but we've also met a few friends of Megan's and played a few rounds of Laser Tag with a few of them - I was the sole survivor of the first round, while in the second round our team got effectively wiped out - we suspect that the opposing team - a bunch of bratty children, some of which were birthday brats, had the odds adjusted in their favor because SERIOUSLY, it felt like their sensors did not register our guns even at point blank range! They were sore winners, too. (To the point that for more than a few moments I kind of wished the laser shotgun I was wielding could momentarily transform into an actual shotgun. Have I mentioned my deep dislike of children yet?).

There was also much awesome food - some of it summoned by Megan's mother, some of it involving restaurants - most prominent of which being The Melting Pot (a great fondue place which Megan and I hit last year too, but this time we went with her parents for her mom's birthday, and it was good), a barbecue place that had some royally awesome pulled pork sandwiches, and lastly, Kobe (which is a Japanese Steakhouse specializing in Teppanyaki dinners - which, apparently, means "Round up a group of victims, throw them around a massive table with a hot plate embedded in it, summon a very very asian chef with very very mad skills to cook everything dramatically on said hot plate right in front of said victims.")

~*~

... Oh right, re: Kobe. Weirdest thing happened. Since there were only two of us - not nearly enough to fill a table - we were grouped with a large group of people who were there for one of their party's birthday. Let's just say that we kicked the IQ levels around the table up a notch.

Put simply, the birthday victim - a man in his late thirties-early-fourties (I haven't bothered committing his age to memory) was a douchebag of the highest possible degree. Even ignoring the fact that he was all "No Soy Sauce!" (in a JAPANESE fucking restaurant?! o_O) - who knows, maybe he was allergic or something, although judging by the fact that everything is cooked on the same plate and the tone he had it did not seem to be the case - the man was severely disrespectful towards anyone around him - especially what we assumed to be his wife (who was the quiet trophy wife type, apparently, as he made some incredibly chauvinistic remarks and she did not seem offended at the least bit.) and even more shockingly, the chef. He talked to the man as if he was a slave. Or a monkey. Continuously calling him "Boo Boo" (I don't remember the chef's name, but it only had one 'bu' syllable in it) and going all "You done good, Boo Boo, but you gotta keep doing good." repeatedly in the most disrespectful tone I've ever heard. Probably thought he was being so clever. I couldn't help but admire the chef and the way he managed to completely ignore this asshole, keep his composure and still manage to cook in a most epic way.

But anyway, as we were waiting for foods to cook and this guy kept harping on at his party about football/baseball/some other sport, NASCAR races and something about colleges known for sports, parties and fuckall else (meanwhile, Megan and I were silently plotting the hypothetical fusion of his face with the hot plate), the anthropologists in us led us to observe the rest of the party, and we've made some alarming discoveries.

1. One of the relatives of this douche (a brother, possibly? they had some family resemblence) who seemed particularily "dear god, what am I doing here?" looked oddly familiar with the exhasperated expression and the general face. It then struck us: the man looked a hell of a lot like Simon Cowell.

2. It gets worse: they all had their children with them, a few of which were teenagers. And this one kid... I shit you not... LOOKED LIKE A CLONE OF JUSTIN BIEBER.

SIMON COWELL, JUSTIN BIEBER AND THIS GUY. THE DINNER TABLE OF HELL. Megan and I were highly amused and disturbed at the same time. xD

~*~

Also sighted in Orlando: A truck selling "Korean Barbecue Tacos" - which by very definition crack me up as much as Firetrucks on Fire, as well as, well, this building.

Run that one by me again? Modern Bridal Shop... Elite Fighting Academy?



Mmmmyep.

~*~

The last major thing that happened in this trip involved us hitting the Kennedy Space Center. Breakfast that day involved stopping at a place on the way there that had rather ginormous pancakes and pretty good coffee - and then we were off to the space center itself - which was quite awesomely SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE. Other than much Space Shuttle related stuffs (including an actual shuttle launch simulator that was pretty damn awesome) And a thing about NASA Robotic probes, the space center also held a rather impressive Star Trek exhibition (as part of a "Sci-Fi Summer" or somesuch) that featured quite a few awesome slices of 'Trek - specifically TOS and TNG eras - including a full replica of the original Enterprise's bridge, complete with a sit-on-able captain's chair. A picture of Megan's dad in said chair, with the priceless expression of a five-year-old that found his favorite toy says everything. XD

Although the most impressive part of the space center was an IMAX movie based on one of the missions to repair the Hubble telescope, which also featured a compilation of footage from the telescope itself. It was an amazing experience: since all the footage melted into itself, it was actually like flying into the crazy nebulas and things and watching the forming of stars. The zooming out was even MORE impressive - kind of gives you a massive sense of perspective when you realize these specks of dust in this shot aren't specks of dust... They're not even STARS. They're fucking GALAXIES. And each one of those has millions of stars, each one with its own system of orbiting bodies and FFFFFFFFFFFF-. Total perspective vortex, much? There was no fairy cakes to be seen anywhere. I strongly suspect that the projection was done using Dippin' Dots (ahem, sorry, I mean 'Space Dots'), though.

And Megan and I got matching dogtags engraved with "Cygnus X-1 Forever". Their other side shows the Apollo 13 mission logo. Failure is Not and Option, and all. IT'S SYMBO-O-LIC.

~*~

And then It was all over, and early morning on the 21st I found myself, again, dealing with airports. My flight back was a bit saner - it was through Air Canada, and after a semi-long-ish connection in Toronto, it was up on yet ANOTHER plane and back to Israel. I spent most of THAT flight sleeping, though I've also found myself watching three movies at least on this flight - two of which were Aardman movies (Chicken Run, which I've watched before, and Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit) and the last was a royally fucked up Zack Snyder movie named Sucker Punch. It was... one of the weirdest things I've ever watched, although it had a few REALLY nifty action scenes.

And then I landed. Derp.
.

So, TL;DR version - It was an awesome trip and I had a wonderful time with ze lifemate.

Once I got back here, not much happened. I've replayed a few point-and-click adventure games and started a new run of Pokemon Platinum (because I've finished the copy of White I finally got my claws on) and a run of Baldur's Gate 2 (Half-Elf Druids aren't exactly the strongest characters one can play. <<;). A new AC unit was installed in my room (which direly needed it!) and all was relatively quiet.

Until last Sunday, when my grandfather passed away after struggling with a cancer of the gall bladder. This particular type of cancer is particularily nasty, according to doctors - they said that once this sort of thing starts, strong young people have not survived for more than six months, let alone an 81-year-old and rather unhealthy man. He survived for NINE and he could have survived longer if he wanted to fight more.

My mother - who was there at the hospital when it happened - told me that before he died, he told her that he was tired of fighting - that he was tired of the recurring loop he's been living in for more or less a few months now - hospitals, tube replacements, minor recovery then the pains and the procedures again - and all this for what? For having to face the REAL major pains the cancer would have brought? His condition took a turn for the worse soon after - and then, he simply made a conscious decision to let go, close his eyes, breathe deep and simply turn off his brain. And then, he was no longer with us.

He passed on a few minutes past midnight on 4/9/2011.

This is a testament to the kind of man he was. My grandfather died as he lived - doing things his way. He faced death on his own terms - for the record, this man has simply walked off a heart attack in the past like it was nothing - like the stubborn Bulgarian he was and beat the statistics like a boss. Did not expect any less of him, honestly.

He was a man with a mighty presence - and in a way, his passing feels like the end of an era, even for someone who tends to compartmentalize the passing of loved ones (especially when they've been dying for a while and I have the time to say my goodbyes in my heart and mind). It's hard to believe that on our next family gathering he won't be with us physically - though he will always be in our hearts and minds. He will be missed.

But on happier news...

So, I got a new scanner - a logical conclusion to my scanner-less state since my old Bearpaw decided to cease functioning and then, one day, decided to casually slide off my dorm table and shatter into a million sharp painful fragments. That was months ago. In the meantime, I've been utilizing either cameras or my dad's scanner for my occasional artistic needs. I was planning on getting a new scanner for a while, but with this bloody Israeli summer heat, the thought of pulling myself out of air conditioning range for more than strictly necessary delayed me. Well, the stars aligned right and among unrelated errands, I've finally purchased a new scanner.

It's a Canon LiDE 110 - and it's definitely a change from what I'm used to. Put simply, the thing is light as all hell. It also only has one cable as it's strictly USB powered. It's also rather loud (to the point I actually looked it up to see if it's the scanner model that's so loud or if that grinding noise was indicative that something was wrong with the unit!) but eh. Its scan quality is pretty good - and while it was a bit more expensive than I expected, it was still relatively low a price.

The reason it was a bit more expensive than I expected is the fact that there is no such thing as cheaper scanners anymore.

The fault hangs at the hands of those blasted combination scanner-printer-copier-fail machines that seem to be all the rage these days. My major grievance with them in the past was the fact that they seemed to be a "One machine that does three jobs in a mediocre way rather than three machines that do one job each but do it well". Apparently they've evolved a bit since, but one issue they seem to have that will always remain is the fact that if one of the modules goes wrong, the whole thing cannot work. At all. Print head malfunctions? POOF. SCANNER IS USELESS EVEN IF THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE SCANNER. A replacement print head? costs more than the entire unit put together. >>;

So you can see why I wouldn't want anything to do with those.

The problem being that quite a great deal of humanity would prefer to buy a 3-in-1 machine and so retailers don't really have a reason to keep scanners. Leaving people like me with a problem since we're basically forced to buy a scanner that is more expensive than what we wanted to spend... or, for a similar price, buy a combination machine that we're never going to use features of and could lose the functionality we NEED if a functionality we DON'T decides to throw a hissy fit. Yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeaaaaaaaaaaaah. No.

But yeah, rant aside, scanner works great, hopefully it'll keep working great for however long I need it. (nods).

And that's pretty much the rundown of everything. Hurdadurdalur. Plans for the rest of this month include some reconstruction/redesign work on my room, signing up for whatever courses I have as soon as possible (I hope they're still running that Astrobiology course!) and set up the dorms for THIS year. Oh gods dealing with the bullshit 'reformed' public transportation system that fails to work properly kill me please. x-x