Just a quick update -- I realized I hadn't posted yet this week updating my status -- I'm back in the States now, in Boston, after what was an uneventful flight. I think I've recovered quite nicely from jet lag, though I'm still a little worn out. Yesterday Marc and I went to the Constitution Museum here as well as the Museum of Science, both of which were pretty neat (though I'd seen the Constitution before).
Then we went to Legal Sea Foods for dinner -- eventually at the Prudential Center, after giving up looking for the Benoc-recommended Copley location. I had a a really good lobster, but I had forgotten what a complete pain in the butt they are to eat. Marc had a just as delicious grilled assortment which in retrospect I had gotten. After trying a little of it, I think I've realized that I just don't like fish when it's not fresh and well prepared, not that I don't like fish in general.
Today, I think we'll be walking the Freedom Trail. Hopefully it won't be too cold and windy today, but we'll see...
Then we went to Legal Sea Foods for dinner -- eventually at the Prudential Center, after giving up looking for the Benoc-recommended Copley location. I had a a really good lobster, but I had forgotten what a complete pain in the butt they are to eat. Marc had a just as delicious grilled assortment which in retrospect I had gotten. After trying a little of it, I think I've realized that I just don't like fish when it's not fresh and well prepared, not that I don't like fish in general.
Today, I think we'll be walking the Freedom Trail. Hopefully it won't be too cold and windy today, but we'll see...
Today is my last full day here in Iceland, which gives me a little time to reflect on the last few days (but a full roundup of FanFest will have to wait until I get back and have some time to go through my pictures). It's actually sunny today for the first time since Wednesday, though I've spent almost all my time over the last few days either inside the FanFest venue or out with various people around here.
Visiting Iceland has been a really interesting and fun experience, especially being here and spending time with people from all over the world. While GenCon always has a lot of people from outside the US, here at FanFest, the attendees are mostly from outside the US -- I've heard people speaking dozens of different languages, not to mention English with as many accents, and it really gives you a feeling for the fact that the world is a much bigger place than you can possibly realize when you spend most of your time in a single place. I've been able to meet a lot of people I have considered friends here, even though we'd never met in person before, and I will be taking home a lot of great memories.
The most fascinating thing about being in another country has been seeing all the little differences between being here and being in the US. Nearly everything here seems a little smaller (including my bed in the hotel room and the bit-too-small duvet), the smell of sulfur when you run the hot water (due to the fact that hot water here comes from geothermally-heated springs under the ground), the fact that you get a yellow light before a green light on the traffic signals, and the way cars actually expect to cede the right of way to pedestrians (quite a change from the mess on campus, for sure). I think just being exposed to a different way of doing things and a different environment has been incredibly healthy for me as a person.
The worst thing about this trip is that it really hasn't been long enough for me to really feel like I have learned as much as I should about this place, and I wish I had time to learn the language and culture here. I was really excited about coming here, and it has not been a disappointment; I can't wait until I get the chance to take a trip like this again.
Visiting Iceland has been a really interesting and fun experience, especially being here and spending time with people from all over the world. While GenCon always has a lot of people from outside the US, here at FanFest, the attendees are mostly from outside the US -- I've heard people speaking dozens of different languages, not to mention English with as many accents, and it really gives you a feeling for the fact that the world is a much bigger place than you can possibly realize when you spend most of your time in a single place. I've been able to meet a lot of people I have considered friends here, even though we'd never met in person before, and I will be taking home a lot of great memories.
The most fascinating thing about being in another country has been seeing all the little differences between being here and being in the US. Nearly everything here seems a little smaller (including my bed in the hotel room and the bit-too-small duvet), the smell of sulfur when you run the hot water (due to the fact that hot water here comes from geothermally-heated springs under the ground), the fact that you get a yellow light before a green light on the traffic signals, and the way cars actually expect to cede the right of way to pedestrians (quite a change from the mess on campus, for sure). I think just being exposed to a different way of doing things and a different environment has been incredibly healthy for me as a person.
The worst thing about this trip is that it really hasn't been long enough for me to really feel like I have learned as much as I should about this place, and I wish I had time to learn the language and culture here. I was really excited about coming here, and it has not been a disappointment; I can't wait until I get the chance to take a trip like this again.
Good morning ladies and gents from Reykjavik, Iceland! I got in here about 3 hours ago now after my 5 hour flight from Boston, during which I don't think I slept nearly as much as I should have. I wanted to take a nap, but I can't check in to my room yet, unfortunately. So for now, I'm camped out in the lobby with some other FanFest refugees and waiting to get in.
Right now, it's almost 0900 local (which is also GMT), and the sun is just starting to creep up -- I'd say it looks like it does around 0630 or 0700 does at home. Streetlights are all still on and you can't see much other than a blue-tinged grey sky (though that may be because of the overcast skies). So far, Reykjavik does not strike me at all like a city only a bit larger than Champaign-Urbana; it seems almost like a Chicago suburb in terms of the traffic, the road structure, and a lot of the architecture, with modern glass and steel mixed with smaller buildings that seem a lot like older buildings I've seen in New England.
Yesterday was not without it's troubles, unfortunately -- my flight out of Chicago got cancelled due to mechanical problems, so instead of getting to Boston at 1330, I ended up getting there closer to 1700. In retrospect, that 7 hour layover I was griping about ended up being a good idea.
Anyway, not too much to report yet -- I haven't taken any pictures but hopefully I'll be able to do some of that later today and tomorrow and get those up here. I just wanted to make a quick post before I forgot to let everyone know I got in okay.
Right now, it's almost 0900 local (which is also GMT), and the sun is just starting to creep up -- I'd say it looks like it does around 0630 or 0700 does at home. Streetlights are all still on and you can't see much other than a blue-tinged grey sky (though that may be because of the overcast skies). So far, Reykjavik does not strike me at all like a city only a bit larger than Champaign-Urbana; it seems almost like a Chicago suburb in terms of the traffic, the road structure, and a lot of the architecture, with modern glass and steel mixed with smaller buildings that seem a lot like older buildings I've seen in New England.
Yesterday was not without it's troubles, unfortunately -- my flight out of Chicago got cancelled due to mechanical problems, so instead of getting to Boston at 1330, I ended up getting there closer to 1700. In retrospect, that 7 hour layover I was griping about ended up being a good idea.
Anyway, not too much to report yet -- I haven't taken any pictures but hopefully I'll be able to do some of that later today and tomorrow and get those up here. I just wanted to make a quick post before I forgot to let everyone know I got in okay.
...I thought it might be neat to mention a website that a friend of mine so helpfully pointed out today where you can get the first two Fallout games for cheap (six bucks a pop). Good Old Games is a pretty spiffy new place where you can buy old games for cheap, download, and install them with no launcher, no DRM, and they work on XP and Vista (which was a problem for the old Fallout games). It looks like they are just rolling out, and their catalog is a little limited so far, but if it catches on, I can definitely see myself spending quite a bit collecting some old games this way. One of the best parts is that, like with Steam, you can always go back and download the game again if you have to reinstall or if you want to put it on another machine of yours (still with no DRM).
And while the catalog is small, the fact that they have the three older Fallout titles (1, 2, and Tactics), as well as the Freespace games (the best space sims ever) is a good sign. If you have never played those games, you should definitely look into grabbing them.
And while the catalog is small, the fact that they have the three older Fallout titles (1, 2, and Tactics), as well as the Freespace games (the best space sims ever) is a good sign. If you have never played those games, you should definitely look into grabbing them.
I have probably missed the boat on talking about the election at this point; with only a few days to go, almost everything that I've wanted to say about this has been said by someone else (Todd Alcott's endorsements of Obama here, here, and here sum up a lot of what I think). However, it's worth saying that for me, the most surprising part of this two year long campaign has not been the ascent of Barack Obama, but the complete collapse of John McCain.
In 2000, I remember thinking that I really wished that John McCain had gotten nominated instead of George Bush; aside from not coming across as a barely literate moron, McCain also seemed more thoughtful and more willing to call out people that others in his party were kowtowing to, such as the religious right. Sadly, over the last eight years, he seems to have lost that edge, and decided to embrace more of the standard Republican line, and it seems like that very thing may have cost him this election. I have no idea why he picked Sarah Palin as his running mate -- if you name any of her attributes, it seems like there's someone more qualified he could have picked. It's less a question of experience than a question of intelligence, of introspection, of analysis. The feeling I get from Sarah Palin, when she is talking about a subject, is like a student in school who simply memorizes something to pass a test and has no deeper understanding of the topic, even on subject she's supposedly an "expert" on.
I don't expect a politician to know everything on every subject. I don't expect to agree with a politician on every subject. However, I do expect politicians -- especially ones that are running for a national office -- to display some amount of thought on a subject, even one they don't know much about. I expect them to be able to tell me why they hold their opinions in a way other than circular logic. During the second debate, when Obama explained to one of the members of the audience what the credit crunch meant to him, that was something that really stuck with me because it showed a level of understanding that I didn't get from either of the Republican candidates.
I tend to be rather liberal on social issues and conservative on fiscal ones -- if the 2000 election had been between Gore and McCain, it would have been very hard for me to choose between the two (and I suspect I'm not alone in that). This year, the choice is trivial, which is disappointing. While I think Obama is probably the strongest presidential candidate from either party in a long time (at least in my voting lifetime, not that that has been all that long), McCain is incredibly weak, simply because his campaign has shown a lack of intellectual fortitude that I consider horrific. The most despicable part of it has been seeing McCain (and even moreso Palin) mock the idea that we might want someone who is smart, who is eloquent, who is thoughtful, who is diplomatic, who is better than the average American to be the most powerful person in the world.
Last time I checked, it's generally a good idea to hire the best candidate for the job.
In 2000, I remember thinking that I really wished that John McCain had gotten nominated instead of George Bush; aside from not coming across as a barely literate moron, McCain also seemed more thoughtful and more willing to call out people that others in his party were kowtowing to, such as the religious right. Sadly, over the last eight years, he seems to have lost that edge, and decided to embrace more of the standard Republican line, and it seems like that very thing may have cost him this election. I have no idea why he picked Sarah Palin as his running mate -- if you name any of her attributes, it seems like there's someone more qualified he could have picked. It's less a question of experience than a question of intelligence, of introspection, of analysis. The feeling I get from Sarah Palin, when she is talking about a subject, is like a student in school who simply memorizes something to pass a test and has no deeper understanding of the topic, even on subject she's supposedly an "expert" on.
I don't expect a politician to know everything on every subject. I don't expect to agree with a politician on every subject. However, I do expect politicians -- especially ones that are running for a national office -- to display some amount of thought on a subject, even one they don't know much about. I expect them to be able to tell me why they hold their opinions in a way other than circular logic. During the second debate, when Obama explained to one of the members of the audience what the credit crunch meant to him, that was something that really stuck with me because it showed a level of understanding that I didn't get from either of the Republican candidates.
I tend to be rather liberal on social issues and conservative on fiscal ones -- if the 2000 election had been between Gore and McCain, it would have been very hard for me to choose between the two (and I suspect I'm not alone in that). This year, the choice is trivial, which is disappointing. While I think Obama is probably the strongest presidential candidate from either party in a long time (at least in my voting lifetime, not that that has been all that long), McCain is incredibly weak, simply because his campaign has shown a lack of intellectual fortitude that I consider horrific. The most despicable part of it has been seeing McCain (and even moreso Palin) mock the idea that we might want someone who is smart, who is eloquent, who is thoughtful, who is diplomatic, who is better than the average American to be the most powerful person in the world.
Last time I checked, it's generally a good idea to hire the best candidate for the job.
