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Archive for June, 2009

This game made my brain collapse…

… Right before the skydiving, Lorien showed me this fantastic video game called Braid. I’ve installed the demo (wohoo! it plays on Mac!) and even playing just the demo, I feel like my mind can’t possibly grasp the sort of time warping this game requires just to access stupidly obvious puzzle pieces!

It’s so different than anything else I’ve played before. It’s so frustratingly simple. It’s totally awesome.

Go download it. Now.

Braid trailer from David Hellman on Vimeo.

Return from 4 200 metres at 200km/h…

Today was the big day that I had been waiting for a couple of weeks now. I had signed up for a parachute jump at work that a corworker was organizing. I had been thinking about it, a little obsessively at times, and looking forward to the moment when I would look down and jump into, well, nothing! It finally happened and I am totally thrilled. When I landed, if it had been just a question of going back in a queue like at an amusement park, I would have jumped minutes after!

I stressed all week long, and had some fleeting moments of sheer utter abject terror and panic throughout the day, but when I got my suit and followed the mini formation I became surprisingly serene. I thought it was the trance-like feeling someone had told me about, but it just kept with me even in the plane. The only moment I got scared was when I had to kneel in front of the door of the plane, tilt my head completly back (into the banana position!) and just lean forward. I knew the tip of my knees were floating in the air but I couldn’t see anything!

So yes, I screamed during the free fall at the start, but it was so exhilarating to see the world under me, and the sky, and to hear the noise of the air. I could also feel my face flapping around with the speed. It was so cold too. Eventually the instructor opened the parachute and I barely felt it. There was no big tug or shake, we just stopped falling so fast. I that point I realized how warm the air was and how beautiful the countryside looked when you have more than a tiny plane window to look at it.

Eventually I got to drive a little and I think turning is the BEST THING EVER. It goes woooosh by and I felt like squeeing

So yeah, I will definitly jump again. It was so much easier and smooth than I thought the laws of physics could warrant. The free fall part is just so intense and yet so soothing. Best Sport Ever. It just made my day when I got home and saw that former President Bush had jumped for his 85th birthday. I hope I can jump like him when I get old too.

Twitterism

I’ve always felt very ‘meh’ about blog posts filled with random twitter posts. It seems like everything is hardcoded into a language that nobody gets unless you were on the other side of the conversation as it happened. It’s like reading a conversation that someone has with an imaginary friend. A friend that changes subject very often and randomly. I just don’t get it.

So I’m taking my vengeance with the most random text messages taken from my cell phone. The following list is taken both from my inbox and my sent message folder and hopefully is completly without meaning for everyone except me. 

• Turtle
• This is all your fault. Just so we’re clear.
• THEY CUT SHEPPARD’S HAND OMG OMG OMG !?!!
• Yay! I’ll finally hear about the gory bits
• He stole underwear! So rockin’
• So for the record : dancing in high heels till 4am is not as glamourous as it sounds
• A nestled repetitive 5×5 if elseif elseif… structure. Supposedly the QA gagged on sight lol
• Same Area code! never seen before
• Your $1 beer + free bacon basket, it wouldn’t happen to be in indianapolis?
• The downside of bowl-plates is that your fork never has quote the right angle to scrape the melted cheese in the arc…
• Oooh i can svill speak english
• Rainbow!
• I’m watching a movie and minnesota looks disturbingly similar to quebec…
• God it figures as soon as I find a quiet place to read it’s suddenly filled with old ladies talking at the top of their lungs…
• Lol Omg he s trying to flirt with you… Silly boys
• Soldier was one of the greatest movies ever made
• Whether spill or debauchery either way that does seem to be a good sign of drunk
• Wow I should move to Canada and become a squirrel… It appears to pay about as well as grad school.

Identity was removed to protect the reputation of the people who wrote those  :D