I decided to terminate the Great Vodka Gummi Bear experiment today, 25 days after it began. As I commented in my last post, they haven't really grown that much in the last two weeks or so; I estimate that most of the growth occurred in the first week actually.

Anyway, without further ado, here is the final result:



On the left, a yellow gummi bear showing the original size, and on the center and right, two of the vodka gummi bears from the original five in the experiment.

Verdict: There's no longer a gummi bear flavour present, it's pretty much vodka. Quite a sharp taste, and texture is more like hard jelly than chewy gummi. It's good but couldn't eat too many in one sitting (would probably get drunk).

We're at the stage of the year where it's dark when I leave my house for work, and it's dark when I leave work for home. Thankfully, the days have been sunny and cheerful (kinda) but the nights are bitterly chilly since there's been no cloud over the day. Technically, it isn't even winter yet so the worst has yet to come.

I wrote a JSON Parser in C++. I should have probably paid more attention during the lecture on finite state machines, but thanks to these diagrams, JSON parsing is as easy as pushing and popping various states onto a state stack and then registering what you expect the next state to be. JSON parsing is much easier than XML and the language itself is lightweight and readable, so it's ideal for web applications where size of data should be minimised so it can be quickly transferred over the Internets.

My vodka gummi bear experiment continues to grow. It's been two weeks since I put them in there and I don't think they're growing much more. I brought one to work last week and it mysteriously vanished during my lunch break, only for me to return home and find out that it had actually melted and resolidified at home. Either the molecular structure of the gummi bear becomes unstable due to the alcohol replacing certain vital structural compounds, or my office is just too damn hot. The wonders of Science!

Also I'm on Facebook. I won't be abandoning this blog though.

My bottle of Malibu cost NZ$39.50 at Auckland International Airport, compared with US$19.00 at SFO. I think there's a restriction on all carry-on luggage stating no liquids over 100mL can be taken about outbound US planes, so I was advised (quite rudely, actually) by the guy at SFO DFS not to buy it. Oh well... :(

Anyway, I'm back home in Wellington, enjoying the 50km/h winds, using my EFTPOS card, driving on the left side of the road and looking right then left when crossing the road. I just need to sort out my sleeping habits and it'll be like I never left the country.

Work tomorrow.

Photos from Easter and San Francisco are now available.

The offices are in the process of being renovated so we were told to work from home. We took the opportunity to return to the pancake house opposite the apartments since they're absolutely packed on the weekends. Still, even on a Friday morning, the place was almost to capacity - we were wondering if there was some kind of public holiday that we were missing. I ordered a Hawaiian waffle - a large waffle covered in pineapple, banana, shaved coconut and sugar, topped with a mountain of whipped cream. SUGAR RUSH~!

We did actually do work though (I did at least). We went in for a rather intense meeting - there was a lot to learn and take in and plenty to think about in terms of the architecture of the game.

I went to get a root beer float from A&W and took it home where I slipped in a bit of Jack Daniels. So good.

Big day tomorrow!

Second to last day at work. The offices are being renovated on Friday so we'll be working from the apartments. We have a meeting with the OpenFeint guys so we'll go to that but otherwise today is really the second to last day.

I've developed a liking to Malibu and Coke. I might get a bottle at duty free....

Jimmy and I went trekking to BevMo's at lunch, a huge alcohol store. I needed my final ingredient for gummi bears in vodka - vodka. So I bought a bottle of Swedish mango vodka for dirt cheap and I'll begin my grand experiment when I'm back in New Zealand. I'll keep you updated.

We went for dinner at this Hong Kong-style Chinese restaurant. I ordered the "Special Chicken" and it was cold steamed chicken, which was unusual but not terrible. What made the meal bad was the Hong Kong milk tea - I had forgotten how terrible that was.

Not long to go :(

We hit town again, this time going from the Farmer's Market at the Ferry Building down by the Embarcadero to Pier 33, where the Alcatraz tours depart. Stepping into the Ferry Building felt like stepping into the Annual Food Show at the Caketin - specialty food stores offering some free samples and bustling with people. It was great, but not really for me - it's not like I'm actually cooking while I'm over here!

The Alcatraz tours had sold out for today so we bought tickets for tomorrow and continued our trek. We made our way further around, returning to Pier 39 where I bought $10 worth of taffy <3 and we got some better photos of the sea lions (since last time it was dusk). Further on, I got some seafood chowder in a bread bowl for lunch and we continued around to see these old ships that had been restored at Hyde Pier.

From the ships, we walked to the famous section of Lombard Street which has been named the crookedest street in the world. Then from there, we walked all the way down to the Presidio area to see the Golden Gate Bridge. It was an amazing sight, though the tips of the supporting structures were shrouded in fog (or fawg, as the Americans say). We also visited the Palace of Fine Arts, which has an amazing building decorated with columns and a huge dome with statues of muses adorning the outer rim.

Tired from all the walking, we bussed back to Powell Street. We saw a whole bunch of yellow go-karts that you can hire for touring the city, but they had balloons attached to them and people in Mario-themed costumes driving them - it was Mario Kart IRL!

We took the BART to 16th Street Mission to meet Tobias at the Monk's Kettle - also a favourite of Mike's. It was great to catch up with him and hear how he's settled in to San Francisco and how his new job is going. We spent some time at Amnesia around the corner before he left - Jimmy and I stayed a while listening to the live bands playing there, drinking soju (HAHAHAHA) and beer before heading home.

I can't believe it's been one week already. I feel like I've gotten so much out of this trip than the previous times I've been to America. In 1996 I was 10 years old, and it was basically YAY DISNEYLAND. In 2001 I was with my stingy high school friends, and it was more of a stop-over than anything - we did go to Six Flags Magic Mountain, which was awesome, though. This time, I'm an adult so I can do what I want, eat and drink what I want, go where I want, and I've got a good job so I can afford to pay for everything I want to do.

So today is Friday, Friday and it quietly marks what was a relatively busy week. I've been writing heaps of documentation, trying to plan out the project and create a blueprint of how various systems are going to fall together architecturally. At 5pm, we left work (the company we work for have a private meeting and we're not allowed in) and hung out at the local Mexican place, Hola!, where I proceeded to get drunk off my face again, after only one $4 margarita. In the space of 90 minutes, I went from sober to drunk to hungover. Oh, and because it was Happy Hour at Hola!, we got free food. YAY!

So I'm taking it easy tonight, just recovering from my one drink. We've got an early start tomorrow to do some more sightseeing.

So Americans are quite fond of Cinco de Mayo it seems, as much as New Zealanders are fond of St Patrick's Day. The Mexican restaurants around were buzzing with business and certainly the hotel and the caterers at work were in festive mood, with the hotel having a fiesta buffet and the caterers serving some delicious Mexican food - guacamole, tortillas, tacos, nachos, refried beans, red rice, and the best salsa I've ever had. Oh, and for dessert, there were fresh strawberries and fresh pineapple, and flan, which is basically vanilla bean custard. So gooood.

We wanted to try and catch the hotel's festivities but by the time we got back from work, they'd started to pack up, much to our disappointment. So instead, I thought I'd try a margarita royale to celebrate.

It almost killed me.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Work continues. Not much to say about that, the project is going well at the moment. We are working. Really. Today's lunch was vienna chicken schnitzel, spinach lasagne, roasted sweet potato, and asparagus salad.

Today is Pool Night for Jimmy, so we went to the Burlingame Steelhead Brewery for some drinks and some pool. I had a raspberry cider and a pear cider - both fantastic and flavoursome, although very easy to drink. Fortunately for me, my superior mathematics skills shone through my inebriety with some tricky angle and ricochet shots on the pool table, with Tony and I winning against Mike and Jimmy 2 - 1, and Jimmy and I winning against Mike and Tony 2 - 1 again.

I just got back from dinner at this Thai place down the road. I was thinking of going to Taco Bell tonight, but since tomorrow is Cinco de Mayo, I reckon I'll have my fair share of Mexican food yet.

We took a look around the area we're staying and we visited the supermarket and the local Walgreens. Oh man, the confectionary aisle is full of magic like the Haribo gummi bears (I still have yet to find a kilogram bag of those) and peanut butter M&Ms and other delicious things that are hard to find in New Zealand. You've got such a huge brand selection here in the US, it can be a bit overwhelming.

For lunch, we went to the pancake house (not IHOP) across the road. I loved the food. I had two pancakes with grilled bacon and two "over-easy" eggs (I hadn't heard that expression before). Jimmy ordered this gigantic vegetarian omelette that he struggled to finish, so I ended up taking one of his pancakes too. Omg it's soooo goood.

We took a Caltrain to Burlingame and successfully located the offices where we will be working (the real purpose of this trip) and met with some of the people there, just as they were heading out for Happy Hour at this Brazilian steak restaurant a few minutes away, so we joined them for that. As my lead programmer had warned us, the drinks here are much, much stronger than what we are served in New Zealand, so that means I had to be careful and pace myself to prevent becoming completely hammered off my face.

We didn't stay for too long because the four of us were a bit tired from the long day, so we ended up back at the restaurant by the apartments, just chilling and drinking. I got some spicy chicken wings which were actually decently spicy (the food here is really impressing me) and it wasn't until midnight that I passed out on my bed.

Whoohoo! Day two, here I come.

One of my friends, Beth, works for the National Library and since they merged with the Department of Internal Affairs, they decided to organise a trip to do the Tongariro Crossing. On Friday night, five of us crammed into my little car and made our way north to National Park via a stop at the Mediterranean Food Warehouse in Paraparaumu for a pizza dinner. We eventually arrived around 11.30pm and I promptly facebedded.

Saturday morning started at the unearthly hour of 5.30am, which I didn't know existed. As we got to the mountain, first light began to break and the clouds reflected a magnificent golden hue that illuminated the path ahead of us.

The walk was easy to begin with, but we were greeted with a tough uphill, then a plateau, then another uphill that brought us to the peak of the track - the Red Crater. All this while we were shrouded in cloud and a chilly alpine gust made conditions uncomfortable but tolerable. Visibility was poor so there was not much sight-seeing but we did see the Blue Lake. It would have been just around noon when we arrived at the Ketetahi Hut. With Beth and Julie lagging behind, we decided to have lunch and take a nap. It was another 90 minutes to the carpark and that was it - the Tongariro Crossing conquered in 6 hours.

I'd met a girl called Claire from DIA on the bus over, and she introduced me to her friends Matt, Mike and Rose who Jono, Holly and I were walking most of the track with. I was glad to find out that Mike also worked in the private sector - quite a minority both on this trip and in Wellington. We all hit it off immediately and after the tramp, we celebrated with plenty of vodka, gin and cider while chillaxing in the spa pool. As the night went on, the joviality turned to rapturous song that only alcohol could fuel. We were so good, we started getting requests from the other visitors at the lodge! ¬.¬

Sunday was a nice easy drive back to Wellington, via the giant Ohakune carrot, the Taihape gumboot, the Otaki factory outlets and a quick ice cream at Pauatahanui.

Awesome weekend was awesome.

Alcohol is weird. I've heard it tends to amplify whatever emotions you're feeling, which might be true to some effect and certainly I've noticed this. But what I find weird is that my overall mood depends on the crowd I'm with. Last night, I was feeling pretty snarky (this could also be attributed to the stupid girls at the table next to us who were dressed like Lady Gaga clones and sounded like vuvuzelas at higher, screechier frequencies) and everything seemed to annoy me. If I had gone out for drinks with my workmates, I think I would have been a lot more jovial and social.

Anyway, it's been pretty busy for me. In among the Starcraft II achievement gathering I've been doing, I've also been writing tools for the impending Black and White release sometime next week, as well as working hard on PikPok's latest game for the iPad. It should be done soon, so uh..watch this space! ¯\(º_o)/¯

Last weekend was all about the Japanese. Friday night was the first Friday of the month, so it is customary we hang around with the other iPhone developers of Wellington at Hashigo Zake. Sunday was the Japanese Cultural Festival, which amused me greatly because I recognised so many elements just from watching Anime. There were mandalas, mochi, taiko drumming, tea ceremony demonstrations, lots of food and lots of people. Photos in the gallery whenever I can be bothered.

On Monday, being the first Monday of the month, Monsoon Poon have a deal where they serve unlimited plates of Firecracker Chicken (at least, until they run out. They ran out of 40kg of chicken in under two hours) as well as naan bread, white rice and a beer. Firecracker Chicken is a delicious dish of crispy, juicy chicken smothered with a tantalising spicy sauce. So good!

It was Sunni and Ashton's birthday thing at the Kilbirnie Bowls club yesterday. Gloriously hot summer's day (rare for Wellington) but not without the strong gusts of wind that still persisted today. In any case, the sun was so enjoyable that I forgot about sunscreen and now I'm sporting some rather red arms and a pink forehead. Sigh.

Last week on Friday, we had the end-of-year homegroup get-together at Strawberry Fare (third time in November for me) and on Saturday, we had a Wine and Cheese night at the Treehouse, which was far less civilised than what it sounded like. I guess it doesn't matter what you call it, you know it's a recipe for mayhem when you have several 20-somethings and alcohol. Nevertheless, I had fun playing six-player 500. I was hopeful for Mafia but it didn't eventuate, unfortunately.

The Youth Band played last Sunday and it went pretty well. Still a bit more fine tuning in various places but always good to hear a different sound in church. Following that, Beth, Maxine and I went up to Kapiti Coast for a walk about since it was such a fine day. We had lunch at this Driftwood place, then a stroll along the beach, ice cream at Pukerua Bay and a quick tour of the sea shore fauna. We found these weird purple blob things that look exactly like poison orbs.



Edit: After an enquiry with the Department of Conservation, I've discovered that these are the sea anemone Actinia tenebrosa, or red sea anemone, which retract their tentacles when the tide is low. Fascinating stuff!