It was extremely brief, and you had to pay very close attention, but the sugar season's passed now, and thankfully, azrhey and I managed to catch some sugar shack action, thanks to my dad inviting us over to his annual thing (which went better than the last time, as I wasn't dying this time!). It was what, azrhey's third time in a sugar shack in her life? How do they manage over there? ;-)

I went for a lightning trip to New York City, where I thought it'd be a good idea to get a room at the Hotel Chelsea, since, you know, the office is in Chelsea, that'd be convenient, no? I did listen to punk music, but I don't remember stabbing anyone. I didn't write a novel either, but I did write a small piece of code, related to my most recent ranting, where my hack gets similar latency on event handling as busy waiting on the event queue, while using less CPU (and much lower latency, by multiple frames!) than SDL's built-in SDL_WaitEvent.

This last item results in myself restraining myself very hard from going off and making a high-performance game library. Add it to the list of things I could do very well, but that I shouldn't be doing because it's useless. Argh.

azrhey and I went to see Iron Man, which was pretty damned good, I think. I think that it was a good introduction, although the battle at the end was a bit contrived and short on time. I think Justin Hammer might have been a better choice, with multiple supporting bad guys, but Iron Monger does make for big badaboom. I liked the hints at War Machine, and the small (in that movie, at least) involvement of S.H.I.E.L.D..

I'm now about to register for the Bike Fest, which inconveniently overlaps with MUTEK. The day ride doesn't pose a problem, but I really like the night ride, and that will obviously mean that I'll be missing out on something else... We'll see.

I've become a member of Communauto last week, and combined with getting my bike back, means that I'm at what is going to be my peak mobility for the next little while.

Used Communauto a couple of days later to go to a Quadra hackfest at Rémi's, with slajoie as well. I've had a surge of interest in Quadra, but it is a delicate thing to do: we need to release a new stable version before we can hack on the "next generation" version, and while we're getting very close now, there is definitely a momentum thing that can be lost just too easily. And now the kind of things left are packaging related, which isn't the most exciting (so help us out, dgryski!). We've got interesting ideas for future development, but we can't really do any of this for now, since it would make merging from the stable release very annoying (and it already isn't too wonderful at times)...

Getting my bike back meant going to work on bike, and that is ridiculously quick, on the order of six to seven minutes. That's faster than the metro, by a lot (that's only a bit more than the average waiting time, and I don't have to walk to Lionel-Groulx). In my opinion, that's not even good exercise, I hardly have time to break a sweat even if I go fast, so I might end up taking detours on good days (the Lachine Canal bike path is nearby).

Related to Quadra, I've been looking at SDL (which the next version of Quadra uses instead of its internal platform) and SDL_net. It's funny how game developers are so conservative sometimes! I don't know much about 3D games, but in 2D, people seem to develop more or less like they did on DOS more than 10 years ago, which was very limited back then, due to DOS not having much of a driver model. Because of that, since anything more than page flipping and waiting for the vertical retrace (using polling PIO, of course) is specific to every video chipset. A game wanting to use accelerated blits had to basically have its own internal driver model, and when a card was not supported, either the game would look bad (because it would use a software fallback), or would not work at all. In light of that, most games just assumed a basic VGA card (the "Super" part is made of vendor-specific extensions), using 320x200 in 256 colors (like Doom), or 640x480 in 16 colors (ever used Windows' "safe mode"?), with maybe a few extra extensions that were extremely common and mostly the same.

Then, DirectX appeared and all the fancy accelerations became available to games (window systems like X11 and Windows had their own driver model, but could afford to, being bigger projects than most games, and were pretty much the sole users of the accelerations, so they existed). What happened? Game developers kept going pretty much the same way. Some tests by Rémi back then found that using the video memory to video memory color key accelerated blits (with DirectDraw), getting hundreds of frames per second, where the software equivalent could barely pull thirty frames per second on the same machine. About an order of magnitude faster! You'd think game developers would be all over this, but no, they weren't. They were set in their ways, had their own libraries that did it the crappy way, and didn't bother, overall. The biggest user of 2D color keyed blitting is probably something like the Windows desktop icons.

Then, 3D acceleration appeared, and they just didn't have the choice. The thing is, this hardware still isn't completely pervasive, and especially for the target audience of a game like Quadra, who like nice little games and won't have big nVidia monsters in their machines, so using the 3D hardware for that kind of game would leave them in the dust. Nowadays, DirectDraw has been obsoleted and is now a compatibility wrapper on top of Direct3D, so oddly enough, we're back to 2D games having to avoid the acceleration.

Thankfully, in the meantime, the main CPUs and memory became much faster, so you can do pretty cool stuff all in software, but it's kind of a shame, I see all of this CPU being wasted. Think about it: Quadra pulls in at about 70% CPU usage on my 1.5 GHz laptop, so one could think it would "need" about 1 GHz to run adequately, right? Except it worked at just about full frame rate (its engine is bound at 100 frames per second) on my old 100 MHz 486DX! Something weird happened in between...

Game developers seem to be used to blocking APIs and polling so much, it spills over in SDL_net, which uses its sockets in blocking mode, and where one could easily lock up a server remotely by doing something silly like hooking up a debugger to one of the client and pausing it. Maybe unplugging the Ethernet cable would do it too, for a minute or two, until the connection timed out. How awful...

Wow, fabulous weather today! Can't wait to get my bike (this weekend?)...

Caught up with sfllaw for some fine eating at La Maison de Kebab, where we discussed various things, such as politics, world economy, food (duh!) and a few other things. We gave him back his little black book. I didn't peek, I swear!

Tuesday, there was some poking at my PowerBook, upgrading it to Leopard and isolating a bug in the video drivers. The bug is kind of annoying, but I find Leopard to be a nice upgrade, and from what I can see, not really any slower on my machine. They do pack up more bundled crap than in previous versions, as they always do, but like before, stuff that you can turn off.

Yesterday, I went to the gym. It wasn't my first time, but it was my first serious workout, and man, did it ever kill me. After one of the stretching exercises on the mat, I put my arms down to push myself up, and it just did nothing. I suspect I will become quite strong in the near future, but for now, yow. I came home to the visit of swestrup and taxlady, where we had a farandole of pizza.

Today, at lunch, we established that stabbing is not necessarily atomic.

Now, off to the notary for finishing securing living quarters!

Saturday, while shopping around for a better piece of furniture to hold our nice new television, azrhey and I drove in front of the Club Soda, I saw that there was Autechre on the headline there... For the next day! A bit later that evening, tygrbabe poked me about it too, but I was still unsure.

Finally decided to go, accompanied by azrhey and joining with crybetty, m3lang3 and tygrbabe (also saw phreedum there), and it was very good! I didn't like Massonix too much, and Autechre's set was a bit short (an acceptable hour, but could have used more). Rob Hall was pretty good as well, but while it was something I'd find mind-blowing in a club, for a show it was merely okay, IMHO. All in all, quite enjoyable.

I was surprised to learn today that iLike thinks that Joy Division, somehow, is related to Aphex Twin?!? Uh, ok...

It's been sort of a busy week, but in a good way, for the most part.

There was an unusually high amount of the tygrbabe this week, having been to her DJing night at the Katacombes, her visiting us at home, then her birthday, then more of her birthday (which involved a bunch of hot people hanging out at my place, so yay!)... That's cool, I think. We've got bait for more visits, in the form of tons of Torchwood and the Dieux du Stade DVD (which might also work very well with archdiva, hehehe!).

In her most recent visit, she left me some computer hardware to fix up, which is kind of amusing, because we're currently being invaded by electronic equipment already! I got a new television delivered Wednesday, got all sorts of cabling to hook my computers to it (gotta be able to watch the Torchwood!), and we got a PVR cable box (I'd do without broadcast television myself, but azrhey is a fan, and there's got to be something on?). This means that the place is a bit of a disaster area at the moment, while I try to put all this together in a sensible way.

For anyone looking to get some audio/video cabling, I'd like to point out something rather weird. As you may know (well, if you're still reading past the previous sentence), there's some serious price-gouging going on with A/V cabling. In some cases, it can be understood (analog signals are sensitive to interferences of all sorts, better shielding and conductors do make a difference), but in the modern world of fully-digital HDMI cables, WTF? Unless you have a freakin' ion storm in your living room, the very cheapest digital cable will get you the best possible quality (unless it doesn't, in which case it'll either be very obviously horrible, or outright won't work). Stores liked to sell high-margins cabling, though, so they're still at it anyway. So, I set out to find the cheapest digital cabling possible.

You'd think that Apple would be in on the price gouging, no? Well, apparently, Apple is a bit schizophrenic in that regard. Future Shop had this 4 feet HDMI to DVI cable, which is the cheapest of that type they had (there were some cheaper HDMI-DVI adapters, but with the cable, came out more expensive). At the Apple Store, they have this 2 metre (6.56 feet) HDMI to DVI cable. As I said, as long as they'll work, the image quality will be identical, and the one at the Apple Store is longer. The Apple Store one is also only $19.95, compared to $70.99 for the (shorter) one at Future Shop. That's less than a third the price!

So, less than a third of the price for better stuff? Uh, a bit out of character for Apple, but keep it up, I could use more of that (if only as an "inspiration" for other stores)!

So, Sunday was Stuff Your Face With Chocolate Day, so we did. There was rabbit for dinner, appropriately, and I discovered that adding Frangelico to chocolate mousse turns it into a very tasty, yet boozy version of Nutella.

On Monday evening, I headed out to see (well, listen, really) to tygrbabe's set at the Katacombes. But before doing so, azrhey and I (well, mostly me, really), in the interest of saving ourselves from the dangers of the eggs in the mousse going bad, dived into the mousse leftover. Tasty! Once there, I was surprised at the amount of computer geekery going on, between a sticker on the toilet stating that "Your Computer Suck", and meeting crybetty, whose dream is to own a Macintosh LC 475 once again and obskura exclaiming that she's surrounded by engineers or something. That's kind of weird.

But it was an especially nice outing for me, because it has been almost two years that I haven't been able to do this kind of thing, going out on a week night, having a few drinks and a bunch of fun. So it's all special and awesome, yay for that!

After going back home, I finished the rest of the chocolate mousse.

The next morning, I learned that it is apparently possible to have a chocolate mousse hangover.

After some more wackiness, I'm finally on the couch watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off with azrhey. Pretty awesome, all in all!

So, there finally was proper partying at our place, which was quite the housewarming! Thanks to our guests for an awesome evening!

Some people were a bit incredulous of the, uh, interesting method that the demolition crew has been using on the other buildings of our complex, but you can see a picture of them in action right here. No one seems to have been hurt up to now, but when swinging a jackhammer from a crane, it can't be too long...

I discovered that a new add-on to our garbage can that azrhey picked up shares a trait with Superman: it gains its powers from the Sun! Add that to the list of our home appliances that are candidates to take over the world.

After hosting a gaming night (we don't stop for nuthin'!), now it's one of those times where we stuff ourselves with chocolate and other things, as azrhey's parents, my mom and my sister come to visit. Hopefully, our toaster oven won't kill them or something...

In case you forgot, daylight savings aren't only a huge pain in the ass, but also a big waste of money. That's $8.6 millions for Indiana only.

Just the amount I'd save on Advils would be worth it for me.

I just want to go hide in a cave.

Went and visited morethanreal in San Francisco this weekend. Saw jbdeboer and met quikchange, then proceeded to go to someone's housewarming party.

The next day, we were joined by another Waterloo alumni for some Ethiopian food, then went to Good Vibrations (which happens to be a few streets away from my host). I did a little bit of wandering around in the Mission district, as morethanreal had to go back home to take care of some, uh, "routing problem" with her toilet, which started dumping stuff in her backyard. I checked out some cool bikes at Freewheel and I went to Ritual for some of the best latte I ever had. After rejoining the group, there was some good discussion about music (despite my host starting to lose her voice!), and obligatory exchanges of music.

On the Sunday, we headed out downtown for a walk, going to the Bluebottle for breakfast and coffee, only to be blown away once more by excellent coffee. The mocha was neither sweet, nor bitter, just chocolatey, I don't think I've ever had it that good! We stopped by the Apple store there, where I resisted getting myself an iPod touch. I got some cool postcards, then we went down by the Bay and pondered the awesomeness of various cities, and mutually recognized that we both made fine choices.

After that, she left me to my own devices, as quikchange had left his iPhone at her place and they were to meet so that he could get his life back. So I wandered back up Market Street and toured the Crate & Barrel store there. Damn it, I like a solid half of their stuff, and I'd be fine with just about any of their glasses! Argh.

After that, I waltzed around the Apple store some more, having some time to kill. Turns out my willpower couldn't sustain another session of gawking, and I got myself an iPod touch. I would have liked an iPhone, having seen just about everyone here have one and them being so damn handy, but I don't want to deal with unlocking/jailbreaking, and even if I did, the data rates in Canada would kill me dead. The iPod touch is quite incredibly useful still, especially if you're in an area well covered with wifi (Mountain View is ridiculously well covered, and thanks to our friends at Île Sans Fil, Montréal isn't doing too bad either).

While I was at the Apple store, morethanreal texted me (she had no voice at this point!) to let me know that I forgot my glasses at her place! So plans were made to meet again, and I got together with jbdeboer, quikchange and her again at an indian restaurant near the Caltrain station. There, I finally figured out what the purpose of a mysterious piece of plastic included with the iPod was, just as I was starting to put into question my mental capacities.

In the beginning of the week, I went and did this. I accomplished one of my childhood dreams: ride the Disneyland Monorail System. What can I say? I'm a geek, you all knew that, right?

Not only that, but on the Friday, I accomplished another of my childhood dreams: I visited the Computer History Museum, which I had been wanting to see ever since I read about it in Softalk Magazine (which stopped printing in 1984, so you have an idea for how long I've been wanting this!).

I saw the first hard drive, a panel from the ENIAC, a cog from Colossus (the biggest part in existence), more than one Cray, a PDP-1 in working condition (you can play SPACEWAR on it on certain days!), a Thinking Machine CM-1, a VAX, a KL-10, and so many other things.

At the end, I was at the brink of tears. I am not kidding. I was facing a wall of micro-computers, with an Apple IIgs very similar to the one that is still in my mother's basement on one of the shelves, a few NeXT machines (which I wanted to try out ever since I read about it in inCider magazine, and led me to learning some Objective-C, using Window Maker and eventually getting myself a Mac OS X machine), a Lisa (there was one in my high school), many other variants of Apple II (what I wrote my first program on, at six years old), an original Mac (I remember seeing my first one, and while I scoffed at their B&W display, I couldn't refute that this was going to be the future), a boxed Tetris for Mac (the first version of Tetris I ever played, while being on detention, on one of my high school's secretaries Mac)... I was surrounded by the work of people so obviously insane, as most of them wouldn't have even considered trying these things, and could feel the pure passion of the place. Just think of Seymour Cray, who built the prototype of one of his first supercomputer out of chips that didn't pass the quality assurance testing of the factory, working around the defects as he could, and still succeeding. Amazing.

To make sure my head completely exploded, after the TGIF today, I started talking with another Noogler who turned out not only to be the author of a piece of software I highly respect, but also knew what an SX-series supercomputer was, having had worked on the competing systems. Then we were joined by someone who helped free Mozilla, who's also still a Noogler, at which point the discussion veered toward the education of developers, hiring, and how hard it is nowadays. Which then had Larry Page join us, and listen.

I think I'm having a Koolaid overdose here, but still, it's safe to say that this has been one damned wacky fortnight.

I'm a bit too tired (and the connection is very slow) to do a real post, but I figured at least this ought to get out to the world:



Yeah, that's jbdeboer blasting away at the peons of the evil Emperor Zurg beside me, and generally doing a better job at it than I was.

But... remember this?

So I'm now what they call a "Noogler", in Google lingo. They use real strong stuff for their brainwashing (and I worked with apenwarr!). This is, presumably, so they can stuff my head with the million things I have to figure out merely about the simple fact of working there.

I can't say much, other than it's awesome, that I'll be working on Safe Browsing, that my only hope of not becoming desperately fat is that I will not be working on a "real" Google office (until they "fix" that) and that, every day, millions of people search on Google for information (it's true!).

Steve Yegge's got it right, though. I feel a bit like a fraud, getting to work in such a wonderful environment, surrounded by über-smart people, who, it is only a matter of time, are eventually going to discover that I'm Just Some Guy and ditch me.

I should go to sleep now, they're going to put more things in my head tomorrow.

A few weeks back, I found myself having dinner with tygrbabe, where I discussed with her the fact that I rather enjoy her company. She is one of my favourite persons, after all! She seems to be enjoying my company as well, which I find to be a relief. After all, this was fairly high on my list of things that I didn't think would be happening any time soon, after the events I mentioned in my previous post. But here I was, at the movies, holding hands and giggling. Life is weird, sometimes, but it could be much worse than this, I think!

The movie, by the way, was Charlie Wilson's War, and to make a quick summary, it included much more boobies than I would have expected. It's actually rather good, with some excellent work on the part of Philip Seymour Hoffman, an often underestimated actor, in my opinion. He seems to be often put in quirky roles, does well in them, and I like quirky.

Upon leaving the movie, I glanced at one of the buildings downtown, wondering what is happening at Google with my application there... Oh, yes, I was keeping a lid on it (well, mostly, as I'm hardly the most secretive person around!) until things were becoming a bit more solid, but I have been interviewing with Google recently, after some ex-Nitiot who's now there pointed them my way. tygrbabe pointed out that they wouldn't exactly hang a giant sign out on the side of the building, so we proceeded to go on a walkabout, where she threatened to push me in a number of snow banks.

After that, as I entered a metro station, I pulled out my mobile phone to send an SMS to the lady azrhey to let her know that I was coming back, as we had agreed. Doing so, I noticed that I had left it on silent mode, from the movie, and that I had a voice mail message. I check it out, and it turns out that it's an offer from Google! Heh, while I was wondering what was going on, they had contacted me. Which makes me wonder if they have some kind of mind reading device...

A few days after that, I decided to accept the offer. Turns out that this leads to a two weeks orientation that is to be done at their Mountain View campus, the fabled Googleplex. Checking schedules, this lined up to be starting the week after azrhey and I moved into our new place. As in, we're doing the actual moving on the Saturday, and I have to be there at 8:00 on the Monday. It certainly seems that I'm not content with my life being a roller-coaster, it also has to be doused in kerosene and set ablaze. Otherwise, it's just too boring, right? Thanks to the cpirate for the extra help!

Our new place is pretty awesome, if a bit dark (there isn't much lighting included, we have to get our own). The bathtub is big and deep, the shower is spacious and has a neat pane of glass instead of a shower curtain. There's a secret passageway to the bedroom. The toilets are fancy dual-flush models (about time we get them here!), albeit with non-standard fitting sizes (argh, the joys of being an owner, I guess). The shower and bathtub faucets have fully separate temperature and flow controls, like I maintain is the proper way (and is the normal way in sane countries like Denmark, and very common in the rest of Europe). We're missing a few items before we can actually have people over properly, like proper lighting so that we don't just sit in the dark.

Now, I'm writing this on the plane from Chicago to San Jose, which is going pretty well up to now, as opposed to my last trip to New York City (which the quick-witted among you will have associated with my Google employment, on top of visiting the fine people I know over there). On top of the Google orientation and overall excitement of being a "Noogler", I hope to visit morethanreal, see the Computer History Museum (which I've dreamed of for almost twenty years now!), and generally visit San Francisco. Maybe a bit much to pack in my free time, I'll see.

P.S.: You're reading this, therefore I didn't end up in a flaming plane wreck.

A little while ago (okay, okay, that was in November!), I went to see Me, Mom & Morgentaler at the Club Soda with gregorama and tygrbabe. Oh my goodness, the energy! They did pretty well, for a bunch of fat people in their fourties. ;-)

On top of the sheer awesomeness of it, this was a rather significant event for me on so many fronts. To this day, I still remember parts of an evening I spent in St-Hyacinthe's downtown, on the sidewalk in front of one of the venues there, where I watched this band of insane people jumping around on the stage, being so completely and madly happy. That was sixteen years ago, and since then, lots happened, of course, and I didn't really expect to see them.

In fact, I didn't really even expect as much as to be able to pick up their CD, until that evening where tygrbabe and I wandered from one used records store to the next (and to the next, and to the next, etc!), and we found it! Actually, she had found it, and managed to snatch it away in front of my eyes, but it turned out all right, as she gave it to me as a farewell gift, before I left for France. That was eighteen months ago, and since then, well, lots happened (ok, well, not nearly as much as in the sixteen years before, but still!)...

Among other things, we broke up, and frankly, while I try to see the nuances and not think in terms of black and white, a pretty ridiculously significant share of this disaster was on my shoulders. People weren't around to see it, but it was a massive breakdown, including talks of breaking up with azhrey as well, for a bit. I've come out of this rather scarred and traumatized, and I'm surprised I didn't just lose it (or maybe I did?). After this, I was still thinking that non-exclusive relationships could work, but I was seriously questioning my ability to do it myself, and considering how much happier my life has been since I accepted this aspect of myself, this was some hard core introspection. Let's just say that the daily ride on the commuter train was sometimes very thoughtful. I have been, and still am, to a degree, ashamed of the all pain I've caused to the people who I wanted to hurt the least.

I finally figured that maybe I wasn't doomed to failure, if only I could manage to learn from my mistakes.

So, a new year again, eh?

There was (in alphabetical order) Apples to Apples, Doctor Who, drinking, flashing (getting to be a NYE tradition!), kissing, making out, and so on. This can't possibly be all that bad, now, can it?

I went to the party of maery, Patrick and iangurudata with azrhey, liberation_now, obskura, scjody and tygrbabe, which was pretty cool. There was this thing with a clove orange going around, which was kind of fun, but provided me with ample occasion to face my shyness. I tried to do good, but I mostly fumbled and ended up feeling rather dorky, it seems. I reflected on the delta of going from partying in Barcelona to partying in Verdun for NYE, but while the venue might be a bit sketchier, being in good company more than makes up for it!

azrhey and I went back to liberation_now and tygrbabe's place after the stroke of midnight, for a nice evening of hanging out and playing games (Apples to Apples!). There, it was eventually discovered that Bailey's and wine are actively evil when mixed together. Very evil. As in, we all ended up sick, to various degrees. Eurgh. Still, a pretty awesome night.

We were going to go to my dad's for dinner the next day, but as it turned out, the snowstorm (combined with a nasty hangover) put a stop to that.

Whew, I slept really well these last two days: 23 hours in two nights! This was making up for a week of bad sleep, and was quite welcome!

Saturday, after shopping for some items for our soon-to-be new apartment (w00t! I can't wait!), we headed over to the Maison de Jade, in the evil place that is Boucherville. There, we had a gathering of the evil members of the former Club Info of the Cégep de St-Hyacinthe, ate (quite!) evil food and laughed evil laughters with our bellies full. This was (as usual) organized by pdage, evil space burger overlord (retired).

The next day, I shot a bunch of people to celebrate, and also found out that slajoie is now on LiveJournal (better late than never!).

I'm not much of a Christmassy person, it would seem, but hey, that's no reason not to have fun!

I received some well wishes from favourite people (ill wishers can stay home!), which was very nice and in some case, even took me by surprise! Ever since the adventures in France, I find that while I do miss people, I'm much better able to go on for long without them, for better or for worse. While it can be handy at times, I'm not entirely convinced this is fundamentally a good thing... I should get out more, which should also be easier when we'll have moved (which is less than a month from now!).

I got mostly monies from close family who don't know what to get me (and I'll give them that, it's hard to find good gifts for me!), despite having stated a few times that a gift-less Christmas was just fine by me. My sister gave azrhey and I some kitchen stuff, which caused azrhey to go on a chase to return the favour (she's all proper and stuff!), but it all worked out in the end.

There was the red scare, which was rather worrying at that moment (and caused us to miss out on swestrup and taxlady's solstice party, boo!), but turned out to be okay.

I had this strange dream the other night where I had a crush on a girl, and in the dream I knew it was a dream and I thought "hey, I think I might have a crush on this girl in real life, I better tell azrhey!", but when I woke up, I couldn't make out who it was, either I couldn't remember or she doesn't even exist.

This morning, in my sleepy haze, I left a "ten dollar tip" to the metro dude when I bought my monthly pass. Doh.

My Sunday in New York was fine. It was rainy, but I had excellent coffee (Gimme! Coffee, and also accidentally tasted someone else's coffee, oops!), excellent pizza, played games all afternoon (Cleopatra and the Society of Architects is fun, I was hilariously bad at Guitar Hero), and had most excellent italian food at Pô (white bean ravioli in a butter balsamic sauce, yum!)) in the evening.

But the return... Oh, the return. I couldn't get any taxi that wanted me for a JFK ride (there was a smell of rush hour coming up), so I decided to be brave (the risk here being getting lost) and take the train. That worked out all right, thanks to another passenger who made me realize I was on the wrong train, which I could fix before it became too annoying.

Arriving at Terminal 2, the check-in hall I was directed to was so amazingly full of people, it was ridiculous. Thankfully, I arrived plenty early, because the place was packed with people queuing for whatever reason, and it was just pandemonium (when I left the place, the queues were extending outside, and this building isn't exactly small!). There, I was told that the booking for my return flight had been cancelled when there was some issues with my first flight. But I'm in New York, not Montreal, get me home!

I ended up on standby for the flight I was supposed to be booked on, and after some delays, didn't make it. They actually called my name by mistake, as the attendant thought there was one more seat, so it was a pretty close call. In fact, it was so close that my checked-in luggage was in the plane, and I couldn't get it back!

So I ended up in an hotel in Jamaica, because, you know, that'd be cool. Jamaica is colder than I thought it'd be. Big thanks to azrhey and tygrbabe entertaining me, so that the accidental murdering rampage didn't happen (this would have hindered my return trip even further, I suspect). The hotel was just about full, and I got an "Elite" room or something, which was pretty cool, and I slept very well, strangely enough.

That next flight went just fine, no delay, my luggage was given to me quickly, there was very few people at the security check lines. Whew.

Thanks to my hosts, andukar, a_chatterbox and dreamage for having me over! Also, some photos from the Saturday.

Explored New York a bit yesterday with some of my hosts, which was pretty cool and impressive. Already, from the apartment, there is a view on the Manhattan skyline, and getting there, there's a definite feeling of being in a Big Place. That's why I took my 14mm/f2.8 super-wide-angle lens as my only lens, which was a bit of a weird choice. I was glad I had it for some stuff, but other times, the thing I wanted to photography as so small and far away! A cool lens, but I'll need to get used to it, for sure.

andukar and a_chatterbox took me out for a late breakfast first, at Max Brenner on 2nd Avenue (they wanted to take me to some other place, but it was full). They're pretty serious about their chocolate, and while the breakfast was nothing too special, the included cappuccino was actually pretty good, while they didn't let me upgrade to a mocha, it came with two small chunks of chocolate, which I promptly threw in the coffee. Tasty!

We then headed to the Grand Central Terminal, where some photos were taken, and the acoustics of the archway next to the lower concourse was tried out.

We walked up 5th Avenue, seeing a vast penny collection set up at the Rockefeller Center, onward to the Fifth Avenue Apple Store. While the store itself is nothing all that special (it's just larger than the one I had seen before, but not huge either), the architecture of it is indeed pretty damned cool. I took advantage of the almost-collapsing US economy to buy a few items, saving something like 30% over the price in Canada. Haha, chumps!

We then walked through Central Park for a bit. This is such a great idea, dropping a huge park in the centre of a city! Definitely the hallmark of an awesome city (check!).

After a while there, a_chatterbox announced that hot chocolate was called for, as it was a bit chilly, which I could only concur with. So we headed to the Chocolate Bar, where I had a nice hazelnut-flavoured hot chocolate with a chipotle/cinnamon brownie to go with it. Oh yeah.

After a quick visit to the Google office (I walked in front of ze_dinosaur's office, heh!) to figure out where we'd eat, we set our (metro) sails for Times Square. Wow! The people! The lights! At that point, I was glad I had my super-wide-angle lens, because this place is very big. Like, a lot. And there are people. And lights.

Dinner time being the time, we went to a Thai place not very far from their apartment, where