Dude! You know?!: December 2011

Friday, December 23, 2011

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

H as in Harlem

H as in Hungary. Telling everyone on the road where I'm from.
None of them has a clue, I'm sure!

Black guy at the gas station, on the other side of the pump:

- Hey man, sorry, does it stand for Harlem? - see picture above ;-)
- No, Hungary.
- Damn!

The other funny black guy was waiting for me when I was getting out of my car at my driveway. He was selling some super cleaning products. I told him I'm not interested, then he asked:

- Who are you playing for?
- How do you mean? - thinking that it might be some kind of slang in the colored community.
- You look like one of them football player, man!
- Sorry, I'm a software engineer.
- Damn!

Yeah, damn. I'd be earning much more, dude! :-)

Americanized

Stan Smith, from American Dad!
My favorite show :)

A bit more than a year passed by, and I started to wonder how much I got Americanized.

I'm driving a gas guzzler from Detroit (well, 26 hwy mpg counts as gas guzzling today, and Detroit means partially made in Mexico and Canada...). I listen to the local classic rock station on the radio in my car. I like the fact that they don't repeat a single song a day! I like grilling and I make pretty good burgers. I take care of my backyard and I mow the lawn frequently. I wash my own car. And my wife's. I like detailing them, too. I like to pop a bear can in the evenings (well, light beer from Miller, it's California... Only 64 kcal a can... Doesn't taste much as beer...). I work out and run regularly. I've developed small-talking skills. I try to find a parking spot closer to the mall entrance, and I'm ready to spend more time on this than the actual extra walking would have take. I worked in a cube, but now I have an office. Corner office, with a view on the soccer field. I have an office mate, that shows I'm not an executive. Yet... :D

I learned that 'How are you doing' and 'How's it going' don't mean any more than 'Hello'. I doesn't disturb be as much any more.

I have a 401k plan and a stock trade account. I have checking and savings accounts and credit cards.

I watch my credit score. It's getting worse by each month :D

One thing missing is improving my football watching, it seams much more exciting then soccer. But first I should somehow understand that rules. Wikipedia was not helping.

The other thing missing is kids. So my wife can take them to school and in the evening I help them with their homework. And that I can open a collage fund for them :)

Sunday, December 18, 2011

GTA3 goes mobile

GTA is my favorite video game series. For it's 10th anniversary Rockstar Games released GTA3 on iOS and Android. Crazy that a game I was playing with while 'studying' for exams on the university is now available on a mobile phone... Meaning that my mobile phone is capable doing the same or more than my PC from 10 years ago... Well to tell the truth my phone isn't because the game is incompatible with Droid 2 Global apparently (graphic chip) but it is compatible with my wife's iPhone 4. Crazy...

Well, I still have it on my PSP though ;)

Unrelated suggestion: never by Motorola phones. Just saying!

Sunday, December 11, 2011

We wish you a _very_ Christmas

The next day after Halloween is the (un)official beginning of the Christmas season. If you happen to buy last minute candy for Halloween the store is most probably already wearing its Christmas decorations. From 1st of December Americans decorate their houses, front yards, rooftops and Christmas trees and the madness begins.

In California there's no snow, the sun is shining, the sky is blue and the palm trees don't loose their leaves. Therefore if you not go to the mall you'd still think it's somewhere around late September early October. But fortunately your neighbors will not let you forget what time of the year is this. So one evening we walked around in the neighborhood and took some pictures and videos. Please find them below.

Enjoy!

Driving around town

... is driving me nuts!

First of all, and I complained about this before,: speed limit is ridiculously low everywhere. But now, that I'm actually commuting, I kinda understand the reasons: I have never seen so many bad drivers in my whole life!!!

No. 1 annoying fact: traffic lights are controlled but not synchronized. This means that if there's no car in one direction at the intersection that lane will not get green light. Or if somebody arrives then from a lower traffic road, he gets a short green to not to wait for too long. The annoying thing is that such thing as green wave doesn't exist. It would speed up traffic, lower smog and fuel consumption. And would save some brain cells, too :) Officials, please read the linked Wikipedia article, and act!

No. 2 annoying fact: nobody is in front of you, no heavy traffic, speed limit is finally 40 mph, there's one idiot in the left most lane driving at 30 mph. Almost all Indian driver is doing that. Why? I tailgate (have a big black Charger, if I was driving that Prius, would have been scared), no affect, so need to pass from the right (which is legal here). I would give those guys a ticket for obstructing traffic! They should introduce the mandatory slower traffic keep right policy!

No. 3 annoying fact: look around don't trust your mirrors, there's something called blind spot! This applies mainly to Asians. This happened last Friday to me: the left lane ended, but the chick in her white VW Golf GT didn't really realized it. She just kept pushing the gas pedal and I was right next to her. Had to break hard to avoid collision and she didn't even apologize.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Grand Theft Auto in my real life

I've always been a huge GTA fan. I genuinely believe that the GTA series is the best video game of all times. It's a perfect mix of committing crime, shooting, driving cars and having a story. My personal favorite is GTA San Andreas. I think it's mainly because the fundamental changes introduced after the Liberty City or Vice City episodes. Anyway I helped C.J. a dozen times finishing his missions from the beginning to the very end. I loved GTA 4, too, but for some reason it didn't occupy the same place in my heart as San Andreas.

As everyone knows Rockstar Games released the first official trailer of GTA5. And I got all excited, but I need to wait for next Christmas to get it.

So Thanksgiving long weekend coming up I played with GTA 3 again. It was 2004 when the game was released and it came out to PC in 2005. It was exactly 1 year after I graduated from university. Playing it this time just made me realize that I live where the game's story actually takes place. It's unbelievable! 6 years ago I couldn't even dream about it! And the best part is that I've seen almost everything in real life, too, what's in the game. The parts missing are Area 51 (and probably it will not really change hence it's a strictly guarded military object) and the desert hills in Utah and Arizona (especially Monument Valley), which I plan to visit in a big road trip soon.

So I took some time and compiled together a mash up of pictures from the game and from real life:

San Francisco