Hung Truong: The Blog!

Jackie Chan iGoogle Theme

I use iGoogle a lot. One of the more recent things that has come along with iGoogle is the introduction of artist themes. I guess they’re there to break up the monotony of a boring home page.

I was going through the gallery when one such theme caught my eye: Jackie Chan! The theme is a cartoony (but not like the Jackie Chan cartoon… and on a side note, isn’t it kind of ridiculous that they needed to hire a voice actor for the cartoon to play Jackie with a fake Chinese American accent!?) fictionalization of Jackie Chan apparently filming a movie where he fights ninjas. That’s fine, but who the heck drew this? If you told me Jackie drew it, I’d believe you. And it’s also the only way I’d forgive the slanty-eyed caricature of Jackie. May is Asian Heritage Month, people!

Anyway, I’m using it as my iGoogle theme, because it’s funny and I like Jackie Chan. Even if he does look a bit like a racist stereotype. Oh well!

MapsKrieg in a Mashup Contest – Vote For Me!

I keep forgetting to mention this. A while back there was this cryptic ad on Facebook about mashups and it led to a Dice.com sponsored contest. I figured I would enter MapsKrieg and I sort of forgot about it. Checking the visitor stats, I noticed some people were coming from a contest poll page. So MapsKrieg was chosen as a finalist in this contest!

The prize is $4000, which is pretty neat. So please check out the finalists and vote (preferably for me)! Mine is #2, “Home & Apartments.” I wonder why they just didn’t label it “MapsKrieg?”

Advance Wars: Days of Ruin

I got Advance Wars: Days of Ruin from Amazon.com yesterday because it was on sale for like $16. I’d played Advance Wars 2 and it was pretty cool, and I skipped Advance Wars Dual Strike.

One thing that kind of seemed weird to me for the Advance Wars games was that the fighting always seemed unmotivated. Like here’s some random countries, let’s go to war! Also, the cartoony quality of the graphics led to some weird cognitive dissonance as I led my cute dudes with their tanks off to die in gruesome battle.

Days of Ruin sort of fixes this by making the graphics more gritty and changing the setting to a post-apocalyptic world. So everyone is fighting for food and survival instead of just for the hell of it. Unfortunately, the setting is not like Mad Max, where everyone is hoarding hockey pads and crossbows and gas. Seriously, you have factories that make tanks, but you can’t make food!? Get your priorities straight!!!

So far, it’s been pretty fun, but the challenge level just seems really low. I think I probably just need to complete some more missions and get further in the game.

Filezilla: Update Whore

I actually like Filezilla as a good, free open source FTP client. But man, does it whore for upgrades! It seems like every single time I open the program, it’s got some kind of upgrade it wants to download.

Seriously, Filezilla is an FTP client. FTP is just a file transfer protocol (whoa, that’s what FTP stands for!). As far as I know, FTP really hasn’t changed much in the past few years. Oh, sure, we’ve got SFTP and FTP over SSL and stuff, but c’mon, how often do you really need to update the core software for FTP!?

What’s that? There’s a way to turn off automatic updates? Okay. But I can’t stand not having the latest version of any software! What’s a nerd to do?

Also, Filezilla: I don’t need to be told to send all bug reports to you every time I update the software. I got that the first time…

Observation: Bus Driver Camaraderie

One thing I’ve noticed during my bus-riding career is that bus drivers have a really strong sense of camaraderie. Like, if a bus passes another bus, the bus driver might honk or wave at the other driver. During my days at UNM, this was pretty common since the busses took a circular route, and so it would make sense for a bus driver to say hi versus ignoring his/her co-worker. It was even pretty common for drivers to open up their windows, stop the bus, and start a little chat. This was kind of annoying since I was usually late for class.

I think the camaraderie doesn’t end by just affiliating with the same university. I was riding the blue Michigan bus to work the other day and I noticed a cross-bus encounter! The school bus driver was talking to the city bus driver across busses! So this must be a really strong link between bus drivers of all types, regardless of employer or bus model.

Is there some kind of strange connection being made between these bus drivers? Is bus driving school a really uniting experience, like boot camp? Do bus drivers stick together and maybe have bus driving school reunions? Is there a bus driver’s guild!?

If anyone can shed light on this phenomenon I would greatly appreciate it.

P.S. I spell the plural of bus “busses.” Technically, it’s correct. It’s like the British version or something.