Rough Draft

Nintendo DS

I've been thinking of getting a Nintendo DS for a while, and after playing Kirby's Canvas Curse on Jeff's while we were in Boston I couldn't resist any longer. So, over the weekend I picked up a snazzy cobalt blue one along with Advance Wars Dual Strike and I've been having a blast with it so far.

I was originally thinking of getting Kirby as my first game, since it's a game that really could only be done on the DS. But for now I decided to just get Advance Wars since I've really been enjoying playing the ROM of the original the last few weeks and because of Jeff's rave review. Advance Wars does feature some multiscreen battles as well as allowing you to use the stylus to command your troops which is nice.

The dual screens, touch screen interface, and WiFi support are all cool features, but only if there are great games to take advantage of them.

Fortunately, there's quite a few such games available now, including the aforementioned Kirby's Canvas Curse. There is also a game I saw at Gamestop called Trauma Center: Under the Knife where you use are a doctor and use the stylus to perform various surgeries. It sounded like it could be pretty fun and unique, but I was afraid it could also end up just being gimmicky and repetitive. However, it looks like the game has gotten quite favorable reviews so I may end up picking this up. I've also been hearing wonderful things about the new Castlevania game.

And those are just the games out now! The next month brings even more exciting titles like Mario Kart DS with WiFi support, Animal Crossing Wild World, and Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time. It's honestly been a long time since I've been this excited about so many games for one system. I just hope I can find time to play all of them.

If you've been toying with the idea of getting a DS, I highly recommend you pick one up immediately.

Modern Minstrels

I've spent the past couple days setting up a new blog called Modern Minstrels strictly for posting about music. I post about music so often here that I decided to set up a more dedicated place for all things music (though I'll probably cross post concert reviews to both blogs).

I have quite a backlog of music posts I've been meaning to write, so in order to facilitate that I'm currently using the same layout for both sites, though as soon as I get some time I plan to give the new site it's own feel.

Here's a link to the RSS feed for Modern Minstrels.

Startup School

I've got about an hour to kill in the Boston airport before my flight home. Unfortunately WiFi costs $8 a day, which isn't completely unreasonable but I'm cheap so I'm typing this entry now and I'll post it when I get home.

This was the first time I'd spent any significant amount of time in Boston (I spent half a day visiting MIT back during high school). Overall I really like the city. It's got good public transportation that can get you pretty much anywhere you need to go. Also, since there are so many colleges around you see lots of people my age around. If I weren't in California, there's a good chance I'd be up here in Boston.

Unfortunately, when from the time I arrived in Boston on Friday night until late on Saturday night it did nothing but rain...hard. Apparently it had been raining for 7 straight days. Crazy. So I spent Friday night and all of Saturday soaking wet, but Sunday and today have been really nice (if a bit windy).

Friday night
Both Jeff's and Josh's planes got delayed due to the heavy rain in Boston. This meant Jeff ended up arriving very shortly before I did, instead of 2 hours before. We called the hotel to have them send the free shuttle and met Josh back at the hotel. After dropping off our stuff we headed to the reception at the Y Combinator offices. We took the hotel shuttle to the T (Boston's subway) and got off at the Harvard Square stop. We had directions for walking to the reception, but the roads around Harvard Square are horribly confusing. We walked in the direction we thought was north and then stopped in a bookstore to ask for directions to Garden Street. After heading in what we thought was the right direction, we passed a van with "free medical services", after walking a bit more we passed the same van again, doh! Finally we figured out where we went wrong and made it onto Garden Street, where we began the 1 mile trek to the reception. Keep in mind it was absolutely pouring this entire time so it was a mixture of walking fast and avoiding large puddles.

After arriving we had some food and talked to several interesting people. We met the guy that runs LibraryThing as well as someone from the company which licensed the browser which would become Internet Explorer to Microsoft.

Around 11 we made the journey back to the subway and were joined by a fellow StartupSchooler from Seattle that works on Ning which is software for building social software (Marc Andreessen is the CEO so it's been getting a good bit of publicity recently).

Saturday
Saturday was the official Startup School. The speakers were all really good and provided lots of useful information. The most amusing slide of the day goes to Olin Shivers for his slide which said "VCs: soulless agents of Satan or just clumsy rapists?". Slides from the various speakers are available here and videos will be posted later in the week.

After the final speaker a bunch of us headed to John Harvard's Brew House. The staff were a bit overwhelmed as we all poured in, but they eventually found and set up several tables for us. After dinner a local StartupSchooler led us over to Algiers Coffee House. Again we kind of overwhelmed the staff, but we pulled a bunch of tables together and a small group of people left to go to a bar. We had several hours of excellent conversation discussing the day's speakers and tossing around various ideas for startups. All in all a great night.

After that Jeff and I headed out on what prove to be the most entertaining subway ride evar. The red line passes through Harvard, MIT, and UMass, so you end up seeing a wide array of people as you progress. After a couple stops, a bunch of drunk UMass students got on the bus and they were joined by this crazy older guy that made balloon animals. A few stops later this older Asian guy got on the bus and the college kids yell "Hey it's that guy again!" And the Asian guy gets up and goes and sits with them. In the meantime I had noticed this woman who had gotten on and looked incredibly pissed off. Eventually her cell phone rang and Jeff and I soon found out why she was so pissed. Apparently some guy she had gone to dinner with ditched her on the subway! Jeff and I were nearly cracking up at this as we picture some guy getting on the subway with her and then jumping off just as the doors close. The situation was also complicated by the fact that apparently this woman was staying at a hotel and she kept telling whoever she was talking to that "I"m going back to get my shit. And then I'm taking Amtrak to get my car. Don't come and get me". Strange stuff. The trip ended as only it could. We got off the subway and some guy was standing in the subway door deciding if this was the train he wanted to get on or not and then in an absolutely perfect Boston accent the conductor yells, "Hey, what are ya doin'?! The doors are closing." Needless to say I consider the $1.25 for that ride purely an entertainment fee.

Sunday
At noon on Sunday we met up with Amy Chan who Josh is good friends with. She went to Case, so Jeff and I both knew who she was. We went to this Middle Eastern restaurant. The food was quite good and you got a good bit of food for the price. I had the lamb kabobs. The other interesting thing about the restaurant was they were playing OK Go's new CD. Amy had been there a few times before and said they are always playing indie music. If I lived up here, I can guarantee I'd be going to that place often.

After lunch Jeff, Josh, and I headed downtown to catch a Duck Tour. The Duck Tour was fun, but unfortunately due to very high winds (apparently up to 30 mph) we did not get to go on the Charles River. We did get half our money back though.

After going back to the hotel to rest for a while, we went out to Legal Sea Foods near MIT for dinner. I highly recommend this restaurant. The food was excellent. I had a Surf and Turf meal which consisted of a tender filet mignon, grilled shrimp, scallops, mashed potatoes, and broccoli with cheese as well as a cup of clam chowder for an appetizer. It was all incredibly delicious. They had a good dessert menu, but I was too full to want anything.

Monday
After getting up and checking out of our hotel, we headed to Faneuil Hall to get some clam chowda in a bread bowl. After that it was time for me to head back to the hotel to catch the shuttle to the airport.

I had a really fun time on the trip. It was great to see Jeff and Josh again, and I picked up lots of good info and contacts related to startups. The trip definitely motivated me to begin brainstorming software ideas and seriously consider founding a company someday.

Download Festival

Yesterday I went to the Download Festival with Mike and his friends Katie and Jason. I wasn't originally planning to go to this show because the main band I was interested in was the Arcade Fire, and seeing them at such a large venue couldn't possibly live up to seeing them at The Grand Ballroom in San Francisco.

However when I went to see Bloc Party with Mike the other week, he said he had 4 tickets to the Download Festival, and they were really good seats (about 10 rows back in the center section) so I decided I might as well go.

Jason and I got there just before Mindless Self Indulgence's set. We watched a few of their songs, including Bitches Love Me (which was the only song of theirs I knew thanks to a hilarious fan made music video involving Pikachu). Then we decided to wander around the venue for a while just to see what there was and see if we could find MIke. I was also trying to figure out where and when Extra Action Marching Band (they are a marching band but dress in gothy and other interesting attire)would be playing. Buzz had mentioned them a few times and said they are really something to see. After 30 minutes or so of wandering and no sign of a large marching band (the ticket takers didn't have any idea where and when they were playing either) we went back to the stage where Mindless Self Indulgence were finishing up their set.

Then as they were setting up the stage for HIM, Extra Action Marching Band come out from behind the stage and started doing their thing in the middle of the crowd. They played a couple songs before marching off to other areas of the show. Then I went over to check in on Jason who had entered some kind of video game tournament in the GameTap. Then we listened to two HIM songs before being bored and heading over to the main stage.

Mike and Katie were already there and British Sea Power were just taking the stage. British Sea Power was ok, but nothing too exciting. Next up were the Doves. I have one of their songs, Pounding, which they opened with. The rest of their set was pretty enjoyable as well, but would have been better if I knew more of their songs.

Then came the main reason I went to the show, The Arcade Fire. They played most of Funeral, as well as the song No Cars Go, and a couple new songs. It was a great set as expected, and during Laika when the two band members get into a fight they came off the stage and were fighting in the aisle right in front of us. They ended with Power Out and a long jam session and then Extra Action Marching band came onto the stage to join them. That was quite a site. Extra Action played a couple songs before proceeding up to the general admission area where they played for quite a while.

Finally about 30 minutes later we thought Modest Mouse was about to take the stage, but instead we had to sit through a painfully pathetic DJ performance by these two girls from GameTap who apparently had no idea what they were doing. The transitions between songs were non existent and they weren't even using headphones. It was total amateur hour. Eventually the intro to Smells Like Teen Spirit came on, which was cool, until they put Beastie Boys lyrics on top of it. Finally someone cut the speakers and everyone cheered. Of course they were still on stage attempting to DJ. It was really awful.

Finally Modest Mouse came out. I enjoyed their songs (though they didn't play Ocean Breathes Salty), but they didn't have very good crowd interaction. I think they addressed the crowd twice at most. But their songs was good, so it was all good.

After another half hour or so wait, The Killers took the stage. I really only know two of their songs, Somebody Told Me and Mr. Brightside. That also seemed to be the case for a large majority of the crowd as well. Some of their songs have pretty good beats, but it wasn't the normal sing-a-long fest you would expect for the headliner. We were also highly amused when the lead singer said, "We only have 4 shows left before we are going to start working on our new album, so we're going to do something we don't normally do and play everything we've got". Normally that'd be a fine statement, but when you only have one album, it lacks a certain punch.

All in all though it was a good day out with good music.

Startup School

Next weekend I'm flying to Boston to attend Startup School along with Jeff and Josh. I'm really looking forward to it. It's being run by Paul Graham, whose essays I've really enjoyed reading over the last couple years. Also among the amazing list of speakers is Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer.

The school is on Saturday, so we'll have all day Sunday to tour the city. We're planning on taking one of the Duck Tours and I'll most definitely be eating lots of clam chowder. Anyone else been to Boston and have suggestions for things we ought to do?