Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: 1 ... 3 4 [5]

Author Topic: India Fortress (Adventure Mode)  (Read 62180 times)

Greiger

  • Bay Watcher
  • Reptilian Illuminati member. Keep it secret.
    • View Profile
Re: India Fortress (Adventure Mode)
« Reply #60 on: April 21, 2008, 01:17:00 pm »

Awww, yer grandma is worried about you guys... At least you have someone who knows where to look for signs of ya.  My entire family is completely computer illiterate and had me drive across daytona during the 500(you don't wanna be on the roads unless you have to at this time) to hook up a new mouse.  A MOUSE! and XP had the drivers by default.  

So even if they knew where to look I doubt they would even know how to get to this site...  Anyway, if you ever get kidnapped if ya post here I'll happily call the local police for ya.  I wonder what the response time between Florida and India is...

Logged
Disclaimer: Not responsible for dwarven deaths from the use or misuse of this post.
Quote
I don't need friends!! I've got knives!!!

Kagus

  • Bay Watcher
  • Olive oil. Don't you?
    • View Profile
Re: India Fortress (Adventure Mode)
« Reply #61 on: April 21, 2008, 01:35:00 pm »

Did I mention she works for Blizzard and has a free WoW account?  She knows her way around a computer.

But the fact that my grandmother would think we would call them when we got to Goa...  That they automatically assume we'd do something like that, something we haven't done before (and have no intention of starting to do) is just a teensy bit batty.

Anyways, it all worked out in the end.  All's well that ends well, eh?

Kagus

  • Bay Watcher
  • Olive oil. Don't you?
    • View Profile
Re: India Fortress (Adventure Mode)
« Reply #62 on: May 04, 2008, 09:31:00 am »

Man, I hate it when transvestite beggars come up and yank on my ponytail.  Don't you?

These at least had the decency to have shaved recently.


Anyways, just a couple weeks left here in India.  After that it's back to the states where I'll panic and cram in an attempt to make myself suitable for being in a public place, and after that I'm heading off to Norway for school.

I've applied to three different schools up there...  If I get into the one I want, my majors will be film and rock.   Yes, they have a rock and metal major, and it's got nothing to do with geology.  They're planning on making a feature-length film soon, and everyone involved gets to put their name on IMBD.  That's what the film major is going to be working on this time around, and I happen to think that's a pretty damn cool way to spend nine months (the length of stay at one of these schools.  You can always re-apply, though).

Heh heh...  Yeah.  Joining up with a performing arts school, when I can't dance, sing, or play my electric guitar.  That's where the cramming comes into play.


Y'know, it may be hard to imagine that a person can go to India for several months and not once see the Taj Mahal, but it's possible.  I haven't seen any holy men either, although there is this one guy who follows us around from time to time and gibbers at us with rather disturbingly wide eyes.  He looks like he's informing us of the most important information in the world (and possibly beyond, no telling where he's been), but no matter how much he mutters in our direction we still don't speak Telugu.  If that's even the language he's speaking in.  He dropped by for breakfast today and gave us a quick lecture about something of cosmic significance before he went off to eat his food.

By the way, I don't recomend the tourist locations in India.  Sure, it's nice to not have the superstardom-effect where everyone's gawking at you, but the merchants will try to screw you over bigtime.  5000% markups just ain't worth dealing with.   It'll probably still be cheaper than stateside prices, but your money will last a lot longer in a place where they don't expect easy marks.  Or at least, easy Western marks.  If you happen upon a merchant in some of the less tourist-frequented areas, when he tries to screw you over you'll be facing grass prices instead of dirt prices.  Sometimes it's just too damned hard to haggle with folks like that because you realize that you're paying them pocket lint.  Breaks the mood, don't ya know?

The kids around here are maddening at times...  We've entered into a ful-scale evasion of them.  Hanging a sock over the keyhole so they can't see in, tiptoeing to the door whenever the doorbell rings so we can see if the person standing outside reaches height requirements for being let in.  

Sure, the occasional visit can be fun, but after a while...  Well...


Let's just say that 6:30AM is too early for recieving visitors.

Kagus

  • Bay Watcher
  • Olive oil. Don't you?
    • View Profile
Re: India Fortress (Adventure Mode)
« Reply #63 on: May 06, 2008, 08:56:00 am »

Well, I got accepted to two of the two schools I sent an application to.  In fact, one of them is practically clamoring to get me in, and there was even a goof made on the application sent to that school.   One where it accidentally said the name of the other school I was applying to.


Now I need to choose between the two.  One school is making a feature-length movie that will be released as a professional production, the other has a trip to Cuba coming up.  

Damn, it's so difficult to choose a good school these days...   I have to pick between going to Cuba or acting in a film.  Life's tough.


The Cuba school doesn't have a Rock major, however...  Which is probably just as well, since I'd only be able to play guitar to an extent that I could learn within a couple months.

Greiger

  • Bay Watcher
  • Reptilian Illuminati member. Keep it secret.
    • View Profile
Re: India Fortress (Adventure Mode)
« Reply #64 on: May 06, 2008, 03:54:00 pm »

As much as I like to help you with that I'm stuck with a problem choosing a (tech)school myself.  Between a local cc that has a computer support specialist cert. program I already have a couple credits in, and a more interesting computer security cert. program at another school that is unfortunately online only.

Quite surprising that there is such a thing as a rock major.  Maybe in a few years schools will start doing tournament level gamer majors.  Team Fortress 101 sounds like a fun class.

Logged
Disclaimer: Not responsible for dwarven deaths from the use or misuse of this post.
Quote
I don't need friends!! I've got knives!!!

Kagus

  • Bay Watcher
  • Olive oil. Don't you?
    • View Profile
Re: India Fortress (Adventure Mode)
« Reply #65 on: May 10, 2008, 12:54:00 pm »

Well, picked one.  Cuba it is.  Along with sailing trips on the school's Viking longship.  

Norwegian schools, man...


Time to brush up on my Norwegian, my electric guitar, my dancing, my mountain climbing, my social interaction with reasonably sane people, my singing, my...

Just another life in the day of me.


India hasn't been doing a whole lot of anything lately.  I was thinking earlier today of how everything looked so alien and intimidating when we first arrived, compared to how everything looks now.  It's a completely different culture, but you can get used to it just fine.  Dealing with the traffic can take a little practice, however...  

Even the writing looked so mysterious and unknowable.  Now it just looks like writing.  Sure, I can't understand a word of it, but it doesn't look so strange now.

We called the paperboy up to the apartment so we could give him our old newspapers.  Now, he pays based on weight, but he's only got one 500kg weight, and we've got a lot of old paper.  So, he weighs one stack of papers against the weight until it evens out.  Then he takes that paper and sticks it with the weight, and puts a double-sized stack of paper on the other dish.

Now, this was apparently a very entertaining process (I was busy with a DF story), so my mom decides to take a picture of him.  He asks her if she could send the picture to his phone.  She can't, so she takes a picture of him with his phone.  Then he wants to take a picture of her taking a picture of him.

We did, eventually, get the newspaper cleared out.  Honest.

Kagus

  • Bay Watcher
  • Olive oil. Don't you?
    • View Profile
Re: India Fortress (Adventure Mode)
« Reply #66 on: May 18, 2008, 07:18:00 am »

Well, tomorrow will be our last day in India, and my last day for quite some time.  We'll be leaving the apartment at 1:00 AM that night (I can't rightly call it "morning") to head out to the airport, where the plane will board at 4:00 AM.  

Why the airport said we should be there three hours before they start boarding, I'm not entirely sure I want to know.  Apparently, the checking process takes an eternity.

We just bought an idly steamer so we can eat at least two Indian recipes back in the states.  Unfortunately, we don't know the recipe for the special sambar it goes with, and trying to look for a recipe online is utter insanity due to the standard Indian naming system, wherein the principal law is "No more than one name or word per hundred instances".  


India has been fun.  Most certainly not what I was expecting, but then again I was kinda expecting the river + cow + mud hut + holy man + dancing milkmaids scene.  I'm actually slightly relieved it didn't live up to my expectations.

It feels like I've barely been here a couple weeks, and also like I've spent a good deal of my life here.  It's going to be strange coming back to Vegas and the house we've got there...  I hope I can kick some of the unusual habits I've picked up here, the ones that are almost essential to dealing with Indians but would seem slightly insane to Westerners.

But of course, I cannot try to generalize India.  India is a massively huge fabric woven with thousands of threads made from wildly different materials and colors, and the image it presents can be rather confusing at times.  Simply going from Hyderabad to Goa -a relatively short trip when the rest of India is taken into consideration- you see cultures that are almost completely alien to one another.

If any of you decide to visit India, I recommend you take these points into consideration:

1. South India has some of the best food (in my most humble of opinions), and is far less strict on the manners practiced while eating it than the Northern parts.  

2. If you ever get a chance to eat Rajasthani food, pass. Same goes for paan.

3. Sellers of a particular good will tend to cluster around each other, for some reason.  If you don't like the products or the prices of a place, go next door.  This also applies to restaurants.

4. Indian pidgin pronounciation guide:  "Z" is pronounced "J".  This leads to people talking about going to the jew, and also talking about the number jeero.  "S" is sometimes pronounced "Sh" or "Ch".  This leads to people talking about getting someone to fix a leaky chink.  

Also be on the lookout for people testing their geography by talking about the tiny island nation of faggy.

5. Everybody has a different way of spelling English words, most of them phonetically.  Train your deciphering and pattern-recognition skills by looking at signs and billboards.

6. Being in close quarters with Indians is actually less of a bother than being in close quarters with Westerners.  I assume this is due to a combination of their not being self-conscious about it, and the fact that Indian sweat smells like the spices they eat (check your armpits after a few days of eating the local food.  You may be surprised).

7. Don't tip too much.  If you do, you will never be able to get rid of the waiter you tipped.  

8. If one person knows where/who you are, everybody knows where/who you are.  My name has spread around, since it's the easiest to pronounce, and I often run into strange kids that I've never seen before who greet me by name.

9. Don't drive.  Leave it to the locals.  I don't care how much you don't like taking rickshaws or taxis everywhere, you're going to like driving in this madhouse even less.

10.  Eat. Everything.  There is so much good food here, it is almost sinful to leave even some of it untasted.  Stuff yourself full to the brim with curries and dals and tiffins and enjoy every damn bite of it.  If it doesn;t taste right, go next door and try it there.  


Luckily, I've got a few things to entertain myself with when I get back to Vegas.  We've got the tenth season of South Park waiting on DVD at the library, and we're lining up a few of the movies that have been released since we left for India.  

Did you know that on average, there are about three movies released per day here in India?  Did you also know that the quality-quantity balance is heavily lopsided?

My time is going to be heavily eaten up when I return to Vegas, so I most likely won't be able to keep up such speedy updates on my various projects (...), and in general I won't be spending as much time on the boards.  I might have some time when I get to the school, since they promise to only fill half the day with various projects and 'lessons'.

Well lads, it's been great.  Be seein' y'all when I get the chance.


-Kagus


P.S.
This isn't the last post, I've still got a day's worth of time left.  I just figured I should get around to writing this thing some time before I left for the states.

Kagus

  • Bay Watcher
  • Olive oil. Don't you?
    • View Profile
Re: India Fortress (Adventure Mode)
« Reply #67 on: May 21, 2008, 04:05:00 pm »

P.P.S. (of sorts)

Got back just last night, and noticed that my ribs were showing when I was brushing my teeth.  Out of curiosity, I pulled out the scale (damn thing belongs in a museum...) and stepped on.

According to that, I lost 36 pounds while in India.  I went from 166 to 130.  I am now clinically underweight, after four months of gorging myself.


Also, as an aside, there is a comically large number of advertisements for timepieces in Geneva.  There was also an add for some brand of coffee that featured George Clooney for some obscure reason.  

And 37 hours of flying in a plane is made so much easier when you have access to AC/DC and Led Zeppelin albums.

Rose

  • Bay Watcher
  • Resident Elf
    • View Profile
Re: India Fortress (Adventure Mode)
« Reply #68 on: July 23, 2009, 11:47:20 pm »

*looks at the last post date*

*looks at today's date*

eh, what the hell.

sounds like you had a good time here, though if I had been into DF then, I'd have been able to advise you to stay clear of anything involving the films. :P

tho I have to say, you do indeed get used to if after a time. in fact, I'm afraid that after living here for 13 years, I think I might have gone downright local.
Logged
Pages: 1 ... 3 4 [5]