Monday, September 29, 2008

Article by Oddworld creator Lorne Lanning

Found this interview with Lorne Lanning. I find his comments about merging of content creation pipelines for movie, gaming, etc. very aligned with my thoughts on where the entertainment industry will evolve in the next decade. See the article here. Lorne's gaming experiences and content are some of the best in the business. One of my top 3 favorite gaming experiences has been Stranger's Wrath, and Stacey's was Munch's Oddysey.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Travels to Salta Argentina

After our 20+ hour bus ride from Mendoza into the Andean highlands we made it to Salta. This is a pretty bustling town in the northwestern part of Argentina. There are some beautiful colonial style buildings in the middle square. Today we also saw a fairly random parade display in the main square with horses and a bunch of folks dressed in gaucho clothing. We also walked several kms through town to an artesenal market. More of the same stuff for sale: ponchos, mate cups, bombillas, leather goods, some weaved stuff, and all the jewerly they sell at the mall stands and lollapalooza festivels. Yesterday i bought a nice watercolor painting from a vendor on the street for a good price. People are warm and friendly everywhere. Had a fantastic dinner last night at a traditional restaurant, El Solar del Convento, with some great service. Woke up to no COLD water in the Condor Pass hostel...that was a first! Normally, its no HOT water. They fixed it right away though. Once again, wireless access points everywhere. Tomorrow we head back to Buenos Aires and have a day and a half before we head back to the US to return on Sunday.

Friday, September 19, 2008

travels to bariloche Argentina

we've spent the past three days in the Patagonia region of Argentina. Bariloche is a fairly large town set in the lakes district and serves as a jumping off point for lots of national park and winter sport activities. We did some horseback riding for an entire day cmplete with some empenadas roasted on a fire and some yerba mate with our hosts....was a super cool day. I was a little freaked out a few times going through some deep water on my horse when it decided to start playing in the water. Our guide casually explilained it wanted to roll over and it was no big deal...whatever. Scared me quite a bit. Despite those moments it was an incredible journey that went pretty far out across several ranches in the area up I to the snow pack then back down again. A big challenge was keeping warm since we've packed lighter than ever for this trip. 2 weeks with carry on only and if I can I will always do this in the future!

Bariloche is known for it's chocolate and there's several little shops around, all with a slightly different taste and their own unique styles. It's been fun just sampling them. Our favorite have been at a place call choula gouya and another who's name I think is mama lua.

Our hostel here is awesome. It's on the 10th floor of a mixed use building right in the heart of town. Has a weird feel to it because you feel like you're entering an office building, take the elevator to the top
Floor and look for a discrete door labelled '1004'. When you enter it feels like a typical hostel but with giant windows and great views all around the town, the mountain ranges, and the lake.

We leave later today on a 20+ hour bus ride to the wine region and town of Mendoza. After a few days there we will be taking another 20+ hour ride to salta in northwestern Argentina deeper into the Andes.

Meltdown has arrived!

hold onto your hats. Market looks to finally be in a real correction mode. Healthy for the long term, always scary at the front. Very happy to have readben Grahams ' the intelligent investor' back a few years ago and have been diverifying away from the stock market since that time to a more balanced portfolio. Makes times like these a bit less nerve racking.

I've gotten messages from a few folks asking opinion and such, I think mostly wanting to commiserate about the situation. I just want to remind myself and anyone else thnking ok g term that the wrong thing to do is get panicked and sell if you have a long term strategy. I recall several studies that showed if you were out of the market for it's best 10 days over the past 10 or so years you lose over half of the gains the market made over that period. I should look the details up later, it's quite significant. It is important to not try to predict when those days will be.

Selling now could get you cut by the same knife twice.

Travels to Argentina - buenos aires

Spent three days in buenos aires. Got to walk around town and sample the various neighborhoods. Favorite was Palermo area and the microcentro. We stayed at hotel frossard which was good location for first arrival but a bit touristy. Lots of people mentioned the steaks here as something to be amazed by butnso far it's been quantity over quality. Price is amazing, around ten bucks for a huge steak. Wine has been equally even a better value actually living up to expectations completely. One great suprise is the homemade pasta everywhere. A real treat.

Visited the street markets and got a sense of the local flair. Stacey found a nail in her quiche at a famous cafe where lots of writers artists and such from argentinian history have their photos on the wall.

Was pleasantly suprised at proliferation of wifi nearly everywhere it made sense. Mccafes, bars, random restaurants and coffee shops. The folks in Argentina love their cafe con leche. It's in everything they can shove it in and get away with it. Basically Its a soft caramel substance . Tasty but preferred in smaller quantities.


Writing from my iPhone from a hostel in the Patagonia.

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Stacey the handyman!


Stacey does it again...replaced the entire faucet today. Crazy!