Author Archives: nofunberg

Los Angeles, Day Four

I’m in LA for a week. I’m going to try to write something about my trip every day. I hope you enjoy it.

Day four in Los Angeles began with taking my friend Dmitry back to the airport. Neither of us slept well the night before; the party or parties raging across the hotel did not stop, and well past one am our entire room was still shaking. Calls to the front desk produced no results.

Los Angeles, Day Three

I’m in LA for a week. I’m going to try to write something about my trip every day. I hope you enjoy it.

Day two ended with the upstairs neighbors from hell. As Dmitry and I tried to sleep, what sounded like the footsteps of every child even pounded the ceiling above us. He wound up complaining to the front desk at 1 am, to no avail. We woke to the same rhythmic pounding we attempted to sleep through.

Los Angeles, Day One

I’m in LA for a week. I’m going to try to write something about my trip every day. I hope you enjoy it.

This is my first vacation in six years, and the first time since 2002 I’ve travelled entirely on my own. True, I am meeting friends here, but the arrangements, the cash to get here — it’s all been me. Part of me wonders why I’m doing this, and why I am here. Part of my inspiration for traveling here is gone. There are still things that I am looking forward to, but I don’t think the bittersweet feelings I have at the moment are going anywhere.

Impoverished Geek Review: Nvidia Shield

I’d actually reserved an Nvidia Shield last year, but cancelled at the last minute and put the money toward a PS4 instead. The device was getting middling reviews, and I didn’t have a PC powerful enough to use one of its main selling points: game streaming. Furthermore, gaming on Android, like iOS, is a mixed bag: lots of games, most of them not great. This is further complicated by the fact that while the Shield has a touch screen, it’s not particularly easy to use. There’s a controller in the way. My main motivation for picking up the Shield was playing retro games via emulation, and since I have a laptop I carry with me everywhere, I already have a decent emulation machine. My opinion changed when I got a bunch of cash for selling my old portables. I decided to take a chance and give the Shield a whirl. 

Musings on Exploration

My favorite video games are all about exploration. No matter what the genre, if I am really getting into a game, it has to feature a world for me to navigate. To me, nothing beats the feeling of discovering a new location or forging a path where I could not before. This isn’t just a joy I find in video games; I sometimes lament that fact that the majority of the world has been thoroughly explored.  Although it’s certainly true that the first time I go anywhere it’s new to me, there is a sort of magic in finding something new — something no one has seen before.

Eight Great Comic Artists, Part Two

There are, in my mind, two schools of comic book art. The first, the more technical and accurate style, is covered in my previous article. As much as I respect the work those artists do, the work that stands out to me most is more cartoony in nature. Although I can certainly tell the difference between famous comic book artists like Jim Lee and John Byrne, I have a slight preference for artists who step away from tradition in order to create a style that is unmistakably theirs. While realistic comic book art is technically more impressive, cartoon-style art seems to stick with me in a way that the former does not. Perhaps it is because this style of illustration more readily presents expression and individuality. Here are four more artists whose work deserve your attention.

Eight Great Comic Artists, Part One

There are lots of big names in comic book art. Almost everyone’s heard of Steve Ditko, Jim Lee, and Todd McFarlane. Many of them are deserving of their praise. There are smaller names, though, known only in the particular niches they serve. As someone who enjoys comics but wouldn’t call themselves a diehard fan, I thought I’d share a few of my favorite artists and why I think they deserve recognition.

Five Challenges You Will Face When Dieting

I’ve been dieting for almost a year and a half, slowly dropping down to my target weight. The first few months were easy, but since then progress has been maddeningly slow. I’m still slimming down — this month I dropped another waist size and am now within ten pounds of my second of three goal weights. However, it’s taking more and more work to drop this weight, and maintaining self-control remains as difficult as ever. I have come to terms with not being able to have a burger and fries for lunch every day, but there are still other things in my life that make dieting difficult. If dieting is stressing you out, take solace in the fact that you aren’t alone in these frustrations. Or, if someone you know is dieting, try to keep these things in mind when talking to them about eating.