Bud's Blog

3DS Streetpassers!

2012-03-12T17:30:00.000-07:00

Hi Streetpassers! If you reached this page through my Streetpass link then my evil plan worked. Nintendo doesn't seem to like their users to pass any information of use to one another, but I if you use the same trick I did and use Bitly.com I love my 3DS, maybe one of the best things I bought for myself ever. I'm eagerly awaiting Kid Icarus Uprising's release on March 23rd. If you came here through my 3DS you're awesome!

Mardi Gras

2012-02-18T22:34:00.001-08:00

Awesome day of drinking and partying in St Louis today! This was my first Mardi Gras experience and I had so much fun!

Stepping It Up

2012-02-06T19:05:00.000-08:00

Dear Blog Readers, I have neglected you, and I shall neglect you no more. I realize that I have been inconsistent with my blogging, I want to state that from here on out I will contribute fresh content to you. That being said there have been a few things I have blogged about before that I will keep an ongoing interest in blogging about. Topics that you can expect to see more blog posts about new products and trends that I think are going places. Since I started being more interested in Muay Thai I have seen the sport of Mixed Martial Arts and Ultimate Fighting explode, which really heralds Muay Thai as being a key striking style. I've always been interested in computers and the world of gaming; this is a huge area of and for growth in the current market. Innovators like Razer's Min-Liang Tan have realized the opportunities in competitive gaming for market growth and have developed new products to give gamers an "edge". Riot Gaming has become one of my favorite companies to watch, mostly because their business model is incredibly unique for a free to play game, this game being League of Legends. I have been lucky enough to have been playing this game since it's beta stage and my love for the game has only grown with its popularity. I wrote a little bit about a favorite game of mine by the name of Borderlands, which has had enormous success as well as numerous DLC (downloadable content) packs since release, each of which upping the difficulty of this great game. I was happy to see that Borderlands 2 is currently in development, not just as a DLC, but as a completely new game complete with new characters and with further improved artificially intelligent foes. A new game that I haven't blogged about yet which I'm excited about writing about is Star Wars The Old Republic. This game is the WoW killer that gamers have been hoping for, an MMORPG (Massive Multi Player Online Role Playing Game) that is beautiful in every aspect, and yes, I was able to get in during the beta stage. Another F2P (Free-to-Play) game that I'm pretty excited about is the FPS (First Person Shooter) Blacklight Retribution which my friend DJ Hobo from Nordrassil Radio got me a beta key to. This game is intense, offers a hard-core multiplayer experience, and has some great thumping dubstep music as well as a futuristic environment which is well designed for balanced gameplay. So, all in all, I'm really excited about what I'm going to be bringing to this blog, and I hope you are too!

Razer Blade Unveiled

2011-08-26T13:53:00.000-07:00

After a media blitz that started 5 days ago with a dramatic newspaper "manifesto" by Razer as well as multiple cryptic tweets, the Blade has been unveiled. What most people expected was the release of the SwitchBlade" which is sure to follow, this move by Razer takes one of the worlds' most gamer recognized and respected peripheral companies and puts them square into the computer market. Teamed with Intel, and using the i7 processor, Razer's first laptop offering is a serious one. It's exciting to see what price-point they will have this quality machine at, some are saying that it will retail at approximately $2700.

Thai Kickboxing

2011-04-27T15:36:00.000-07:00

It's 5:30 in the morning and I've been up for the last half hour listening to this rooster outside of my window. I want to go outside, chop him up, and add him to my pad thai, but I digest. Yesterday I did my first Thai Kick-Boxing (Muay Thai) lesson within Thailand. I was at Chang (Elephant) Gym in Kata Beach Phuket. Truly an experience for a westerner, I stuck out like a sore thumb, yet everyone at the gym was encouraging and eager to get a chance to train me. When I arrived at 4 o'clock I sat down and joined 6 other boxers in doing stretches. To do Muay Thai you have to be very limber and stretch your leg, back, arms, (hell, everything man) at very least twice a day. I was definitely the least flexible of the bunch, and there were even two other falangs (white folks) there too. We stretched then went for a run across the beach. While running I talked to a really cool and very heavily tattooed Aussie about Muay Thai. He said "I'm 36, here on holiday, if I was 10 years younger, I would be training for fights, but I just like to do this for myself". That being said, I am exactly 10 years younger. What would this mean for me and what I should aspire to do with this sport? Having already run about 6K that day I was lagging as the group pulled ahead of me into the gym. I walked in, pacing myself, knowing that if I over-exerted myself I could get heat-stroke, dehydrated, and ruin my lesson. I took my shoes off and joined the rest of the men who were bouncing on some large tires which had been laid flat to practice footwork. The sweat was literally pouring off of me and as I moved my feet in boxing footwork which I had some previous experience in I started to feel a rawness developing in my left toe. I did the exercise for 5 more minutes and then we were told to take a 2 minute break for water. I used this time to tape up my toe, which was time well spent, because the lesson had not even truly begun.

Goodbye Kata/Karon, Hello Rawei

2011-04-04T05:22:00.000-07:00

We have moved to a secret abode in Rawei which a relative has been very kind to allow us to stay. I'd give more details, but don't really feel like the whole internet should be privy to every bit of information on my whereabouts all the time. I will say, none of it would be possible without the kindness and generosity of David Sr. As always, I find it easier to write in the past tense, meaning, I can never seem to write well about a place while I'm actually there, I am too busy exploring. Last night Sina and I met a really fun couple on their honeymoon who hailed from Dubai, but were originally both from South Africa. Their English was perfect, so I thought nothing unusual about their speech except for a slight accent which sounds maybe Australian to the typical American, then while we're sitting having a beer (one of many last night, they turn to one another and speak a language I had never heard before - Afrikaans. So I asked more about it and learned something new; it's a language related to Dutch - I had no idea. We had such a good time with them, and today they invited us to their hotel, which made for a fun day of us swimming and playing at a private beach. It is nice to meet a cool couple while traveling. Following soon are some pictures from the last 24 hours of the good times we all had. Rassi and Adelle, we hope our paths cross again soon! Cheers!

How to Work Out While Travelling - Ask a Jailbird!

2011-03-28T21:19:00.000-07:00

The best thing I ever learned about fitness and training is that the best methods for developing strength and true power in your body take NO equipment. You don't need to hang out in a gym to get a good work out. Read Convict Conditioning, do wall-sits, bridges, push-ups, pull-ups, isometric exercises. One of the strongest men I know, and the most intimidating, is an ex-Hell's Angel who taught me that you don't need to use fancy equipment, just get your hands dirty, set some goals for yourself, and always eat your veggies!

Super Sikh With it, travel tip of the day

2011-03-26T02:22:00.000-07:00

I credit this travel tip to "DaSikhness" on 4chan's /trv/, which I am a contributor to sometimes.

1.Sikhs are located Worldwide, all you gotta do if you want to find a sikh temple is type it into google maps or your Iphone/andriod etc.

2. Every Sikh temple gives out free food known as "Langar"(The Free Kitchen) it was stared in the early 16th century as a way to give food and make everyone equal as they ate. The langar can consist of very simple Punjabi food (lentil and rice pudding) to some extremely flavorful food (samosas, Pakoras, Paneer)
You can also take food for the road if you ask.

3. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO KNOW IF YOU ARE TO ENTER A SIKH TEMPLE!
No Alcohol or Drugs are allowed, if you are under the influence you will be asked to leave. The Elders priests especially take this rule seriously.

4. if you have no place to stay you can ask the "Head Granthi"(Head Priest) if can stay within the temple. at most you may be asked to do some selfless service if you are to stay, This may be washing dishes or even serving food.

The Langar is for everyone, but with all things, spread the good Karma. Feels good man.

Thailand bound

2011-03-11T10:30:00.000-08:00

Hello readers. I am proud to announce that the title of this blog is going to have to change because the show is moving to THAILAND! On the 21st Sina and I will arrive in Phuket. I would also like to say that in light of this great news I am very sorrowed by the traumatic Japan tsunami and earthquake that happened today.

Just got home from Kiel

2011-02-05T08:16:00.000-08:00

I am pooped, and we're already planning on going out again tonight. We went to Tucholsky which is an insane underground bar and dance club, it's about 5 Euros to get in, but that includes coat check and drink coupons for three shieße little shots, or at least that was my experience. The vibe there is very young, it's a real student hang out. If you're a guy a few young-bucks might try and shoulder-check you while you're walking through, they're looking for trouble, so just roll your eyes and walk away. Here they play mostly American pop and hip-hop, but it is really something you should at least taek a look at while you're in Kiel. There is a really good Turkish restaurant across the street from Tucholsky if you want a nice dinner, order their doener plate which is about 7 Euro, it's huge and more delicious than any other I've had. If you don't like spicy, stay away from the red sauce. If you do like spicy, have some tzaziki and pita-bread ready because you'll need it.

I'm so pooped right now, I'm definitely planning on having a Red-Bull and Vodka (maybe Jaeger) when I go out tonight. We're going to Cheyenne (has a reputation for being kind of a shit-show) which is the local discotheque in Rendsburg tonight, and meeting up with Malte and Natalia. Should be fun!

Borderlands is (officially) on the Mac

2011-02-01T00:56:00.000-08:00

A few days ago Borderlands was officially launched on Apple's new App Store. This was a pretty big deal to me, although I had already beaten the original campaign on "Playthrough I" on a Mac about 8 months ago. Confused? Let me explain. Borderlands is a game I had been anticipating for two years before its release. I love both the RPG (role-playing-game) and FPS (first-person-shooter) genres, and Borderlands is the first game to blend the two. Well, this was before I had made a plan to travel around the world, and I had a big Mac Pro tower with twin 2.8 Ghz Pentiums and 6 gigs of RAM in it, but Borderlands was only released for the PC. I was undeterred. I used Bootcamp, put all the drivers in, and bought Borderlands on Steam. Even with all that processing power, the game ran like shit, even with all the settings on low. When I say that, I mean major screen tearing issues. Now I am playing on my 11" MacBook Air and it runs better than it ever did on my last computer. So thank you Feral Interactive for publishing such a great edition of Borderlands. I had bought the game before on Steam when it was for PC, but with this edition you also get all of the DLC (Down-Loadable-Content) at once, so it is a good value.

Tips and Tricks for anybody new to the world of Borderlands:

Skags: The pitbulls of Pandora are not just for target practice, they charge at you fast! Use any opportunity that they open their wide mouths to shoot them right in the face for a critical hit. Also, when you see them charging you can also jump over them, which is a good strategy because they have a hard time turning around, also this gives you a shot at their unarmored sides. For Skag Spitters you should close distance on them and try and use a melee attack on them, it's highly effective. Skags have loot too, find ammo that they've swallowed, and if you're lucky enough to see it drop, take a screenshot of Skag Pearls, it will give you money, but post that screenshot on the Gearbox forums for net cred.

Explosive containers: These aren't just limited to the explosive barrels that you see (colored red for gas, blue for electric, and green for acid, yellow is explosive burst damage like gunpowder (?), but there are also gas containers, always brown and marked with a white "Jakobs" logo.

more tips to come!

Hangover in Hannover

2011-01-23T14:05:00.000-08:00

This title is something catchy I came up with on Saturday morning when I woke up on Sina's friend Natalia's couch after a night of dancing and drinking at "Cumberlantsche Gallerie". The place is awesome for a Friday night. Sina's cousin Timo works sometimes as a bartender there and he was the best host ever. We would have never found such a cool spot like that on our own. We came to a realization that clubs in Germany are a lot different from their US counterparts in the way that they are very quiet outside. Granted you will have a visible smoking section outside, but they are all sound-proofed well and crowd-controlled so that you only see a single bouncer standing outside as opposed to "the line" outside of a club that club-owners in the US allow to build so as to attract more customers. Well, we had a great time dancing to what was a mash-up of jazz, soul and funk. When we decided to leave we were told that we were "walking distance" to Natalia's apartment.

"Walking distance" is a term that Germans take very literally, maybe more similarly to the way that Forest Gump would consider walking distance. Drunk, freezing cold, we walk for at least a half-hour. I am starting to see where stereotypes of fat, lazy Americans are derived from. Natalia and her boyfriend Malte were also excellent hosts, and after we woke up and changed to couch from sleep-mode to living-room mode we were all enjoying German breakfast together in her cozy living room.

The German breakfast is something I have really begun to love after a little time to adapt and see what I like. Everybody does it a little different, but it definitely has a few common denominators; everybody gets a hard-boiled egg, everybody gets some toast or fresh rolls (from either a bakery or they get these rolls that they bake in their own ovens), some fruit (usually some bananas, apple slices, grapes, pomelo), then saft (or Zaft, which is juice as we would pronounce it, usually orange, just like us), but the big deal is all the spreads. You see a table set up for German breakfast and it's really impressive, like "you did all this for me?!" Literally every bit of space on the table is taken up, these people like OPTIONS. So you sit and talk with everyone, and split open a roll and everyone grabs different stuff. Nutella, cheese, butter, lunch meat, jam, and some other stuff I have to explain. They have this spread that you get at the grocery store in the Deli section that tastes so good to me. Describing it might not do it justice because it really is tasty, but it's a cream sauce with onions and very thinly cut prosciutto or ham. Seriously, I could live off of this stuff, I don't get tired of it. Natalia shared with me how she likes to eat her b-fast, and it is supposedly very European. She puts a piece of gouda cheese on a roll and then adds jelly on top of it. I tried it, and it was way better than I expected, and I think I actually like it better than the common butter and jelly combo I was used to. So at this point my hangover has subsided quite a bit and just in time because we all clean up breakfast (I'm always the last one eating, staying true to my stereotype), and we head out the door.

The weather is cold, big surprise, and a light rain is falling but no problem, I have a Burton jacket on so I throw my hood over my tuque and off we go. We visit the Rathaus in Hannover which is beautiful. There were two couples taking wedding photos, a bunch of unattended little kids running around, and four big models of Hannover. It was pretty cool to look at the models, they showed the city as it looked in Medieval times, right before WWII, right after WWII (which made me sad because Hannover, like so many other German cities, were devastated by the Allied forces), and Hannover as it is today. If you have to make one stop in Hannover for a bit of history, this is the spot, thanks again Natalia.

Rendsburg

2011-01-11T09:00:00.000-08:00

So, here I am in Rendsburg, and I'm so happy to be here. I have always wanted to learn German, and this is a chance for full immersion. Here I am having a Turkish Doner, with my girlfriend's mother, Anja. Doner is pronounced more like "Der-nah" than "Donor" as it might look like it is spelled. It's delicious, and can be prepared in a number of ways, like a burrito, as a burger, or over fries. Being a Californian, I relate German peoples' love of doner to our love of burritos.

2011-01-06T02:36:00.000-08:00

Before the Blog

2011-01-05T17:38:00.000-08:00

(These are the early days...ok, a week ago...before I knew I would be making a blog about my travels, so truly it is more of an inner monologue that began a little less than a week ago)

Thursday 2 AM, 12.30.2010

My mind is restless right now. I am about to embark on an adventure that I will share with you, reader. My name is Jordan Truchan and I am taking you with me. Right now, we're in Ocean Reef Key Largo, go ahead, google it. I'm here visiting my parents with my travel companions, Sina & Blue. Sina is my girlfriend, Blue is my dog, literally.

Our current plan is to leave from Ocean Reef in exactly 33.5 hours, drive to MIA to catch a flight to Frankfurt, to catch a connecting flight which will take us to Hamburg, from where we will be picked up by SIna's parents and be taken to her home in Kiel, Germany. This trip was formulated by Sina and I around February 2010, and currently things are going to plan and we will be starting the new year outside of the US.

12:16 AM PST, 6:16 Local time

Happy New Year! We're in the air heading into Frankfurt. So far our travels have gone according to plan, and this time around while navigating the dog throughout the airport the muzzle we bought for him paid for itself! Right as we were checking in our bags Blue took a start at the baggage handler, kind of like he did in SFO, except this time we were prepared and nobody was scared or nipped.

We are riding aboard Lufthansa right now and it is one of the best flying experiences I've had even though we're sitting in economy class. We've had two complimentary meals, and two complimentary rounds of drinks. I really can't complain. I've passed the time on this flight playing Nintendo DS (Pokemon SoulSilver) and listening to my new iPod Nano (The Glitch Mob) as well as playing a few hands of Poker Night at the Inventory on my MacBook Air.

I love how portable my life is now. Sina packed for both of us, so all credit to her for squeezing almost everything we have into four large check-in bags, two rolling carry-ons, and other than that I have my backpack and she has her purse.

This is the part of the trip we've been worrying about the most actually; I'm referring to how we're going from Frankfurt to Hamburg. This is problematic because it is likely that there will be a delay due to inclement weather conditions at the airport, possibly delaying us. We wouldn't care that much, except that we're traveling with Blue and we are both concerned about him being stuck in his kennel for too long. I guess we'll see what happens in about an hour, but our layover in Frankfurt is only supposed to last about two hours.