FHFF TV: At the edge of Canada from Jonathan Buyco on Vimeo.

Tomorrow is going to be a full day of travel, and lots more to prepare! Keep up with more of our updates here:

http://www.fiveholeforfood.com/snapshots-st-johns-nfld/

The flights over were fantastic, and we have to thank WestJet for flying us out here! I think the other guys may have been a bit jealous because on both flights I think I got the best seat in the house. Totally makes sense…since I am the shortest guy out of us all

Here’s a short little video of our first day and just a couple shout outs at the end.

I have to give a HUGE thank-you to London Drugs who provided us with this awesome Panasonic HDC-TM700 camcorder. The quality on this bad boy is insane! It shoots at 1920×1080/60p and you can tell with the video above. Muchos gracias for their support!

I should probably leave it at that, I think I hear the birds chirping outside. Don’t forget to follow along in our adventure, and to join in at one of the cities closest to you!

That’s the gist of it. We’ll be gone for a good 3 weeks and to be honest this is the longest I’ve ever been away from home. My last vacation was years ago, and for about a week (maybe)…although this isn’t even a vacation! There is still tons of work left to do, and I’ve got to be on my toes throughout the entire trip. It’s hard to say exactly what I’ll be doing because there is so much to be done. But what I can do is try my best to keep everyone updated with daily videos, tweets, photos, blog entries, and high fives.

All I ask is that if you’re in one of our cities that we hit, you make an appearance

I’ll keep this post short and sweet and leave you with some links you may fancy.

Official Five Hole For Food links:
Website: http://www.fiveholeforfood.com/
YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/FiveHoleForFood
Twitter account: http://twitter.com/fiveholeforfood
My twitter account: http://twitter.com/jonathanbuyco
My flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonathanbuyco/

Also, muchos gracias to some of our sponsors:
http://www.fiveholeforfood.com/sponsors/

This trip wouldn’t happen without them!

To give a bit of a back-story for this, my friend Mariel mentioned she joined a Glee club where they practice singing in a group. The first time she mentioned it I thought it was some kind of support group for people who have singing problems lol. Turned out she really enjoyed it and was having a great time with her group. So for the following ten weeks thereafter she and her group worked very hard to put together an amazing night! So without further adieu, here is Mariel, Taal, Shayne and the other members of the Vancouver Glee Camp!

Rocket Man:

Time Warp:

Somebody to Love:

Like a Prayer:

It was only 2:30pm when we circled 1st and Union, so we thought we were doing fairly well in terms of timing for the show. 10 mins of debating on parking was followed by a stroll by the Showbox just to check out the scenery. Unfortunately the scenery included a lineup on the street for the show. There were only about 10 people there, but we didn’t want to take any chances and waited in line anyways.

While standing in line with Will, hours before the show even started, I saw one of my old coworkers lining up to go to the same show. What a coincidence! Later on in the evening I ended up seeing another coworker there too. After a quick exchange of our expectations on how awesome the show was going to be, we went back to our spots in line.

At around 4:30pm we got the option to go into the bar (Green Room) beside the venue where we’d get even better priority over those in line. Interesting way of doing things actually—instead of waiting in the line, they offer you a seat in the bar and give you a number (1-5 based on priority). When they start letting people in for the show, they first allow those at the bar in based on their number. It’s a nice way to keep those, who show up early, nice and comfortable before the show. So, for the next 2 and a half hours we had some drinks, talked about how awesome the night is going to be, and played a bastardized version of Chai Mui.

They finally started letting people in at around 7pm, starting with us in the Green Room. After the quick frisk, and ticket check, there was a mad rush to the front of the stage to get the best spots. Lucky us, we found spots just off center and behind a couple midgets (not literally, but rather—hilariously). The four of us had a strategy of creating empty space in the middle of us, allowing room for crumple during the concert—which eventually worked well! After the first hour of waiting, we started getting impatient.

My feet were so sore, my legs were numb, and I was tired as hell.

DJ Mike Rizzo jumped on stage and started amping up the crowd. Unfortunately, it didn’t work on me because I don’t listen to the radio and reason being: top 40 doesn’t entertain me. An hour later I could feel the tension in the crowd and within me. We were already waiting for 5 hours and still no sign of her. At about 9:15pm, Mike blurts out—she’ll be out in 15 minutes! The whole venue goes crazy!

15 minutes later he says: “She’ll be here in 15 minutes!”

Another uproar, but I stood there pouting. At this point in my head I’m thinking, holy crap we’re going through a lot for this show. After 15 minutes of an internal debacle with myself, Mike leaves the stage and the roadies start setting up! My resting heart rate just jumped from 75 to 100!

For about 15 minutes, I worry that I’m going to pass out from all the excitement—then the music starts, and then Utada Hikaru kicks off with On and on! I can’t even explain how I felt, how it was like to be arms length away from her, to look in her eyes and receive the most beautiful smile back!

The show only got better and better. After a few English songs, she starts some dialogue and even at the introduction to her Japanese songs, the crowd went nuts! I went nuts! She did a few songs while on the keyboard as well. And I quote, “This is a keyboard!” When she started singing First Love I was afraid I wouldn’t hear her because of all the crowd singing along, but her voice of course broke through and was amazing! Every song she sang brought chills down my spine. Hikki’s voice was perfect all night, and every song sounded as beautiful as the first time I heard them.

Throughout the concert, cameras were disallowed, and I’m okay with that. There’s no way I’d forget those memories! There was, although, someone between us and the stage beside the bouncer taking photos. In between songs I looked… and it was Keiko Fuji aka Utada Junko, Hikki’s mom! I was in the presence of greatness! Being in such an intimate setting is beyond words. The venue was not very big, but it was packed! I’d compare it to about double the size of the venue stages during her United tour. We were up at the front with our eyes glued to Hikki, but I did get a chance to take a glance behind us and there wasn’t an inch of unmanned/unwomaned floor!

As the concert was coming to a close, she said her goodbyes and left the stage. Then we kept screaming for an encore. After about 2 minutes of screaming her name they came back on stage! Hikki ended off with Simple and Clean (with the awesome la da da da da da da ending). It looked like she grabbed her bag to leave, but it was actually a bag of 6-8 signed kumabucks balls! She began throwing them into the crowd and I was afraid I’d get trampled by other frantic fans.

So, you can think otherwise, but this is how it played out: she had a few left, and came back to the mid-left side of the stage (where we were). As she was grabbing a ball I was looking directly at her and she looked up, saw me and smiled, then tossed me the ball. It was all in slow motion in my brain and I’ll never forget those 5 seconds of my life (I sound like a creep right now lol). I couldn’t believe it, but it happened… and now my friends and gbones beside me at the concert hate me forever.

It was the most amazing night ever! I had so much fun, and couldn’t have asked for more (well, I could but that’d just be greedy). I don’t think I could ever go to another concert and have the same connection or feeling of bliss like I did at this one.

My feet were so sore, my legs were numb, and I was tired as hell.

…3 hours with Utada’s voice was well worth it

Links:
Official Tour Photos
Video clips and audio (removed these links, I guess you had to be there)

A bit of a preface: to get to Victoria it’s about a half an hour drive from Vancouver to Tsawwassen (/teh’wa:sehn/, /seh’wa:sehn/ or /tseh’wa:sen/) then an hour and 30 minute ferry ride to Swartz Bay, then another half hour drive to get to Downtown Victoria. Totalling to approximately 2 and a half hours of travel. Wrong.

The day before we left I attempted to reserve a spot on the 10am ferry so we wouldn’t have to worry about any waits. This didn’t work because the ferry reservation site was down–of course. I figured it shouldn’t be too busy getting to Victoria on a Sunday since it’s usually the day everyone comes back to Vancouver. Turns out I was right… but that only helped half of my cause (since we had to take a ferry back to Vancouver later that night).

Jumping ahead about 3 hours, we found ourselves in the middle of downtown Victoria. It had an old town feel, with city parking. No damn parking anywhere! For about half an hour we were trying to find street parking, and finally gave up and proceeded to search for underground pay parking. The first parkade we found was a diamond in the rough… free parking on Sundays! After settling in, we began the day…

We went to eat at the first cafe we saw and hot damn it was good. Ham and cheese omelette for me, veggie omelette for her. When eating under the hot sun, I do not recommend eating cheese. Take that advice with you and learn from my mistakes. After breakfast we walked around for a bit. There was a marketplace which was like Richmond nightmarket minus all the asian people, the horrific stage performers and food. Pretty bland if you ask me. From there we went around and took some pictures of the dragonboat festival, the parliament building and the Fairmont hotel.

After a short debate, we went to the museum. I haven’t been to a museum in about 20 years and I don’t know why. It was amazing! To stand in the presence of artifacts dating several millennia ago set me aback. These were all from the British Museum’s “Treasures” exhibit, featured in the Royal BC Museum. I think my favorite pieces were from ancient Egypt and ancient Rome. To see these artifacts so close and personal was an experience to me. I never thought I’d enjoy a visit to the museum so much. Easily on the top of my list for this visit.

We then did a bit of walking around, ran into some street performers and I found myself a replacement 4x4x4 Rubik’s cube (Rubik’s Revenge). The last one was demolished by my mom. I’ve never seen anything explode in someone’s hands like that before..

Finally it was time to make our last runs and stopped by the winery. This was a first for me and I had the biggest urge to just run through the grape field. No reasoning at all… I just want to do it. If I had to be somewhere fast, I would imagine myself surrounded by grapes.

Anyways…

The trip home wasn’t very awesome. Like I said above, “I figured it shouldn’t be too busy getting to Victoria on a Sunday since it’s usually the day everyone comes back to Vancouver.” We waited in the car for about an hour before we got to the actual toll to pay for the ride back home. From there we waited in line for about another two hours waiting for our ferry. Two hours later, we made it into Vancouver.

Putting this all together, there was about 8 and a half hours of transit in this day trip. We spent less time being tourists than we did traveling. How sick is that? But in the end, I thought it was a nice trip out of the city and I got to enjoy a beautiful view on the ride back.

I hardly get excited about going on any trips, especially to those destinations within continental North America. It’s weird that I was more excited about going to Calgary to visit some of my close friends, than I am leaving to the city that never stops partying. Why is that?

I’ve travelled quite frequently on business trips, and this is one of the few where I don’t have to speak about web development, and I don’t have to be at an 8am meeting, and I don’t have to set up a booth, and I specifically don’t have to give a damn about how I behave. So why do I not feel excited? I think work ruined it… I think it’s because I still have that routine mentality that as soon as I land, I’m going to have to do work. I’d like to say, this time I don’t, but unfortunately I promised some slides and estimates by tomorrow morning. What was I thinking lol.

Geez, 4 hours into my vacation and I’m already talking about work. Anyways…

I’m heading to Vegas in the morning and I expect to be in full party mode by 11AM. There should be quite a few of us down there, and by some miracle my sister will be down there too. Have you ever partied with your sibling? Have you ever partied with your sibling in Vegas? I expect no good to come out of this…

I am going absolutely nowhere with this entry lol, and it could be quite possibly be because of the heat… or the hair dye seeping into my brain. Yes, I dyed my hair on Saturday and again today… 3 days later. Don’t judge.

Note to self: do not start a blog post without thinking about what to say first.

And my final note… things to remember to not bring:

1. a camera
2. my inhibitions
3. a sense of self-respect
4. responsibility
5. decision making skills

That is all. Peace out, INTERNET.

Now Street Fighter IV has been out in arcades since September and I had a chance to play it when it was first released. At first sight it seems like it would play like 3rd Strike, but surprisingly played more like CVS2. There is the focus attack which can be useful and devastating at the same time. Then there is the ex gauge and revenge meter. All in all, not really much more to take in than in other releases such as Marvel 2.

I could rant for hours about this game but I’ll pick on a few topics and I can expand more in another installment of my little SF4 review series.

First on the list is single player mode. This has been said before in other articles and I’ll re-iterate it in my own words: fuck you single player. With Street Fighter, I hate playing the CPU because it’s fucking pointless. In SFIV you have to essentially beat the game with everyone to unlock all the characters. Once you unlock a character, you also have to beat the game with him/her as well. Is that not a waste of time? The solution circulating the web is to put it on easiest and best of 1 round. Sure that saves time, but that wouldn’t be necessary if all the characters were just unlocked initially.

Next we have the control settings. Just last weekend Bran and I hosted a mini tournament which we also participated in. With that many players participating, and not having the MadCatz Fightsticks/Pads available in Canada (that’s another post in itself), time was wasted going into the config and trying to decipher the settings. It doesn’t really take a lot of time to figure out how to map the controls, I can do it pretty quickly now, but it would make sense if you could save settings and load them before each match. It seems like it would be a simple function that would release a lot of edge on players fiddling with changes.

This one may be a bit controversial just because of my biased opinion, but I think the online play is horrible (sometimes). Having this feature is fucking awesome, but along with this feature you also get the added bonus of input lag. I have a long-standing career in playing SF and am really used to having instantaneous results when I press a button or move in a direction. To me this is essential to SF gameplay. No longer can I test with a c.mk before letting loose on my super. Part of this game is reaction-time and it just isn’t there with online play.

One may argue, “you suck Buyco, just learn to deal with the lag.” I say to you: fuck off. I do find it amazing that one could react quick enough to block a crossover with 700ms input delay, but that shouldn’t be part of the game. I shouldn’t have to worry that for the first round I’m getting a 20ms input delay, but in the next round all of a sudden I’m dealing with a 400ms delay. Timing is just another excuse for someone to use when they lose. It shouldn’t be, so play local.

It may seem like I have a lot of bad things to say about this game, but that’s only because I never mentioned any of the good. It feels just like any Street Fighter game with a bit of differences only to get used to. The trial mode is awesome! Here you are actually forced to learn characters’ abilities, and apply them in a game situation. I have always procrastinated with characters, I think even MVC2 I haven’t used every character (mind you there are a billion MVC2 characters).

There are tons of other pros with this game that maybe I’ll get into later. I will, although, follow up with some tips for trials. Bran already has several tips for more advanced players, so I’ll supplement with some more beginner tips for you would-be SF’ers.

So thus concludes our first installment, come back soon to hear more!

One last thought: C.Viper? Seriously? Wtf Capcom…

Related:

Street Fighter 4: The Focus Attack

When the 3G iPhone first came out (July 11, 2008), I laughed when my friend texted me saying she waited in line at 7am only to wait until 1pm when the Rogers network was back up to complete her phone upgrade. I couldn’t believe the stupid shit people would do for this piece of metal. The next day, Saturday, I was doing my ritualistic Facebook stalking and noticed a friend of mine uploaded a picture from his new iPhone. It’s not a new feature that I haven’t used before, but it was just a sense of convenience and panty-droppage that caught my attention. My Blackberry allows me to upload photos, but that would actually be useful if the camera worked. I always said I’d wait until the Bold comes out before I get a new phone, but the taste of glory was $200 and a hop-skip-and-a-jump away to my closest Rogers store.

Luckily my friend happened to have one left at his location, and totally didn’t put it aside from me (because all the reps know that you’re not supposed to do that:). After about 20 minutes, and a couple Belmonts later, I had this pimp ass iPod which allowed calls, mobile Internet access, GPS, and expandability of downloadable applications. Sorry, but I’m a sucker for a pretty face–and this phone has a beautiful one.

Not long after I got it, I swear I almost hit 3 cars on the way home while I tried to check my Facebook and figure out how to use the GPS. The fact that I would let this device endanger my own life to use it is proof enough that it’s pretty damn boss.

A few days later I actually figured out how to use the damn thing. GPS saved my ass while my gas light blinked on the highway. You have no idea how awesome realtime GPS tracking and landmark searching is until you hear your car sputtering while doing 120 on the 91. Conveniently enough, later that day I found out one of my favorite Italian restaurants closed down, but I didn’t realize until I drove 50 fucking km out of the way to find out. Luckily my iPhone pinpointed 3 other locations within a 10km radius, and the night was saved!

Don’t get me wrong… I still think the keyboard sucks monkey balls. That’s why I still have my Blackberry. You may think it’s silly, but holy convenience Batman! I do all my texting and pinning from a real qwerty keyboard, while I do all my online rasping with my iPhone. Right now my bill has increased by about $40 by adding a new device to my Rogers account. In 3 months after my Blackberry plan is available for change, I’ll strip the berry of its voice usage, and use it only for texting and pinning. Meanwhile I’ll beef up my iPhone’s voice package and all in all for two devices I’ll be paying approximately $90/month (which is what I would currently be paying for my single Blackberry device).

Mind you it wasn’t easy getting a plan like that. This post isn’t a guide on how to bitch at Rogers for their ridiculous prices, rather a tool for me to brag about how awesome my deal is. Remember, it’s not what you know, but who you know and what they can do for you.

[12:20 AM] will: i, as well, am fond of skyflakes
[12:20 AM] Buyco: i love them to bits
[12:20 AM] Buyco: to crumbs maybe
[12:20 AM] will: though i love arrowroot more
[12:20 AM] Buyco: ive never tried
[12:21 AM] will: you’re officially 2 lbs heavier
[12:21 AM] will: because thats 2 lbs of suck you’ve just added to yourself
[12:21 AM] Buyco: damnit
[12:21 AM] Buyco: i need to go to the gym
[12:21 AM] Buyco: or have some arrowroot
[12:21 AM] will: arrowroot is like
[12:21 AM] will: .. eating cookies
[12:21 AM] will: that crunch if you want them to
[12:21 AM] will: but they melt if you want htem to as well
[12:22 AM] Buyco: zomg
[12:22 AM] Buyco: i know what arrowroot is
[12:22 AM] will: they’re brown
[12:22 AM] will: and sweet
[12:22 AM] will: and have a baby onthe box
[12:22 AM] Buyco: they’re those baby crackers right
[12:22 AM] Buyco: those are bomb
[12:22 AM] will: now you’re 3lbs lighter
[12:22 AM] Buyco: im bulemic
[12:22 AM] Buyco: i just lost 3 lbs
[12:22 AM] will: -1lb because they’re digestive cookies
[12:22 AM] will: that make you crap
[12:22 AM] will: a pound of crap
[12:23 AM] Buyco: holy
[12:23 AM] Buyco: i cant believe this new diet
[12:23 AM] Buyco: its.
[12:23 AM] Buyco: incredible
[12:23 AM] will: puts regular yoyo diet to shame
[12:23 AM] Buyco: i need to buy some arrowroot
[12:23 AM] will: if i ever went on the biggest loser
[12:23 AM] will: i’d just eat arrow root cookies all day
[12:23 AM] will: and not listen to the whore bag trainers
[12:23 AM] Buyco: haha
[12:24 AM] Buyco: they’re digestive crackers
[12:24 AM] Buyco: different category than skyflakes
[12:24 AM] will: it doesnt matter
[12:24 AM] will: mr christie doesnt need to try so hard
[12:24 AM] will: with his rainbow bullshit
[12:24 AM] Buyco: if that were the case, then ketchup chips win
[12:25 AM] will: and double choco fudge packer cookies
[12:25 AM] will: or oreo-anything
[12:25 AM] Buyco: or cock meat sandwiches
[12:25 AM] will: or seamen peni dipped in semen
[12:26 AM] Buyco: multiple penii
[12:26 AM] Buyco: touché
[12:26 AM] Buyco: have you seen “forgetting sarah marshall”
[12:26 AM] will: no, touché mine
[12:26 AM] Buyco: well, you need to
[12:26 AM] Buyco: its hilarious
[12:26 AM] will: and i have seen it
[12:26 AM] Buyco: too much raw cock in that movie
[12:26 AM] Buyco: but it was still funny
[12:26 AM] will: though that penis scene was a little long
[12:27 AM] will: it was shockingly funny
[12:27 AM] will: then.. they kept it on screen
[12:27 AM] will: good thing it was at a crappy part of the movie where dialog doesn’t matter
[12:27 AM] Buyco: yes
[12:27 AM] Buyco: id have to say that movie was a pleasant surprise
[12:27 AM] Buyco: unlike the love guru
[12:27 AM] Buyco: fuck
[12:27 AM] will: im a fan of hte apatows
[12:27 AM] Buyco: i hate that movie so much
[12:27 AM] Buyco: apatows?
[12:27 AM] Buyco: whats an apatow
[12:28 AM] will: those are the doods that made that movie
[12:28 AM] will: and the mclovin one
[12:28 AM] Buyco: what other movies have they done
[12:28 AM] Buyco: superbad
[12:28 AM] will: yah
[12:28 AM] will: and the knocked up
[12:28 AM] Buyco: knocked up was stupid
[12:28 AM] Buyco: really didnt like that movie
[12:28 AM] will: and 40 yr old vergin
[12:28 AM] will: i liked it
[12:28 AM] will: it had its moments
[12:28 AM] Buyco: it did
[12:28 AM] will: 40 yr old virgin was like 40 mins too long
[12:28 AM] Buyco: true
[12:29 AM] Buyco: 40yr old virgin was still contunally entertaining
[12:29 AM] Buyco: i just thought knocked up was too long
[12:29 AM] Buyco: so many awkward moments
[12:29 AM] will: lol really?
[12:29 AM] will: i fell asleep during 40yr old virgin
[12:29 AM] Buyco: yaeh, i hate it when there’s silence in movies
[12:29 AM] Buyco: and i hate run on jokes
[12:29 AM] will: oh lol
[12:29 AM] Buyco: maybe i need to watch knocked up again
[12:30 AM] Buyco: give it another chance
[12:30 AM] will: i liked knocked up, not as much as sarah marshall
[12:30 AM] will: u need to give the love guru another chance
[12:30 AM] Buyco: i was so surprised… i thought the sarah marshall movie would be stupid
[12:30 AM] Buyco: fuck off
[12:30 AM] Buyco: have u seen it?
[12:30 AM] will: FUCK ON.
[12:30 AM] will: no
[12:30 AM] will: thats why you should watch it again for me
[12:30 AM] Buyco: ha
[12:30 AM] will: and text me during it
[12:30 AM] will: so i can experience it
[12:30 AM] Buyco: fuck .. u couldnt pay me to watch it
[12:30 AM] Buyco: oh dude
[12:30 AM] will: without experience it
[12:30 AM] Buyco: ok for that, i’ll do it
[12:30 AM] Buyco: ill go on my phone
[12:30 AM] Buyco: and talk to you
[12:30 AM] Buyco: and explain everything
[12:30 AM] will: lol
[12:30 AM] Buyco: and make the movie more entertaining for everyone there
[12:30 AM] will: “and now he’s indian”
[12:31 AM] will: “and now he’s talking indian”
[12:31 AM] Buyco: i’m sure they’d like my jokes better than mr austin powers
[12:31 AM] will: “and now SUCK.”
[12:31 AM] will: “and now its over”
[12:31 AM] Buyco: “and now he’s making a gay midget joke”
[12:31 AM] will: he makes a gay midget joke?
[12:31 AM] Buyco: there were some really awkward jokes
[12:31 AM] will: that’s so 2001
[12:31 AM] Buyco: like… “whoa, did he just say that”
[12:31 AM] Buyco: whenever u have a chance
[12:31 AM] Buyco: http://www.slate.com/id/2193942/
[12:31 AM] will: u know what’s an awkward joke?
[12:31 AM] will: the iphone
[12:31 AM] Buyco: listen to the mp3 review
[12:31 AM] Buyco: haha
[12:32 AM] Buyco: burn on rogers
[12:32 AM] Buyco: and on the 300 clowns that lined up
[12:32 AM] Buyco: when there were only 100 in stock
[12:32 AM] will: lol
[12:32 AM] will: why do ppl want that phone so bad?
[12:32 AM] will: i dont understand
[12:32 AM] Buyco: i can understand
[12:32 AM] Buyco: its an all-in-one
[12:32 AM] Buyco: but the pricing, and service is disgusting
[12:32 AM] Buyco: rogers sucks more dick than the love guru
[12:32 AM] Buyco: and the love guru sucks a lot of dick
[12:33 AM] will: nothing wrong with dick sucking
[12:33 AM] Buyco: look it up
[12:33 AM] Buyco: well, male sucking male dick
[12:33 AM] Buyco: male squared + dick sucking
[12:33 AM] will: or ass fucking -> dick sucking
[12:33 AM] will: where rogers does the fucking
[12:34 AM] will: and the rest of the morons eat the shit
[12:34 AM] will: on a dick
[12:34 AM] will: and lets make the rest of the morons men
[12:34 AM] will: so its gay
[12:34 AM] Buyco: holy
[12:34 AM] Buyco: fuck blogging, we should just publish our msn chats

I’ll be surprised if you were not offended. I’ll be even more surprised if you were not offended and not already one of my close friends.