I guess most people have heard by now that there was an earthquake in Chile with 8.8-magnitude. Right now there are some live web cams which allow it to follow the arrival of the tsunami in Hawaii.
I keep this post short so that other people who are interested might be able to see this event.
I had a phase were I played many flash games and also blogged about several of them. I haven’t been playing for a while. Recently I tried out some new flash games and was amazed by some of the ideas. If you like flash games I recommend to try the following three:
Neon rider is a 2D racing game where you have to drive from point A to B. But the interesting aspect of this game is that there are different colors of lines to ride on. The player can change the color of the bike and according to this color the player will use a different path. These means that besides the driving skills there is a second thing you have to watch out for…
This is the only level
This is the only level too
These are two small flash games, which have only one level. But they include several stages for each level. The level is really simple and has a simple path to solve it. The interesting aspect is that each stage there is something different. You can’t jump, keys are inverted, invisible walls… etc.
This means in each stage you have to figure out what the trick is to beat it. Sometimes, you can guess it from the name of the stage. I like this game because it is so simple but still really interesting.
Closure has one simple underlying rule: “What you don’t see doesn’t exist”. Each level is dark and there are lights which allow you to walk through around. If you walk outside the light up area you will fall even there is supposed to be a path. The goal is to find the door in each level. To solve the level it is necessary to use the “darkness” as a mean to make your way to walls and other obstacles.
Thanks to Michael for telling me about this game.
Have fun playing… and let me know what you think of them!
While I was in Pittsburgh I learned the meaning of the “Pittsburgh Chair”. In Pittsburgh chairs are used to reserve a parking space for a car. This was heavily used in the last couple days when Pittsburgh was buried in almost 2 foot of snow. People, who dug out their car, most often reserved their spot while they were off to work or other things. The interesting part about that is that this reservation system is mostly respected by everyone and people still have their spot if they return in the evening. This tradition has even its own Wikipedia entry even though it is named parking chair.
Here is a report from a local news paper.
This weekend, Amy and I drove over a 1000 miles to go shopping… I’m slowly adapting to the American life style 
Well, to be honest it was not only shopping:
Last week I flew to Pittsburgh to enjoy some days together with Amy and to pack up all my stuff. On Friday we drove from Pittsburgh to Stamford with a fully loaded car. It took us 7 hours to cover the 420 miles. We spend the weekend buying furniture for my apartment. The overall theme of my new apartment is once more: IKEA
Unfortunately, we had to drive twice to fit all the furniture in the car. This is especially inconvenient since it is a 40min drive each way. After two days of spending money on furniture it was time again to drive back to Pittsburgh.
I uploaded some pictures from the apartment after the shopping.
This Sunday I went for a run along the coast. Since we got about 10 inches of snow over the weekend everything was covered in white.
The thing which struck me was that in my mind model sand beaches have to be warm… warm water, good weather, and I can walk around in shorts.
What a weird feeling to run along a frozen beach which is covered in snow and ice.
I guess this happened because so far I only saw sand beaches when I went on vacation to warmer regions.
Is it only me or did other people have a similar experience. Maybe it is particular the case for Swiss people, because we are not bordering a sea so we travel to it in the summer.
Jihaa, I already moved into my apartment!
After looking at apartments for three days everything went quick. I prepared a reverse prioritized list of all the apartments I wanted to look at. On Thursday morning I had a tour on the last apartment on the list and decided that I want to lease this apartment. I signed the lease on the same day. Finding an apartment was much easier than expected. And it was even easier to start the electricity and internet service. In Pittsburgh I had difficulties as a foreigner without an SSN, here in Stamford the electricity company didn’t care about that. Getting internet service for the apartment was also much easier than I thought. In Pittsburgh it took me 7 weeks to get internet (read here) in Stamford only 1 day. The service I got from Cablevision so far is amazing. Cablecom could learn a lot from them! I called them yesterday and today (on Saturday) a guy came to my apartment and configured the modem. So, one day after I called them, I have internet in my apartment! That’s a service!
Tonight, I will spend my first night in my new apartment. Temporary I organized an air mattress as a bed and some boxes substitute a desk.
After a long and nice time in Switzerland, I’m back in the USA.
The trip from Zürich to my hotel in Stamford, CT was smooth and without problems. The only thing which was a little disappointing when I arrived on Monday was that there was no snow at all. After all the news from Washington DC and Pittsburgh I was expecting that New York area would have some snow too. Well by now we have snow and I am amazed how much snow can fall in such a short time. It started in the morning and a few hours later we had about 15cm of snow. Everything looks really nice now
Soon, I’ll be moving on to visit Pittsburgh. Supposedly they have about 50cm of snow in the city
I already looked at several apartments and I am slowly getting used to the thought to live here in Stamford. I’ll keep you posted with news and maybe even some pictures, once I find a place to live.
One thing which is worth mentioning is the “warm welcome” I got on Monday evening. When I was walking around and taking some picture of the area. A security guy run up to me and told me that, I am not allowed to take pictures in this area. My questions why and where it is not allowed to take pictures the answer was simple: “You are not allowed to take pictures in this area!”.Therefore, there is nothing I could show you guys right now…
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