Travelocity has an RSS feed that will notify you of any great deals on airline fares. You can specify which cities you want to watch, and also where you’re heading out from. It’s a great little feed that saved me about 40% on a trip to Washington, DC. The air travel dates may be limited for a particular deal, but if you’re flexible that’s OK.

Also, it can be a great boost for you to go for that trip you’ve always wanted to take, but were too hesitant because of the price.

I’m a little behind in videogames. I’m not even sure when the last time I played–I used to be a true gamer. But, that stopped a while ago when I started getting into other interests, like photography and blogging. In any case, I’ve missed out on some ridiculous videos showing off talent that could only come from years of practice.

These videos are a bit old, but they’re goodies. The first is a video of an incredible DDR/Stepmania performance. He is supposedly typing 16 keystrokes per second. That is much higher than I would have ever thought the bandwidth of a human finger to be.

The second video is a famous one: the Street Fighter III video where Daigo defeats his opponent with barely any health left and parrying 15 blows. Note that parrying in SFIII is difficult, and requires that the player push forward (or down) at the exact point when the attack is made. This is incredibly difficult, and even more ridiculous when having to do it 15 times in succession. After the parries, he goes on to defeat his opponent. The crowd literally explodes.

I’ve recently been accepted to blog for Slashfood. You can check out my posts. Finally, I get to let go and write more about food on my off time. It’s a bit weird blogging on a site that isn’t my personal site, but it’s a good change. I actually have deadlines now (about four posts a day is what I need to do), and it’s been energizing me to gather resources and write more often.

It’s definitely stimulating. Plus, I can finally say I’m a paid blogger.

So anytime you need your food blog fix, check out Slashfood. We put out an insane number of posts a day, so you’ll never be bored.

We’ve been having a sweltering November here in San Francisco. The temperatures have been in the high 70’s for the past week. Since I have south facing windows, I usually come back to a heatbox of an apartment. Usually, I leave the windows open. But then, I sometimes get this irrational fear that I would fall out of the window when I nap, since the bed is right beside it. Getting used to living in a highrise takes some time I suppose.

Perusing your average Asian mart can be an adventure. Sometimes, however, it can be quite curious. I found these kiwis at a Chinese market on Clement Street in SF. Don’t they look just like testicles? They were right beside the normal kiwis, and, they were also marked at half price! I picked one up and tried it at home. It tasted just no different than ordinary, but, it took more effort to peel.

These have got to be the rejects from Whole Foods and Safeway. But really, should it matter that much? The visual appeal of foods has always been a high priority among foodsellers. But, what about the appeal of those ugly heirloom tomatoes? They used to be a niche produce just like these deformed kiwis. But now, they’ve been elevated to high status (which also involves high markups at Whole Foods). I say we should also grasp these kiwis and rise them to the level of delicacy!

During trips to the grocery store, I like to stop in at the cheap Asian food troughs on Clement Street. The prices are rock bottom, but the flavors are high. This time, I noticed an absolutely stunning piece of pork with crispy skin hanging from a chain. It was also under a bright heat lamp, which made for a perfect photo op. As I whipped out my camera and took a few snaps I overheard some of the Chinese ladies talking suspiciously about me. They asked me in Cantonese about my camera. Luckily, I don’t speak Cantonese (I speak Mandarin), and just played dumb and said, “huh?” They didn’t pursue asking me anything further.

The only thing I could think of that would have roused their attention to my snaps is maybe they think I’m an agent from the health department. Other than that, I’m not sure why they wouldn’t be happy to get more publicity and admiration of their foods. Perhaps they’re just suspicious of anyone taking more notice of their joint other than downing some grub.

I had the pleasure to go to a screening of Chicken Little in 3D Dolby Digital D-Cinema. The technology was quite good, but the movie wasn’t that great. I didn’t see any evidence of pixelation during the viewing, and the picture was super crisp. The 3D experience was good, but could have been better. I attribute this to the content creators, rather than the technology. We really will need to see 3D content techniques come to full maturity until we get a truly great 3D experience. The glasses were also a little clunky for people who already wear eyeglasses. I kept fidgeting with the green glasses, modeled after Chicken Little’s glasses in the movie.

Various 3D shows have come and gone before, usually as gimmicks or one time affairs at theme parks. Consumers have not really had access to 3D entertainment on a regular basis. But this could change soon. The 3D experience definitely added value in Chicken Little. Since the movie is born out of 3D digital models, I would imagine it was quite easy to create a 3D version of the movie (just plop in two cameras an eye distance away in the scene, and write both of them out to two separate video tracks). A notable scene in the movie involved to teams playing dodgeball. It was fun to see all the balls bounce off the screen, some coming quite “close” to the viewer. The 3D element has definitely been integrated with the movie better than previous attempts.

In any case, Disney and Dolby can pat itself on the back for a successful deployment of D-Cinema and 3D. I just can’t wait until Pixar gets involved with it.

Tippy recently got an offer through Stanford for a free year of Yahoo’s music service. At first, I was a bit skeptical about the service, but decided to take a stab. I was suprised to find that it wasn’t too bad. This was much more than I expected from a Yahoo music service.

Yahoo’s music (Y! Unlimited) represents a new wave of unlimited digital online music, where for a few dollars a month you can have access to a ton of music. Usually this entails that you can listen and stream an unlimited amount of music, but you have to buy tracks in order to unlock the DRM from the files. This lets you burn tracks and share them across as many computers or devices as you like.

My plan costs $5 per month and includes unlimited downloads and streaming of most tracks. I would need to pay for some exclusive tracks (which are rare) and for burning of any of the tracks. The rates are comparable to iTunes.

First, let’s get to the selection. The usual popular genres are well covered. But what was suprising was that my favorite genre (Indie Pop) was also well populated. Sure, a few very obscure bands were not available, but many who I would never think Yahoo would pick up were there. Other times, a page was available for the artist, but no tracks were available. This at least is better than not finding anything about the artist. In short, the selection is very satisfactory, and there’s plenty to listen to whatever your music preferences are.

As expected, the interface is bloated. It’s a weird amalgamation of IE, javascript, and Yahoo interfaces. Searching for and loading pages for artists can be slow. The music engine is still in beta, so hopefully in the future the engine will be snappier. On my 1GHz machine at home, the engine errors after about ten minutes of use.

The rating system is a direct copy of iTunes (stars and all). You can rate bands, albums, and songs. What’s interesting is you can also generate playlists that reflect a genre or artist similarity. I’ve been able to discover a few new artists this way. Also, you can generate a whole “radio station” from artists, genres, or songs. It’s handy to just let the station run, and, whenever I hear something I like, I’ll download the album.

All in all, Yahoo is doing many things right. The engine needs to be worked on, but the artist selection is quite good, and the price is right. I’m still getting used to the fact that I have a ridiculous number of songs available to me at any time. I’ve really started shifting my music listening habits by letting go of what I have on my harddrive.