Twin Babies!

Last Sat I rent a minivan to drive riki’s family from the hospital back home. They just had a pair of identical twin boys last Wednesday!

It was the first time I saw babies so young (or should I say “small”?). They are 5.x and 4.x pounds, which means both of them added together is not as heavy as bobo, the 10-pound fat cat. The twins look very tiny in car seats, and actually much more beautiful than I expect, because I read somewhere that newborns look like aliens. Apparently the 3-day-old boys look quite human already. They slept tight on our way back, maybe because of the trembling from the car. And they continued to sleep for 3 hours after arriving at home! They kept kicking slightly during sleeping, while one of them made the lightest snoring. Cute!

2014-06-13 00.44.53

 

樱花节,艾未未及其它

四月末如去年一样去看了布鲁克林植物园的樱花节。去年樱花四月中就全开了,四月末的节日只看到一地落樱。今年的四月末同样的樱花却大多还没开,可见今年纽约的冬天有多长。这个植物园的樱花还挺不错的,有几个不同的品种,花期和样貌各不相同。来这个植物园看樱花很方便的一点是它的网站上有个页面每天更新樱花开放的状况,于是很容易就可以抓到这稍纵即逝的少许几天去赏樱了。

真说到去看樱花这事倒是没太多好写。就是在园子里晃一晃,把注意力放在花花草草上,忽视身边多到夸张且一直在拍照的亚洲人和一些造型比较抱歉的cosplayer。Brooklyn植物园有很赞的草地和很不错的商店,非节日的时候因为收费所以人也很少,还是很值得一去的。

From Sakura, Brooklyn Botanic Garden

植物园旁边的Brooklyn博物馆外面看起来并不大但里面其实挺大的,有五层楼高,常有一些很不错的展览和活动。最近那儿有艾未未的一个展“According to What?” (应该是“凭什么”的翻译,是故意把名字搞得这么Chinglish的么。。)看到了很有名的那个折叠到墙上的桌子,一地的河蟹。和汶川地震相关的有收集来的遇难学生名字,一大房间拉直排列整齐的地震中断掉的钢筋,学生的书包排成的盘踞在房顶上的大蛇。几年前的东西现在看起来还是很触动,国内的报道似乎已经不再追究到底有没有搞清遇难名单,到底有没有问责,而是开始宣传重建的辉煌成就和报道游客摘车厘子…… 相比之下911旧世贸遗址上的纪念博物馆前天刚刚建成开放,每年911当天Bryant Park还是会摆上2753把空椅子。公众宣传的反差实在大到夸张。

新居

搬家之后似乎就进入了花钱如流水的节奏。垃圾桶,吸尘器,床,沙发。。纷至沓来。似乎一个普遍的观念是如果租的房就可以用宜家货对付一下,而买了房就要买些更贵的东西来填充了。在美国虽然有些东西很便宜,但家具的价格可是一点不含糊。

除此之外各种安置的工作也是多得很。需要漆一些墙。跳过一次电于是自己换了个fuse。楼板隔音不太好所以一直在考虑怎么买地毯。各种电器都得熟悉怎么使用。还有怎么布局家具也是个一调再调的过程。根据之前那个房子的经验,大约要1年左右才会消停下来,以整个房子塞满了没法再往里添大件家具为标志,哈哈。感觉房子也像个工具似的,要用个一段时间才会顺手。至于女人就是喜欢折腾这些这样的原因。。我什么也没说。

波波前一阵子开始吐,每次吃完饭就吐。多方调查之后觉得是太长时间吃同一种猫粮导致的过敏。还有地方说谷物容易造成猫过敏。于是换了个谷物含量低的粮果然就不怎么吐了。两边窗户外面经常会有鸽子逗留,波波经常激动地和它们隔(纱)窗相望,看得见摸不着很心焦。

 

2013 Game Summary

  • [Wii U] Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Super Mario Bros, and others.. Wii U itself is not an impressive console, but some exclusive games on it are very attractive for me.
  • [XBox 360] Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. An OK-level Japanese style act game. There was a gap for this kind of games in 2013 and this game was picked up by me to fill this gap (and my bloodthirstiness?).
  • [PC] Super Meat Boy. Hardcore hardcore hardcore.. I beat the boss of World 3, the brownie/shit guy…  I guess that’s about it.
  • [PC] Call of Duty: Ghosts. Slightly better than the last one (black ops 2). But not very interesting. I’ll probably skip the next CoD.
  • [PS3] Beyond: Two Souls. Movie game. Just OK.
  • [iPad] BADLAND. The first iOS game I played and thought worth blogging. Its aesthetic meets my taste.
  • [PC] Guacamelee. Action, platform, co-op. What else do you need? Super Mario Bros?
  • [PS3] Last of Us. The game of 2013 for me. Though I only passed it once,  the most charming part of this game is how it tells the story like a movie and make it better than movie with the format of “game”.
  • [XBox 360] Gears of War: Judgement. Not bad.
  • [PC] DmC: Devil May Cry. A very good ACT game, much better than Metal Gear Rising. I played it for about 2.5 passes. Looking forward to more sequels.
  • [PC] Mark of the Ninja. A pretty neat 2D Ninja game. Definitely worth a try.

2013 was a great year for us. XW got the scholarship from NYU law school and started her study. We bought an apartment and everything sorted themselves out at the last minute. There were some new interesting challenges in my work too. Compared to the sad 2012 summary, it’s much better this time :)