Hung Truong: The Blog!

Toothpaste For Dinner: Awesome Webcomic

So I thought I had written about this before, but looking back, I haven’t. Toothpaste For Dinner is a crazy awesome minimalist webcomic by Drew. It’s not always funny, but when it is, it’s super funny!

Um, and I bought a Toothpaste For Dinner shirt recently, so that’s why I thought of it. Okay, that’s it.

PS2 – Karaoke Revolution Party Review

I got Karaoke Revolution Party in December for around $10 at Toys R Us. It was a pretty sweet deal. I already had a microphone from Socom, so I figured I wouldn’t need an extra mic. Luckily it worked.

So the basic premise of Karaoke Revolution is that you sing songs, and you get more points if you sing in tune with the correct vocals. There are note “tubes” that show up indicating whether you’re singing too low or high. It’s not quite like reading music or anything, but I guess it’s pretty good for public use.

I really like the idea of playing a game with only your voice. It’s a pretty interesting idea and I’m kind of mad that I waited so long to finally buy a Karaoke Revolution game. I sort of secretly wanted to buy it ever since seeing these guys playing it.

The gameplay isn’t perfect, though. It seems like the game has an easier time recognizing pitch in higher octaves, so if you’re a guy, you already have a disadvantage to the girls. Also, the game is really strict in telling you exactly how to sing a song. So when I add some “soul” it ends up costing me points. Boo! It’d be pretty sweet if the game could detect freestyling and reward players for doing it well. I guess that would be pretty hard though.

The song selection is varied. There’s a lot of songs from the 80s up to current popular songs. They even have Neil Diamond, which my brother was happy about. I think most people will find at least one song they’d be interesting in singing, if they’re interested in singing a song to begin with.

Overall, Karaoke Revolution Party is a pretty cool party game. I wish I had bought two mics so I could test out the versus and duet modes. I think there’s some duets… Maybe I’ll buy the new American Idol version.

Google Update: Invitation to Google College Days

So I got an email back from Google the Monday after my interview, but I hadn’t posted anything about it. They invited me to their Google College Days, which I’ve actually never heard of before. It seems pretty cool. Here’s part of the email they sent:

Congratulations, your on-campus interviews went well and we would like to invite you to Google’s Headquarters in Mountain View, CA for a College Day!

Google College Days are fun! We’ll fly you out before the interviews, provide lodging and transport you to Google on Friday morning for a full day visit and then fly you back home. You’ll be on site from 8:45 AM - 3:15 PM on Friday. Below is the agenda for our College Days.

8:45 AM Depart to Google (we’ll pick you up from your hotel)

9:15 AM Arrive Google and Check-In

9:30 AM Kick Off (executive sponsor to speak and kick off the day, coffee and pastries)

10:15 AM Interviews (3, 45 minute technical interviews). Please note: You will be asked questions to test your coding, algorithm and design skills. You might want to refer to labs.google.com to learn more about our products in beta.

12:05 PM Tour of the Googleplex

12:50 Lunch at the Google Cafe with engineers

1:45 PM Organized Free Time (have a chair massage, chat with other students)

2:15 PM Q&A/Closing (Engineers and Recruiters show up to answer questions about life at Google and the hiring process, etc.)

2:45 PM Ice Cream Social (Build a sundae and chat with other students, Google Engineers and Recruiters)

3:15 PM Depart to hotel (we’ll transport you back to your hotel)

This is way too cool. I think it’s the dream of every nerd to visit the Googleplex, and to be flown out there (for free) for a tour, food, and interviews is just plain awesome. The fact that they’re interviewing me for a position is like icing on the cake for a nerd like myself. I wonder if I’ll be allowed to take pictures… It’d make an awesome blog post.

I’ll be attending their March 23rd one, since it’s the date with the least conflict for me. Hopefully everything will go well and I’ll be able to visit the Googleplex on a more regular basis. Like every weekday or so…

Dream: Door to Door Pig Salesman

So I had this totally weird dream last night. It involved my entire neighborhood! For some reason, there was someone going door to door leaving pigs at people’s houses. When the guy got to our house, we didn’t answer the door. He opened our outer shutter door and left a pig in between the two doors. I could see all of this happening through our peep hole, even though It’d be pretty impossible to see that low in real life. Weird. Okay, now that I think of it, I guess he was more of a pig mailman than a salesman, but I have a feeling we were billed for the pig. To be payed for at a later date.

Anyway, when I opened the door, the pig ran in and I guess we kept it as a pet. I went to my neighbor’s house and found that the pig guy had left a pig in her door as well. When I opened it though, it was like some kind of mutant weird pig and I ran away.

Later, I went to my across the street neighbor’s house. We had seen him with his pig earlier, so I guess we decided to check up on it. When we got there, he adamantly denied having any kind of pig. We knew he was lying because we saw him playing with the pig though his window from our house.

Then the dream ended. It totally made no sense to me, but that’s how a lot of my dreams go. It’s probably worth noting that today is Chinese New Year, and yes, it’s the year of the pig!!! Maybe that somehow subconsciously seeped into my brain while I was dreaming last night… Also, my Chinese zodiac sign is the pig!!! Dun dun dunnnn!!!

Each Day is Valentine’s Day

So I thought it’d be fun to do a recording of My Funny Valentine, since it’s a pretty cool song and it’s also almost Valentine’s Day. Not that I particularly like the holiday, being single and all… I like the song because it’s got weird mixed signals. Like the lyrics are somewhat upbeat, but the music itself is so freakin’ sad!

Anyway, here’s me playing My Funny Valentine along with a cool dude named Jamey Aebersold. I recorded it using the iSight from my Macbook, and the built in mic, so the sound quality isn’t the best. Also, I screwed up a few times, but hey, the song itself is about an ideal non-ideal valentine, so my solo doesn’t have to be perfect!

And here’s the lyrics in case you don’t believe me:

My Funny Valentine

My funny valentine

Sweet comic valentine

You make me smile with my heart

Your looks are laughable

Unphotographable

Yet you’re my favorite work of art

Is your figure less than Greek?

Is you mouth a little weak?

When you open it to speak?

Are you smart?

But don’t change a hair for me

Not if you care for me

Stay, little valentine, stay

Each day is valentine’s day