I have many Dollar

[luckykaa]

$500 in unused sequential banknotes. Unnaturally excited by my chance to fondle substantial amounts of alien currency. Not going to get me to far, but I plan to use plastic most of the time. Have ordered a second credit just so I can chose Mastercard or Visa. It seems American Express still charge an annual fee.

7 days to go and I'm off. Away! To New York in it's most unpleasant month. Not that I had a lot of say in the date. Flatmate's wedding is the main catlyst for the trip. I have been planning to go on a holiday for a while, and was conmsidering Noo Yawk, but a wedding invitation finally sealed the deal. The fact that I'm making the effort to go 5000 miles allegedly for a wedding does put me in flatmate-in-laws good books.

I have a Lonely planet guide (chosen after much deliberation on a bookshop that was kind enough to provide a reading tavle in te travel section), a passport, a ticket (allegedly. I have little faith in "e-tickets"), and money. I think I'm set. I was very pleased when I found an easy way to get to the airport. Fly from Gatwick rather than Heathrow. This means I get a single short train journey rather than a long train journey with 2 underground changes to one of the most unpleasant airports the world has ever known. Or at least the worst of the three main London ones. Flying on a Boeing 777-200. This does mean that it will be a fairly new plane. Doubt it makes any difference. Strangley, they don't mention details like engines or version for detail obsessives like myself. I need a book on long haul flight yoga.

Combined effect of looming alpha and worry about having completely and utterly forgotten something important w.r.t holiday is causing me some deal fo stress. I need to relax.

Video game news; is EA buying criterion (including renderware) a pretty substantial power shift? In the past Renderware was pretty much an independent developer.

Designing games for the wage slave I need to spend more time playing games.

Comments

[ingaborg.livejournal.com]

Gimme dorrar!

Shame about Criterion: it was nice to think that if I need to look for a job, there's an independent house up the road...hey ho.

I like the article about games for the wage slave. I would also add that most of the points he makes are also features which will help to make games more gender-inclusive. If men feel short on time for gaming, women feel it even more strongly...and the same goes for punishing deaths. I am rather missing Diablo II mind you, and may even get round to paying money for a copy some time (I was playing a colleague's copy and lost access to it when the company went down).

The only thing missing from your list of travel essentials is the address/phone number of the person you're going to see...oh and the emergency phone numbers to call if you lose your credit cards etc. And I assume you have travel insurance for health cover at least?

[luckykaa.livejournal.com]

Good points.

I will have to get flatmate's phone number.

I do have travel insurance. Free with my bank account. Covers loss of luggage, delays, medical treatment, emergency dental treatment, loss of limbs, death, and generally makes the whole business seem fraught with danger.

[chocojon.livejournal.com]

kinda co-incidentally, rattieally is also in New York on a genetics course for four weeks. She's been there for 1/2 a week so far.
Minor problem: you two probably have never met, even though you have both been through Bristol Uni at similar times.
Oh well...