Nipon

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

US Memo 4










At last I met my aunt's house after a long time. They live in a beautiful house, in a peaceful area. The city is nice, but the weather is hot here (30 now that I am writing this post). I will let you grasp a flavor of the environment by looking at the pictures ;)

Thursday, June 22, 2006

US Memo 3



I should admit that today was a toughest conference day. Lots of interesting talks that many of them were presented by game developers. The topic of one of the slides was: "AI is crap!" I liked that slides a lot, since it should the weakness of the current state of the art AI. I presented my poster today and I received lots of good feedbacks, but I could not manage to see other's posters since I was busy with my visitors :( Afterwards, we went to a Persian restaurant called TAJRISH and had a nice dinner with all of the peoples (except one!) showed in the above picture. We also aimed to have cheesecake from the famous cheesecake factory (Top Figure!) but we had to wait for about 45 min so we decided to do it tomorrow ;)

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

US memo 2




Well in the beginning I was kind of disappointed by AIIDE, but after going through several talks I think it would be recognized as one of the top conferences among AI and game people in no time. There were presentations of Sony PS3, Quasi Robot from CMU, and the SIMS game from EA, which I liked alot. I got to know nice people from US and France, and we had a nice dinner together.

US Memo 1



First of all, I am writing this post while the SuperShuttle drives me to the hotel! Secondly, it was not as scary as I imagined before to cross the border. They didn't ask about my school's teacher or the color of my cat when I was 5. I simply filled out a form and my picture and my finger prints were taken. It is not the best way to get into the airport but it worked out really easily. The guy who looked at my passport got more friendly when he figured it out that I came from Tehran. He told me that he was living there for about 3-4 years before I have been born! Probably it has been changed a lot but he does not know. He is still interested to go there ... :S

L.A. seems like the American version of Tehran. The first thing that I noticed was the Iranian population. Just when I was about to mount the car, I saw a family greeting another one. The city is nice and the weather is cool. It is cloudy now, and the time is 8:00 PM. I think the most famous features of this city are: Hollywood, Beach and Disneyland. Oh by the way, you can not miss nice cars that passes you every now and then: BMW M3, LEXUS, ...

Monday, June 19, 2006

US, here I come.

Tomorrow I will set out to L.A., there is still a slight chance for me to be in my room after my flight's departure time ...

Thursday, June 15, 2006

Heaven on the internet ...



I found the heaven of anime mp3s online. It is simply the best! Thanks to my dear friend.

Pembina River




It has been a while since we came back from the trip, but I received the pictures today. This picture (Jess, David, Me) was taken near the Pembina river. For those who is wondering what David is wearing as a hat, hmm ... lets make it a riddle and the best answer would get a prize ;)

Hint: It is something totally natural not handmade!

Monday, June 12, 2006

Dinner @ Greek Restaurant



It was a good gathering: Delicious food, pleasant atmosphere and most importantly nice people(Left to right: Sobhi, Cheryl, Arjang, Nima, Me, Mohammad, Irma, Miyuiki). We also celebrated the birthday of Mohammad, Nima and Irma. Again wish you all the best :)

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Long Trip (North America)

It is all set!

20 June 4:30 PM Edmonton -> Los Angeles (AIIDE Conference)
23 June 6:10 PM Los Angeles -> Houston (My aunt, Friends)
10 July 7:40 AM Houston -> Baltimore (My uncle, Friends)
15 July 5:45 PM Baltimore -> Boston (AAAI Conference, MIT)
20 July 9:00 PM Boston -> Toronto (My uncle, Friends, Niagara)
26 July 4:10 PM Toronto -> Edmonton (Home sweet home!)

.Hack//Root OP



This is a well done song, you can find the full version on www.kyo-mp3.com ;)

Ah My Goddess TV Sorezore no Tsubasa OP



I like scottish pipe and I like Ah my goddess so I like this one a lot ;)

Saturday, June 03, 2006

NANA Ending



More singers are beginning to sing in Japanese. Interesting!

Thursday, June 01, 2006

US VISA



Finally, I received my passport with my US VISA.