Happy New Year 2008!

Happy New Year, everyone! This is my first post of 2008!

Monday was a normal working day for me. It was New Year's Eve and I had a dinner & movie outing at night. It was around 12 noon when the admin next door asked me if I had half-day off. She said that most of the staff could go home after 2 pm. My boss didn't mention anything about it so I kinda hoped she would bring it up before lunchtime. At around 1 pm, my boss left the office so I knew it was (sadly) just another full work day for me. By 3 pm, most people had left the office so I was all alone. At least I am free to do my own stuff till it was time to leave.

After work, I went straight to Bishan Junction 8 to shop around. I met up with Kyo, Akira, YongHao (trying not to call him 'Maggie' anymore) and Darrell, accompanied by Brainy who popped out of nowhere (Everyone now say F-O-E!). We had dinner at Cafe Cartel. I tried to eat something light like spaghetti so that I'd have room for nachos later but I was still very full.

We then caught Aliens vs. Predator 2 at around 9 pm. It was an okay action movie with a non-existent & rushed plot. I guess the violence was the highlight of the show. At least it was better than the first AvP which was pretty much rubbish.

When I got home at night, I caught a quick glimpse of the countdown at Vivocity on TV before carrying on with my Heroes DVDs. Sadly, I was on the 3rd-last episode. I completed it on Tuesday morning and got that same empty feeling that I get whenever I finish watching a good TV series. I can't wait for Season 2.

Anyway, here is a nice funny movie that Brainy mentioned:
Meet the Spartans (Trailer)
I guess it's by the makers of the Scary/Epic Movie series.

Merry Christmas 2007!

Today is Christmas day! Merry Christmas, everyone.

On Monday, I went to watch the movie, I Am Legend, with Akira, Chaosmag and Kyo. I must admit, it wasn't what I expected. It was a very slow-paced, scientific tragedy instead of an action movie. I should learn to check Rotten Tomatoes next time before I pick a movie. After the movie, it was dinner at Pizza Hut before we went home for the night. We had actually wanted to eat at Breeks but it seems that the branch at Ang Mo Kio had closed down.

On a side note, Aliens Vs. Predator 2 is next on my must-watch list, but when I saw the trailer in the cinemas, it was much more tame compared to the gory splatterfest that I saw on YouTube. I guess I would only want to watch that in local cinemas if it gets an MA-18 rating.

When I got home, I found my package from Japan sitting on my bed. They were here! My Pesoguins have arrived!



I actually bought them off Yahoo Japan (as usual with help from Hobby Shop K). I heard that the Pesoguin plushies were pretty rare so I couldn't resist it when I saw them on auction and I had some spare Paypal money made from selling stuff on Ebay.

My favourite is the one with the cell phone(at least that's what I think it is). He looks like a busy little guy, doesn't he?

Maybe he's ordering pizza.

Sadly, until I get about to tidying up my room, I don't have any space to display them.

My Heroes marathon began at night! I actually bought it on Friday from VideoEzy and it was the last copy they had.



I told myself I would just watch 2 episodes and go to bed but it was very nice and I stayed up till 4 am to complete the first disc containign 4 episodes. I woke up today at 2 pm and carried on watching. There are a lot of things going on with all the characters which keeps me hooked.

Oh well, it's almost near the end of the day. Now I am beginning to dread tomorrow because it is back to work. I remembered that I wanted to do some Christmas shopping to get my bosses a present but alas, I was too lazy to do anything about it.

December Holiday Season!

Yes! The string of year-end holidays are coming, starting from Thursday (Hari Raya Haji) and lasting all the way to Christmas Tuesday. While others at my workplace are planning on week-long vacations, my idea of spending the holidays is simply taking leave on Monday. This super-long-weekend is going to be great.

I think I have not gotten this much free time in quite a while ever since I started working. I am actually afraid that I may not have enough time to do everything that I want. Aside from the usual gaming, I plan to do a little bit of shopping just to give myself an excuse to get out of the house, mingle with the crowds of Orchard road (or some other place) and see what cool things I pick up. Maybe if there are others like me who wish to do some Christmas shopping together, we could meet up or something.

Anyway, I will be doing some wrap-up/looking-back style blog entries to commemorate my rather eventful year (and also help breathe some life into this blog) so check back in the weeks to come. Cheers.

It's the Start of December!

The company is having its annual convention so it means every manager will be in Korea for the entire week. The office is pretty deserted aside from the occasional agent who comes in to settle some personal work. If this were like some crazy American sitcom, you'd be seeing all the dull admin staff crawl out of their boring little cubicles and party out in the open.

Anyway, I think I won't be seeing much of my boss around this month since she has several overseas business and family trips to make. Such little surprises in life that make me happy sometimes. When even your boss takes a break, you can't help but feel a little switched-off, too.

Somehow, I feel that this year's December will be pretty different for me. For one, I am now working so I won't have all the time in the world to do anything that I want. I really miss those days. Incidentally, it was this time of the year when I bought a new laptop from SITEX 2006 and started playing WoW.

I hope that this month will be quite meaningful for me and all those around me.

A Little Break from Hardcore Gaming

I have recently got a little more free time since my WoW guild stopped raiding. That means no more coming home knowing well ahead that my nights have been fully booked. No doubt, raiding is the core of the game and it's fun, but one starts to feel the strain when you realize that it is taking up 4-5 out of 7 days every week.

I'll miss raids but, in the meantime, I will learn to appreciate this change in my daily routine as I can now play the game at my leisure and set aside time for other activities like web-surfing reading or watching TV. Maybe even sleep early.

Worst PC Game Launch. Ever.

Alright, I can overlook the fact that Hellgate: London is a mediocre and repetitive game but its first few weeks of release had been the most horrible thing I have experienced in my entire gaming life. I never knew so many things can possibly go wrong in a short span of time. The situation is so catastrophic that I am surprised IAH games haven't closed down yet. This is worst than the time I was playing Priston Tale (shudder) many years ago. And that was a free game.

What you are about to read may be one of the biggest farce in local gaming history.

Week 0: The Gates are Open!

Local gamers picked up HGL only to realize that they were playing an early Beta version of the game, albeit packaged nicely in a shiny box with a price attached. (US gamers get a retail version update known as Patch 0 the moment they go home and run the game.) Over the first weekend, players soon hit the Beta level cap of 22. Everyone was generally unhappy and flamed IAH on their forums.


Week 1: Welcome to real life Hell...

To help appease the gamers, IAH announced that they will patch the game on Tuesday to remove the level cap. Patch 0 will still have to wait, though. Maintenance ended on Tuesday but... no changes was made to the game at all! Flames ensued. And we learnt that we have a useless bimbotic CM (Community Manager) who only knows how to post ditzy remarks and spam pics of 'sizzling hot' babes.

The server was brought down again on Wednesday to finally remove the level cap and this time, it went through. However, in a most unexpected turn of events, all level 22 with excess EXP automatically skipped levels, causing them to miss out on stat/talent points. Characters were bugged permanently this way. More flame threads appeared on the forum.

IAH announced that they would be looking into the matter to try and 'fix' characters. From a technical standpoint, I already knew it was impossible to alter the game code for each and every bugged character. I played on, bracing myself for what I fear might happen next...

And it did. On Saturday, IAH announced that there would be a character wipe to make way for Patch 0, the reason being that their Beta-version database was incompatible with it (My penguin senses still tell me it's largely because the bugged characters were irrepairable ). Sadly, the wipe/maintenance/patching will be on Monday. It was a weekend with no HGL for players everywhere. Flames carried on in the forums.


Week 2: ???

Monday was supposed to be fresh start for everyone so that we can forget the game's rather shameful first week. But alas, IAH has let down its gamers again with a last minute announcement; there would be no maintenance and Patch 0 has been put on hold until further notice.

Massive flame threads continue to pile up on the Hellgate forums and it has become my source of entertain during work hours.

Looks like the entire game has come to a standstill. It would be interesting to see how IAH can screw up even more.

My Internet has Been Saved!

I didn't have the mood to blog at all for the past week since my MaxOnline connection was messed up. Lots of people I spoke to pointed out that it had to do with wireless connections being generally unstable. Alas, it was Brainy who came by to help since had similar setup at home. It was as simple as just plugging the router to the laptop with a cable and I was then enjoying a smooth wired connection even during those dreaded peak hours.

Mr. Mint saves the Internet!

Though now there is an unsightly cable on the groud running across the living room and into room. My family doesn't really mind, though. No one uses the living room anyway.

What's Happening to StarHub?!

It started happening in the 3rd week of November. My Starhub MaxOnline connection began to lag like crazy and disconnected repeatedly during an evening of WoW. I was kinda panicky; was it 'time's up' already for my Asus computer or maybe my router/modem? It looked like yet another technical tragedy was going to happen under my name.

A quick visit to Hardware Zone made me realize that I was not alone. Connections to Starhub has been slow for everyone. Starhub had started capping overseas transfers (what, they want us to only visit local sites?) and just being a pain to their customers. My friends suspect that the end-of-year holidays are here, resulting in more students squeezing in to share the fat green pipe with me. This is kinda worrying for me. Lag doesn't really matter while web-surfing but lag kills gaming. I can't play during peak hours like weekday nights. It's beginning to bother me a lot.

I really like Starhub and wish to continue with their service. I'll see if there is any way to get this resolved. Otherwise, I guess I will have to start switching ISPs soon. Can't live without Internet gaming...

Hellgate: London - Hype Sells!

I went to pick up the Hellgate: London collector edition over the weekend. The amount of hype building up around the game prior to its release was really immense; there was a TV commercial, a front-page feature in Today and a massive launch party at Funan. I wasn't even considering the game at first but, with so much hype and publicity, it was hard for me to resist giving it a shot.

Having spent some time with the game, I felt that it was pretty average in every way. It was a typical action-RPG in a sci-fi setting. There wasn't anything ground-breaking or innovative about it.

That doesn't mean it's bad, though. It's still an enjoyable and addictive game, though some people are going to be disappointed that it does not live up to the hype. I'll probably blog about it proper after exploring the game a little more.

Monday Blues... Then Comes the Surprise

I had an early bout of Monday blues as the clock struck midnight on Sunday. It felt a little depressing to let go of the weekends. Not that I am sure how this particular weekend was any different from the rest. Maybe I was just ill and needed another break even though I just took off last Wednesday.

Tuesday was a special day as it marked my 3rd month working at Great Eastern (I started on the 16th of July). I was quite surprised that my boss remembered the date and approached me. It was just a quick talk; permanent employment and a little pay raise (yay!).

Personal WoW Blog

I have created a seperate blog where I can freely post my World of Warcraft entries.

All you WoW fans, feel free to check out The Penguin Crusade.

RT is Over, What a Relief

My two months of RT finally ended last Thursday. I was overjoyed as it was becoming more of an annoyance to me as I kept wishing for its conclusion. Now I am back to my 'normal' life. I can enjoy Sundays at home for a change.

To sort of celebrate this most exciting event, I decided to take off next Wednesday so I can rest at home (hehe, first time I have taken off from work).