PhoneCam Hero: Pink, It's My New Obsession

When you are bored and realize that your phone camera can take passable videos, you start to think of all the cool stuff you can do.

Here's my fresh attempt on the Lou battle again. This time it's a little more dramatic because I got screwed for more than half the battle then ended up winning (at 3:50) when my life was flashing red and about to fail. It was all by luck. Hmm, now if I had failed during the 'Finish Him' section, I would've been mad.

And yes, I do realize that I can hear the loud plastic tapping of my guitar strumming. It actually sounds pretty nice. haha.



And here is a little bonus vid for someone who has a blog that screams PINK! And nope, it's not a crazy perfect, full-combo video. I happen to like this song and it's for fun. I even miss already during the first 60 seconds of the song. But I got a pretty decent score, didn't miss the initial tough bit (at 1:40) and it even ends nicely with the 100-streak message popping up. haha.

The Penguin Went Down to Georgia, He was Looking for a Soul to Steal

OH. MY. F**KING. GOD. I beat the Devil!!!



I finally beat the Lou boss battle in Guitar Hero 3 on Hard after a two-month break from the game. This was accompanied by much cheering and cursing (in a happy way). I couldn't believe it myself. Everyone says he's cheap & random and some may never beat him for weeks, maybe months.

After playing a lot of GH: Aerosmith, The Devil Went Down to Georgia no longer seemed as impossible as I remembered it from months ago. The lyrics will be etched in my mind because I tried it so many times. It's actually quite catchy and tells a story which is mimic'ed by the in-game boss battle.

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The Devil Went Down to Georgia
GH3 version covered by Steve Ouitmette
Link: Video

The devil went down to Georgia, he was looking for a soul to steal.
He was in a bind 'cos he was way behind: he was willin' to make a deal.
When he came across this young man sawin' on a fiddle and playin' it hot.
And the devil jumped upon a hickory stump and said: "Boy let me tell you what:
"I bet you didn't know it, but I'm a fiddle player too.
"And if you'd care to take a dare, I'll make a bet with you.
"Now you play a pretty good fiddle, boy, but give the devil his due:
"I bet a fiddle of gold against your soul, 'cos I think I'm better than you."
The boy said: "My name's Johnny and it might be a sin,
"But I'll take your bet, your gonna regret, 'cos I'm the best that's ever been."

...

------------------------------------------------------------------------

(That's just the first verse, which I find quite memorable. haha)

Sadly, the blue fret button on my guitar controller is pretty messed up right now (did I stress it too much?). I hope I can get it fixed or I'll just have to get a new one.

Same Old Song & Dance

I picked up Guitar Hero: Aerosmith last week. Have been playing it every day from the moment I come home till way pass my bedtime without even realizing it.

The game may be just an expansion but I found myself enjoying it very much. For me, it was like GH3 all over again but minus the insane levels of difficulty. I was able to beat Hard in Aerosmith without too much frustration and, over the weekend, I cleared Expert by barely scraping by all the songs.

What I loved about the game were the Aerosmith interview videos. They were real nice and I got to learn about the band and took an interest in learning more about them. Steven Tyler actually seems like a funny guy and Joe Perry is so cool.

I actually went to YouTube to dig out their music/concert videos to watch. My favourite songs so far are:
- Walk This Way (Run DMC)
- Sweet Emotion
- Ragdoll
- I Hate Myself for Loving You (A well-known song. By Joan Jett & the Blackhearts)

(The title of this blog entry is actually an Aerosmith song, but that's found in Guitar Hero 3 instead. haha.)

You Don't Mess with the Chuck. I mean Zohan.

I had dinner at AMK with Yonghao, Shein & friends on Saturday. We ate at Ramen Ten (argh, $2.90 for a can of coke) and then we went to Andersen's for brownie & ice cream (the brownie was real nice).

Later in the night, we decided to catch You Don't Mess with the Zohan with Michael after his work. I saw that the tickets were selling fast on the display monitors. I did not want this to be my 3rd time in a row sitting in front for a movie so I had an idea; I quickly went to use one of the computer terminals to book the tickets online.

Throughout the whole movie, there was one thing that was on my mind...

The title even reminded me of the very old Mountain Dew commercial. Maybe I am thinking too much. haha.

Zohan does crazy things like kick through walls, catch bullets with his hands and seems to be practically invincible. The jokes are actually very absurd to the point of being ridiculous, with a lot of crude, sexual humour involving Zohan's... schnitzel. The one thing strange about the show is that it actually has *gasp* a plot and *double gasp* some character development which makes it feel a little draggy for a comedy.

On a side note, trailers for Wanted were showing. It's a stylish gunplay/action movie that I would like to catch. I read from GameAxis magazine that it's actually based on a comic though the plot was totally changed for the movie. It's about a regular guy who learns about the death of his long lost father and has to follow his footsteps by taking over an organization of assassins.

In the original comic, the assassins were supervillains who have defeated all superheroes and took over the world. It sounds a little far-fetched for a movie so I guessed that is why they had to change the supervillains into assassins. haha.

Oh, and there's Angelina Jolie is in it.

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Sunday would be another day out of the house. Things did not start out fine because I realized lost my house keys! I tried searching for it. The maid tried searching for it. But it was gone. I suspect that I may have left the key stuck on the door when I came home the night before. Some crook may have taken it. My family decided to change the lock to be safe.

I stayed home most of the day and, at around evening time, I met up with Max, Kyo & Akira to go to the Toys & Comic Book Convention. It was a little disappointing to me because it was way overcrowded. It reminded me very much of all the IT shows I have been to. We could only move in the direction of the crowd and there was no way to stop and admire each booth without obstructing traffic. I normally would like to take pictures but it was impossible.

I was trying to keey an eye out for McFarlane Halo figures but there weren't any. There were weird booths like McDonald's. Even the Wii was on display, too. There was a circular platform in the centre with two girls playing Guitar Hero III. It made me wonder if they were paid to play Guitar Hero all day long during the convention.

We then had Karl's Junior before going home.

While I was at the convention, I managed to spot an Ichigo (Bleach) cosplayer. I later learnt that this Ichigo was a 'she' because she queued behind me at the taxi stand when I was going home. She was not in full costume but was carrying her cosplay sword and joking with her friends whether the taxi driver would think it was real.

You are now in Bad Company!

I picked up Battlefield: Bad Company last week. The story is mainly about a squad of insubordinate soldiers from B-Company (where all rejects/cannon fodder get posted to) who go AWOL on a personal quest for gold deep behind enemy lines. It's actually pretty funny with its likeable characters and cheesy dialogue.

This is one of those games that I picked up due to all the marketing. It had several funny trailers featuring its cast poking fun at other war games, most notably Metal Gear Solid.

The game comes with its trademark smiley-face grenade. It's supposed to be a stress ball by the way. I just couldn't resist it. It's so cute.

Penguins are bad company.

You Know What They Say About Dirty Laundry in Public...

It was last Friday morning when I was making my rounds around the office, dropping letters into people's lockers. It was then I spotted a printed note stuck on the front of one of the lockers.

Being ever curious, I went to have a closer look but was overcome by the smell of something most pungent and vile. It was then I noticed a pair of smelly underwear jammed into the slot of the locker. I stood at a safe distance and began reading the attached note. It was a messy, unpunctuated wall-of-text. I didn't stick around too long for fear of people seeing me (and there's that smell). I only got the gist of it but it went something like...

"Dear XXX, here is the underwear of the man you slept with. You are such a slut for sleeping with a married man during the school holidays. You cheat peoples' feelings so that they will buy your policies and allow you to hit your quota. I don't want to be your scapegoat any longer.

PS: Don't bother turning off your phone when you are having sex. I know everything."

It sounded like it was from an angry lover. I always thought such things only happened in TV dramas. I thought normal people would try to hide their dark (and smelly) secrets. I would have snapped a picture but I didn't want to draw any attention to myself and quietly went away.

The smelly underwear was gone after I came back from lunch. Thank goodness. I wonder who else saw the note that day. haha.

It's Pandaaaamonium!

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Saturday Out of the House

Work, Work.

I had work on Saturday as usual. I was going about my usual websurfing when a lady came by my room and asked for help with the photocopy machine. She seemed like a real nice person and I gladly helped her out. She kept smiling and thanking me. She actually came to look for me two more times for help later on and we chatted a little.

She commented that she wished her assistant was around that day to help her prepare stuff for an appointment with her client. When she finally mentioned her name, I knew who she was; my boss used to be under her. (At his point, I was actually wondering if she would tell my boss she walked in on me surfing the net. I hope she won't.)

She then asked me if she could pay me to work overtime that day and help her prepare stuff for her afternoon meeting. She asked so nicely that I actually would have had trouble saying 'no'. But I had already planned to meet Angelo after work a Suntec to pass him something so I had to go.


Suntec: IT Show

I dropped by at the IT Show at Suntec City after work. It was very crowded but good thing it wasn't like the previous one where it was so packed that I gave up and went home. I mainly checked out gaming stuff. There were a lot of attractive X360 promotions going on but I controlled myself because I didn't want to buy games that I cannot commit myself to play and complete. The most notable one had to be the 120 GB HDD that went for $139 instead of the usual $280. I didn't buy it cos' I wouldn't know what to do with so much storage.

I then made my way home, stopping by at White Sands to buy lunch and rent some DVDs (they had Sports Movie! Never knew there was such a thing). It has been a long day and I was looking forward to lying in bed (PS: My air-con FINALLy got repaired!).

I arrived home at around 4+ pm and this was when Brainy suggested catching the Incredible Hulk at night. So off I went to AMK Hub to meet YongHao, Brainy and friends.

The Incredible Mr. Green



I actually read that the movie was pretty good and not like the one by Ang Lee which was a steaming pile of crap. You can tell Marvel was ashamed of the first Hulk movie because they retconned stuff and got an all-new cast.

And like the Iron Man movie, the Incredible Hulk had a surprise cameo at the end; the only difference being that we don't have to wait till after the credits to catch it. Unless there was actually more. haha. I love all this build-up to the upcoming Avengers movie.

Off Day! Ninja Gaiden II!

Tuesday was the day of Ninja Gaiden II's release. There was an event at Funan so I took leave to go and collect the game (didn't want to be distracted at work). I woke up pretty early and went to Funan at 12 noon when the redemption began. The queue was longer than I expected (there were over 400 pre-orders after all) but it moved very quickly as there were 3 redemption counters. I got my game and the nice T-shirt (good thing it was Large).

The whole thing was a rather simple affair, with a redemption counter, retail booths and many demo stations. And there was an emcee who kept referring to the game as "Ninja GAY-den" (it's 'Guy', not 'Gay'!).

I met up with Shein and his classmate who were there to collect the game as well. We hung out at KFC until the 1 pm lucky draw for a the NG2-skinned Elite X360 console. Oh well, no luck for any of us. I wanted to catch Ryu Hayabusa & his two lovely ladies for a photo opportunity but I felt a little shy. haha.

When Shein & friend left, I went to shop around until Akira arrived at 1:30 pm. We had lunch at Pasta Mania, talked about games, WoW, and joked about the boob nerf in Age of Conan (they were imbalance! Nerf!). We then made our way to Books Kinokuniya at Orchard. I took my time browsing and chanced upon The Art of Mass Effect. Unfortunately, it was bundled with a guidebook that I had no use for so I dropped the idea. We then went over to the hobby shop at CineLeisure where Akira picked up several new figures to add to his Pinky St. collection.

I cabbed home and eagerly popped in Ninja Gaiden II to play. I have always heard that the series was well-known for being difficult and unforgiving. Which was why I started the game on easy mode. I played for a couple hours and it was great fun. The regular enemies were very aggressive and all bosses thus far killed me in a few hits. But really, getting thrashed by cool-looking bosses with awesome specials is what make these games so fun. (The game only served to remind me of DMC4's very sad boss roster.)

Also, in a most surprising turn of events, NGII creator Itagaki left Tecmo and is now suing them. Right on the day of the game's release! Now that's pretty controversial. I actually didn't know about the guy until I started reading up on NGII and now he just leaves after putting out his last great game. Ah, well, he seems like a really talented guy so I hope he joins a new studio and carries on with his work.

My Weekend with a Beercan

There was a chalet on Sunday organized by one of the agents (also the boss' sister), Ann, to celebrate her baby's first birthday. She invited everyone in the office so I thought I would be a good sport and attend it to get to know my colleagues better. The chalet was at the National SAFRA Resort & Country Club at Changi Coast. I've never been there before. The place was totally out of the way and rather inaccessible by public transport.

I decided to go there late at 5:30 pm, but to my surprise, I was the first from the office to arrive. The rest were all Ann's relatives. I helped myself to the food while watching even more car-loads of relatives pull up the driveway.

I decided to kill some time by checking out the place. The NSRCC was a typical resort/chalet. I wondered towards the reception office building where all the fun stuff were. I passed by the swimming pool and also went to check out the bowling alley, karaoke, pool tables, and so on. Typical resort facilities.



When the clock struck 6:30 pm, I ended my little tour and went back to the chalet. The place was really packed by now. Both my bosses had arrived. Tiffany was there but she left almost immediately after finishing her meal. Ah, well. Hope the rest will come soon.

As I went to get another helping of food, someone was passing beer around and thrusted a can of Heineken into my hand. I looked at the little can in my hand and it looked me back in the eye, its shiny green body glistening with power from within.

With Mr. Heineken in hand, I went into the living room and watched... some olden-day Chinese war movie that I didn't know the title of. I had Mr. Heineken to keep me company. I stuck around, glued to the unidentified movie on the TV until around 7:30 pm. When the first disc was over and no one else swapped in the second disc, I felt it was time to take my leave.

And I actually left without taking my bag!!! It was leaning against the wall right next to me. How could I forget??? *hic*

The Air-Con-Man

Thinking about my aircon makes me feel sad. Mr. Electric Fan is back in my room again. I thought it was repaired already but it seems to only want to work when it feels like it.

I got my mother to help tend to the technicians while I am at work (can't wait for the weekends anymore or I'll go crazy). They can't seem to figure out the problem and would suggest ridiculous ideas like replacing the whole thing, which almosts entails to renovating my room. Every trip they make is an easy $50-$80 for servicing some new-found 'problem' that does nothing to fix my aircon. And this is their 3rd trip already. I am beginning to feel it's one big con job. (I think I just made a pun; air-CON-man!)

No longer wishing to be their 'carrot head', I decided to hop online and get a different company to come check things out: http://www.coolserve.com/ . Once again, my mother tended to them while I was at work. She said they looked real professional when they dropped by with their uniforms and assortment of gadgets. After a thorough examination, they said that the gas may be leaking but they didn't want to start work on it and charge us when our aircon was still under the service guarantee of the previous air-(con)man. And they just left like that. My mother even offered to pay for their transport but they turned her down. They came and left empty-handed. No payment, no nothing. Just like that. And I felt that was pretty damn awesome.

As of now, my airconditioner still remains in a semi-broken state, though I think I am beginning to see a pattern. Whenever my brother is home and uses his aircon, my room would instantly become a sauna.

Anyway, I am trying really hard to put this behind me. It feels terrible to brood over my aircon every day for the past two weeks. Maybe I really should get used to a fan. I keep telling myself it's 'just an aircon' but I still feel distraught because my once perfect room is no longer perfect. It no longer has that 'everything is the way I want it' kinda homely feel to it whenever I come home from work.

Guitars and Nasty Little Robots

I went to check out the E-Life Gaming Challenge at Suntec on Saturday. I was accompanying Rhyfe because he wanted to participate in the Guitar Hero 3 qualifiers. First thing I realized was that there was a new underpass leading to Suntec. Something felt different, though; either I couldn't find the way to the old overhead bridge or it was really gone. Hmm.



I had a hard time finding the place which was actually one whole section on the 2nd level of Suntec with a bunch of IT stores. As for the event... Rhyfe was the only one who participated (??!!). I guess all the participants are spread out over a couple of weeks. He ended up having the set to himself since there was no one else. He happily practiced away since he didn't own the game/console (that may change if he has what it takes to place top 3 in this contest). I played a little, too. I hope the staff didn't think we were being hogs. Meh. I guess I should have come when the finals are held instead.

Anyway, it wasn't too bad. We hung around and watched the Halo 3 competition in the earlier part of the day. It was mostly one-sided matches, though.

I spent the rest of my weekend at home playing Viking: Battle for Asgard (which was pretty okay) and Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness (link).



Yup, Penny Arcade; that webcomic. They have their own game now, available on the PC and costing a whopping $30++ on Xbox Live.

Most. Expensive. Downloadable. Game. Ever. And this is just the first episode of four in total. The price turned me off and I was a little disappointed after hearing that it was only a 6-hour long game. I don't really consider myself a big fan but I read Penny Arcade a whole lot. (Recognize that Prinny pic?)

I hated to give the game a miss so I gave in and purchased it. The game is an RPG with frantic battles and lots of Penny Arcade humour. You get to fight hobos, psychotic clowns (who show you the birdie a lot), killer mimes and... of course, those lovable Fruit F**ker robots with their hip-thrusting, fruit-humping antics.

I finished the game in two sittings on Sunday and now I am left wanting more. Dammit, bring on the next game already.