Learn to Fly

I came down with a fever and diarrhea on Friday. I have absolutely no idea what caused it but I knew I was going to have one hell of a weekend. I slept at 12 midnight which was considered early for me.

I went to work on Saturday. I still felt bad. Angelo SMS'ed me and asked me if I wanted to go to Funan Centre to check out the newly opened Xbox section inside Challenger that Sheylara was promoting. I was about to turn him down when I remembered that I wanted to look for a USB microphone for Rock Band (I bought it recently!).

After work, I went to the Challenger at Funan and asked around. I actually got the same answer that I got from most places: There are no such things as USB microphones. At least locally anyway. Angelo showed up soon and we arrived at the Xbox section promptly at 2 pm.

To be honest, the event didn't seem to go quite well because there weren't many people there aside from random Challenger shoppers. There was a Rock Band demo and they asked for volunteers. No one wanted to try the game at all and it felt very awkward, so... guess who volunteered.



We played Learn to Fly by Foo Fighters. I need to stop getting my photo taken in public like that.

After that, me and Angelo were about to go have lunch when 2 guys came up to us and asked us if we could eat free curry puffs on their behalf. It turned out that they were part of some Mediacorp island-wide race thing (a local Amazing Race rip-off?) and their challenge at this checkpoint was to finish 2 curry puffs each. They were both Muslims and fasting so they couldn't complete the challenge. haha.

So me and Angelo each stuffed down 2 curry puffs. "You're lucky I haven't had my breakfast or lunch yet," I said. There were some Mediacorp people and other participants standing around. As soon as we were done eating, the two guys thanked us profusely before racing off. It was kinda weird; I wonder if this show will be aired on TV. haha.

Since we both had curry puffs already, we decided to just skip lunch and go home.

On a side-note, I managed to get my Rock Band USB microphone 2nd-hand from someone who was selling his.

GCA 2008

I went to the Games Convention Asia today. Several other people were going as well so we all decided to meet up. When I arrived there, I met YongHao and then Hobbes who was with his school's booth. We started chatting when this booth babe came and asked (actually more like begged) us to take a photo with her. I was kinda confused cos' I thought it was usually the other way round. She then handed us some coupons and told us to give it right back to her so we can have our pictures taken.



I guess the booth babe was in a hurry to fulfill her photo quota and go home. haha. The person taking the photo had such shaky hands. There was no way to salvage it except with the adjacent drawing by Hobbes.

Surprisingly, the GCA was not as crowded as most other events held at Suntec. There were a lot of new and upcoming titles on display with just as many people hogging them. Then there were also the cosplayers who seemd to pop up at every event. I saw an Arthas (WoW: WOTLK) near the Popcorn Gaming booth which even had a Frostmourne replica for sale at $998. As I was walking around, I even saw a Lulouch (Code Geass) walk pass me and go into the toilet. (I don't want to know what happened to all the people in the toilet.)




The highlight to me was the Guitar Hero: World Tour demo and a few gaming competitions going on like Soul Calibur IV, Rock Band and Guitar Hero Aerosmith. I joined the Rock Band competition with Rhyfe. We called ourselves Photoshop Heroes (I wonder if anyone got the reference. haha)I felt we were at a severe disadvantage since there was only two of us while other teams had 3-4 members. I was amazed when we got into the finals with 5 other teams because Rhyfe pulled off a stunt that was a real crowd pleaser; He sang vocals and played guitar at the same time.

In the end, we probably should have realized that the competition was not about skill or scores but more on aethestics. The winning team was the one who actually dressed up in nice clothes and performed a lot of stylish dance moves. I doubt the judges even took down scores or cared that we were playing on Expert. If it were me to decide, the other 3-man team with a godly guitarist would've won. Oh well, never mind. It was good fun and I'll be picking up Rock Band next week.

Super Boredom!!!

I haven't been updating for the past two weeks. RT always makes me feel terrible and work had been extremely tiring.

I have been spending a great deal of my time on the 360 as usual, though I must admit, too much of it can get pretty boring, too. I wonder if I am experiencing 'burnout' from gaming (if there is such a thing).

I played Tales of Vesperia (which is nice) and Viva Pinata: Trouble in Paradise. I actually bought Viva Pinata on impulse at the thought of having my own penguin garden. Who would've thought a 'kid's game' can be so difficult and user-unfriendly. Maybe it is time I cut down until Guitar Hero World Tour arrives. haha.

Time to super-summarize what I did for the past two weeks:

1st Week:

I went for another outing with somee BoB forum members. This time it was at TCC at Millenia Walk. It was my first time there. I had baked rice though felt it was overpriced at $19+. We sat around, chatted and browsed through Duelist's photo albums containing two-years worth of booth babe pictures (no kidding).

We went to Starbucks later to chat some more and have drinks. I bought ice cold chocolate and dined on chicken pie. At the end of it all, Terrorisk said he could give me a ride and I got quite a surprise when he actually drove me right to my block. I was so grateful.

I watched Wall-E with Rhyfe on Saturday. It was a nice, heartwarming show. It's amazing how most of the story was told with just two lines ("Wall-Eee!" "Eeeve!") and a whole lot of (robotic) body language and expressions. That's all I can say because any more and I will give away the plot. haha. The trailers and media did a good job of not revealing anything about the story at all. It's pretty fun to watch because it is so unique.


2nd Week:

My former WoW guildie from Malaysia, Jyoshou, came to Singapore for a visit over the weekend. He asked me out along with his other WoW friends, FunkyHair, Gyunikuchan and so on. It was a last-minute thing as he only contacted me on MSN when he reached Singapore. haha.

We went to Plaza Singpura for dinner at Pastamania followed by drinks at TCC (oh my god! again). Everyone seems pretty excited about the Lich King expansion coming out at the end of the year. It makes me wonder if I will feel tempted to play again.

After the outing, I dropped by at Books Kinokuniya at Orchard to pick up the Mass Effect: Ascension novel. Looks like I will have something to keep myself occupied other than staring at the screen for hours everyday.

Forward, Down, Down-Forward Plus Punch

I took leave last Wednesday because I felt that I needed a break from work and all the RT nonsense.

I had a nice little surprise when the gaming shirt that I ordered from Penny Arcade arrived.

I was vey afraid that the American size L would be too big for me but I am glad I can wear it as for normal. I would've bought more shirts if I had known. I have my eyes on the Photoshop Hero one next.

When it was around evening time, I went on Xbox Live to purchase Castle Crashers. It's one of the most highly anticipated Live Arcade title this year.

Castle Crashers is only The Behemoth's second game, their first being Alien Hominid which originated as a flash game on Newgrounds.com. The 'company' is merely a group of less than 10 programmers, consisting of Tom Fulp (owner of Newgrounds) and artist Dan Paladin. Even the music are user-created content from Newgrounds.

The game is bursting with quality, featuring interesting boss fights and good humour that surpasses even some crappy retail games. It reminds me of Treasure's Guardian Heroes (that old game was truly a masterpiece). Sadly, it is an arcade title which means it's real short. I'm kinda disappointed that the main story was all over in a couple of hours but I had a blast while it lasted.

Human, Just Too Human

The past week had been great! There was no RT on Sunday due to the Army Half Marathon. Which means I finally get a peaceful weekend. Hooray.

I won the new X360 game "Too Human" as part of a giveaway contest on Sheylara.com. I was like OMG!!! I think this is the first time I ever won anything from a lucky draw. I met up with Sheylara last Monday to collect my game (she's cute!). No pictures of the meetup because I look terrible in the photo and don't ever want to see it again. :(



Anyway, the game was supposed to be released on Thursday so I got to play it early! I had a lot of people online messaging me how come I got the game. hehe. It's a pretty decent Diablo clone, though there was a lot of controversy online because it did not live up to the hype ("7 years development cycle, blah, blah"). It's still pretty addictive grinding levels, gearing up and hunting for EPICS.

Saturday night was another BoB forum gathering. This time it was at ArtfulKurosawa's home. Lots of people couldn't find his home cos' he gave us the wrong unit number. It looked like he had things all planned out for the night; he even catered food for us all (or was it home-cooked? I couldn't tell). The decor in his home was real nice; you could tell everything was renovated according to his specifications. It makes me wonder if I can ever afford my own home in this lifetime.

There were SCIV games going on in his bedroom but I didn't feel like playing with the regular controllers as I loved arcade ticks to go with my fighting games. Instead, I stuck around the living room and played some PS3 Rock Band. Having played at E2Max before, I was slightly more comfortable with the game and the plastic Stratocaster now. I'll never get tired of Aerosmith's Train Kept a Rollin' (All Night Long!).

I chatted with some of the more familiar forum members. I left close to midnight but even so, people will still coming for a visit. Raccon was very nice and gave me a ride to the East side since he lived in Eunos.

Sunday was spent playing even more Too Human.

If your Uncle Jack helped You off an Elephant...

I haven't updated for quite a while. The moment my RT commenced last Sunday, I started feeling moody. Just like the previous year and the year before that. haha.

Last Saturday, I was considering going to the WCG at Suntec to have a look. Aside from video games, I heard that the WoW TCG Asian Championships was being held (I'm surprised that there is still official support for it). It would've been pretty interesting to check that out and look at the Xbox games as well but I only woke up in the afternoon which was a little late. I even completely forgotten that it was National Day.

I met Darrell on MSN and we decided to have a movie dinner at night. YongHao came along as well. I went early to Cineleisure to buy tickets for The Love Guru before meeting them at Somerset MRT. But being ever so lost, I walked from Cineleisure to Orchard MRT and took the train to Somerset MRT station to meet them. That took like 20+ minutes. We had dinner at Waraku first before going back to Cineleisure.


It's time for the Love Guru! Honestly, I wouldn't have even considered this show if it weren't for Mike Myers. I wanted more Mike Myers comedies and this was probably the closest thing we'll ever get to a new Austin Powers movie.

The movie even started with a funny music & dance routine. Mike Myers plays the Guru Pitka and returns to the big screen with his ever familiar style of comedy gimmicks and funny word plays. I'll never grow tired of them. Plenty of dirty jokes abound. I enjoyed the movie. And Jessica Alba was hot. I didn't even know she was in the movie. How did I miss that?

If your Uncle Jack helped you off an elephant, would you help your Uncle Jack off an elephant?

After the movie ended, I wanted to grab a bite so Darrell led me to one of the stalls at the basement of Takashimaya which sold sausages. I bought a cheese sausage with mashed potatoes and it was friggin' awesome. Not because of all the sausage innuendo in the movie we just watched.

I went home and prepared for RT the next day. No more staying up late on Saturday nights ever again until this is all over.

I am the Terror that Flaps in the Night

I went to the Manhatten Fish Market for dinner at Plaza Singapura on Friday. It was an outing organized by the members of the BOB (Brotherhood of the Box) forum. I knew a few of them from online but this was the first time I went out with them. I could recognize two of them who used their real photos as their gamerpic.



This was my first time eating at this restaurant and it was very similar to Fish & Co's. Strangely, I wasn't as chatty as my usual online self. Maybe I feel awkward/uneasy in large groups. What I did find out was that most of the BOB members were in their 30's or 40's and married already. No wonder the forum community had a very mature feel compared to other local gaming forums.

After dinner, we went to watch The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Everyone said that the movie was rubbish. I actually felt it was okay; at least I didn't fall asleep or something. Maybe it's because I have seen worse movies recently. The Mummy had a predictable plot and a lot of cheesy moments but I still found it nice. Laugh as the American characters spew out Mandarin that no one in the cinema can understand

Everyone went home after the movie. Something weird/embarrasing happened to me when I tried to take a cab home. It was very dark at around 11 pm. I saw a bus-stop up ahead so I went to stand at the road in front of it and tried to flag some taxi's. A lot of taxi's seemed to ignore me and picked up people who were in the bus-stop. But I was lucky and got a taxi that was heading East.

When I got on the taxi, the driver asked me if I was waiting for a taxi on call. I was like, "No. Why?" Then he said, "Really, meh? You stand at the front of queue. You must be waiting for the taxi you booked, right?" Oh my god!!! That 'bus-stop' was actually a shelter for a taxi queue! The people in the queue must be wondering who is this idiot trying to cut the queue by standing out on the road. *sigh* Good thing it was really dark or else people may have seen my face.

And something made me rather happy at the end of the month.

I got a raise after a year of work! Happy happy.

SCIV - Do or Do Not. There is no Try

I picked up Soul Calibur IV last week! SCIV is a direct-to-console game so I think it prompted a lot of long-time series fans and arcade-goers to purchase a PS3/Xbox360 to play the game. I am hoping this influx of players will mean that the game will have a nice, long-lasting online community.

I've never played a Soul Calibur game before but I am enjoying the game so far. The game is a whole lot easier to pick up than VF5, which I am convinced by now, requires a PhD in rocket science to learn. The first character I picked was Nightmare based on looks and I like him so I guess he is my main for now. He's kinda slow which means I have problems with faster characters that get in my face. I hope I can be a decent, non-scrubby player at least.

One thing I find pretty out-of-place about the game are the female characters that looked like they stepped out of Dead or Alive, skimpy clothing and all. Throw in an extensive character customization mode and it's... welcome to the flesh parade! Have a look. And beware; the last character at the bottom of the page is naked (shield your eyes!). Yup, they even call it OppaiCalibur (Go Google what Oppai means. haha).

There is even a Japanese comic teaching how to play the game which is funny and suggestive.

(Scanlations by Otadesho)

- Part 1 - Part 2 -

And some of you may have noticed... yes, Darth Vader and Yoda are in the game. Xbox users get Yoda first and Vader probably later. It's weird when he speaks Japanese.

It's Time for NS Matters Again

Last Thursday, I got called up for a reservist Mob Briefing from 2 pm to 4 pm at Seletar Camp (which means I got the day off!!!). That is actually the same camp where I had my first reservist ICT 2 years ago.

I gathered at the auditorium above the cookhouse with other NS men. I recognized a few familiar faces from 2 years ago. They probably don't know me and it was a little awkward but I just went ahead and sat with them.

I overheard their conversation and realized why I hadn't been called up for ICT for 2 years. They were trying to clear the old birds and let them ROD first so they are going for all the recent ICTs, including one to Thailand. I hope I will never have to go for overseas ICT but I think there is a chance that everyone will get it.

The briefing was about a trial mob activation, but this time, we know they will surely activate us on a certain day in October to test-run their new system.

There is also another mob period in November but the officer just smiled and remarked that we haven't been activated in 3 years and the 'higher-ups' were very pleased with our last activation in 2006 where the attendance rate was 97%. So... if that is a clue, I still have no idea whether they will activate or not. haha.

At least I know that I don't have ICT this year. I guess I'll get it next year. Meh.

And my RT is starting again on 10th August, after National Day. This will be my 3rd year. It is sad to be sign-on RT for life.

Movie Streak

I have been going to AMK Hub for movies for the past three weeks in a row so here is my belated movie impressions post!

Wanted


I watched Wanted with Michael. It was pretty okay, though the plot felt a little weak. For a movie about stylish gunplay/action, I actually felt there wasn't enough action scenes! But the few that were present were very well done and had an over-the-top Matrix feel. It's always cool to see bullets that curve and sniper rounds that travel halfway across the country before bursting through someone's head in a bloody mess.

I found it funny that the beginning of the show felt like a typical American sitcom with monologue and narration by the main character. It was like watching Scrubs.

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army


I watched this with Michael, Jeryl and YongHao. It was kinda a last-minute thing. I only went to AMK Hub to pick up Unreal Tournament III and was gonna play it all night. Then it turned into another movie night.

I remembered the trailers on TV (the "if monsters didn't exist..." one) and it actually made the movie seem nice. It turned out to be a little disappointing, though. There was nothing particularly exciting about it, nor there was anything horrible about it. It was pretty 'meh' all the way. Some of the characters even looked like they stepped out of an episode of Power Rangers.

The action scenes felt very, very weak, despite the fact that the movie was based on an action comic. It's all seemed like a brutish slug-fest to me. At least the fights were not as rubbish as those in Ghost Rider.

The Dark Knight


I watched this with Mog, Akira and Max. The whole world probably watched this movie by now. No doubt about it; it's a great movie. The pace was very good. There was never a draggy moment.

*Spoilers ahead*

The Joker was real sinister and devilishly clever; I love how he was portrayed in the movie as being totally psychotic and twisted. I liked how he rigged the two ships and forced the passengers to choose to blow up the other ship. My favorite scene for that segment was when the big, brutish convict walked up to the police officer and showed him how to be a man. It kept me on the edge of my seat.

I was kinda expecting the show to feature two main villains like Batman Begins, seeing how Harvey Dent was featured so prominently on the movie posters. I was a little disappointed by TwoFace's minor role; he was more of a plot device and tool for the Joker. It was all still pretty good.

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That was probably the last of the movies I wanted to watch this quarter of the year. I missed out on Get Smart and Hancock. I wonder what's the next nice show to hit the cinemas.

Twelve Months Has Gone By!

Last Friday I was sick and didn't go to work again. That morning, I woke up, got dressed then left the house as for normal. As I got off the lift, I asked myself honestly if I was fit enough to go to work. I was feeling feverish so the answer was 'no' and it was back to bed for me. This time, I actually felt guilty about it; I've taken MC 3 times in 12 months already. My boss commented about me falling sick often when I returned to work the next day.

Come to think of it, I have been here for a year already! Wow, 12 long months. How did I survive one whole year with such a without any long breaks? (WTB: one-week long government-declared holiday for working people!) If life was a videogame, I'd be expecting an 'achievement unlocked' pop-up any time now.

Throughout my one year here, I actually learnt a lot of things that are not typical desk-job fare. One thing I had 'fun' (to put it very mildly) doing was helping my boss with general insurance. (Examples: car insurance, foreigner worker insurance, workman compensation; the kind that people have to buy because it is required to by law, etc.)

Since day one, my boss has wanted to let me handle his general insurance cases and taught me how. I ended up being quite familiar with it, acting as the middleman who prepares the necessary documents and liasing with the behind-the-scenes people. It's not a big deal but it does feel good when people thank me for it. Sometimes, the greedy side of me wonder if I should ask for a raise. haha

I actually plan to stick with this job until they don't want me anymore or until the agency makes it big. This agency actually started last year, several months before I came, so I kinda feel like I should probably stick around and see how everything turns out. The lady-boss has set her goals high and wants the agency to make their first million in sales by 2011. That's three years away. I wonder if I will still working here by then.

I recently exchanged Facebook and MSN contacts with a few colleagues. Now I feel real silly that I actually waited one whole year to do it.

Rock Band @ E2Max

I went for a Rock Band jam session last Sunday at E2Max (The Cathay) with Rhyfe and his two friends. The rental price was actually pretty much a rip-off ($25 an hour) and E2Max was pretty cheapskate. They only had one set of instruments so only 3 players could play at any one time. We had to take turns.



My impressions...

The Stratocaster guitar is probably the worst plastic guitar I have ever laid my hands on. The guitar parts actually felt hard due to the stricter timing window and eye-straining HO/POs. Drumming was actually pretty fun, though I got a real work-out with the foot pedal. My ankle hurt as though I had just finished an RT session.

People always say the vocals are the most unpopular and now we know why. Most of us got pretty bored with it after a while and soon, not many felt like singing. Maybe cos' it's pretty mundane (it's just a mic after all; how interesting can it get?) and simply not as fun as holding a plastic instrument in your hands.

I sang a few songs that I knew: Train Kept A' Rollin (Aerosmith), Highway Star (Deep Purple) and a few recognizable songs from Guitar Hero. If I could hear myself sing, my hair would probably all stand on their ends. The hardest song in the game was Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld. I heard that this was supposed to be a funny song out of South Park. haha.

It was pretty fun. The 3 hours went by rather quickly. We wanted to capture a few perfomances on video but an E2Max staff told us that we were not allowed to take pictures. I wonder why. Meh.

I won't be playing Rock Band @ E2Max again due to the ripoff prices. Maybe if I ever come here again, I could try other stuff.