A friend asked me out for dinner today. It has been many months since we last spoke so I was rather delighted. He told me that he had left his job. It kinda made me think that he chose to have dinner near Geylang because... well, maybe he wanted some drinks and some *ahem* interaction with the opposite sex.
So I met him after work and we settled down at a nearby coffee shop.
And then he tried to pull some MLM shit on me.
Turns out that his office was in the vicinity.
I refused as politely as I could but he tried to psycho me for an hour. He pulled the "don't you trust me? I'm your friend!" schtick but I was completely immune. Such things don't work on me.
He was rather persistant despite me dropping a lot of hints that he was crossing well over my comfort zone. Last thing I remembered doing was getting up, cursing out loud, banging my fist on the table and leaving.
The night was ruined. What was supposed to be a night of fun and catching-up turned into nothing but business and sales pitches. I was very, very disappointed.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Sunday, July 05, 2009
Weather Forecast: Boring Weeks Ahead
I have been feeling very tired of working life lately. Even the weekends don't seem long enough to be fun anymore.
Oh, well. I got my Hong Kong trip at the end of the month to look forward to. I am excited and a little nervous at the same time. Excited at the fact that it will be a fun & refreshing escape from my routine work life. Nervous at the fact that I have not taken a plane in a long, long time and there is also the global H1N1 scare.
Whatever the case, I just hope the end of the month comes soon so I can spend a couple days away from work.
I started getting back into Magic: The Gathering again. I spent the past two weekends drafting and hunting for cards. I can't believe I am spending $10++ on pieces of cardboard again. I just feel somewhat disappointed that I can only play cards on weekends. Gone are the days when I have free time to play cards on late weekday nights and cab home.
When I am not thinking about card games, I'm playing BlazBlue on the Xbox 360. The game is awesome and far exceeded my expectations. And I didn't even put any tokens into it in the arcades. It's truly a well-designed and polished fighting game. I'll probably blog more about it when I've spent more time with it.
Oh, well. I got my Hong Kong trip at the end of the month to look forward to. I am excited and a little nervous at the same time. Excited at the fact that it will be a fun & refreshing escape from my routine work life. Nervous at the fact that I have not taken a plane in a long, long time and there is also the global H1N1 scare.
Whatever the case, I just hope the end of the month comes soon so I can spend a couple days away from work.
I started getting back into Magic: The Gathering again. I spent the past two weekends drafting and hunting for cards. I can't believe I am spending $10++ on pieces of cardboard again. I just feel somewhat disappointed that I can only play cards on weekends. Gone are the days when I have free time to play cards on late weekday nights and cab home.
When I am not thinking about card games, I'm playing BlazBlue on the Xbox 360. The game is awesome and far exceeded my expectations. And I didn't even put any tokens into it in the arcades. It's truly a well-designed and polished fighting game. I'll probably blog more about it when I've spent more time with it.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Watched Transformers 2 on Saturday night with Darrell and Chaosmag at Toa Payoh. There seems to be a lot of mixed opinions about the movie online. Overall, I thought it was pretty okay and enjoyable. The action scenes were a little confusing for me and the epic battle dragged on for waaaay too long.
The show was a more light-hearted than I expected with lots of funny moments. The crude humor (hogs humping, Wheelie humping, Devastator...) was a little overdone, though. And yes, Megan Fox is hot.
Soon after I came back, I started browsing forums and came across this totally hilarious video review about the movie from the Nostalgic Critic. It is simply too crazy to describe. The guy is a genius. Great stuff!
Nostalgic Critic's Transformers Revenge of the Fallen Review
*Warning: Full Plot Spoilers*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNge0wMA6xU
Check out his other videos as well at:
http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Duels of the Planeswalkers
Last week was rather exciting for me with the new Magic the Gathering game, Duels of the Planeswalkers being released on Xbox Live.
Being an Arcade title, the whole game is actually very basic. There are only 8 pre-con decks in the game with very limited 'customisation' (if you can even call it that). You can only add cards but not remove, meaning your deck will go over the optimal 60 cards. It feels kinda like playing a draft/sealed with all the overcosted, vanilla creatures and weak spells. It seems to be more geared towards newcomers which can also a good thing.
Despite all its shortcomings, it somehow manages to get quite a number of people hooked. I found myself totally addicted to the game, playing online ranked matches to the wee hours of the morning.
There are people saying that the entire game is one big advertisement to promote the actual card game. If so, it's really working cos' I found myself interested in picking up M:TG again.
I was trying to dig through my collection for my old cards in vain. It was only until I decided to run a search on my own blog when I realized that I sold all my damn cards years ago!!! AAAAH!!!
I still have my (incomplete) Ghost Council deck from Ravnica block, though. I think I'll wait for the new Core Set 2010 (aka M10) before I see if I want to play the game back.
Raccon was nice enough to sell me one of the new Alara block cards to add to my good old cat cards collection. Meow.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
New Furniture
Finally got time to put up photos of my new shelf and TV bench. Both are from Ikea.
No more putting my soundbar and Xbox on the floor. And my action figures finally have their own space. haha.
Here are photos of the old ones so that I'll remember them.
I just realized I went from brown to white.
I am still in the midst of re-arranging my stuff so my room is actually still quite messy with things all over the floor. The new table will be ready tomorrow.
No more putting my soundbar and Xbox on the floor. And my action figures finally have their own space. haha.
Here are photos of the old ones so that I'll remember them.
I just realized I went from brown to white.
I am still in the midst of re-arranging my stuff so my room is actually still quite messy with things all over the floor. The new table will be ready tomorrow.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Mobilization: Saturday Burnt!
I got mobilized on Saturday! I really did not see this coming since the last time they actually mobilized us was in October 2009.
I was even playing Prototype on my Xbox 360 (which I bought from the PC Show) all the way through Friday night and only slept at 5 am. When I received the automated notification on my handphone at around 2+ pm, I was cursing. I quickly got everything ready and the nice Uncle (my guardian) gave me a lift to Tanjong Gul camp. I was quite hungry as I totally missed breakfast and lunch.
I arrived at the camp at around 3:30 pm. It was then my phone rang and the Detachment I/C told me I was activated to which I replied rather irritatedly, "Yes, I am there already."
I was quite surprised when they gave me the M+1 tag. I felt somewhat happy at the notion that I may be released early. So I sat down and waited. And waited. The new CO of our company was walking around and chatting with everyone. He asked me what I did for a living. He seemed like a nice guy.
But then... hours passed. The M+2 and M+3 people were all coming in but I was still not allowed to go. Looks like they are not releasing us in batches like the last time. I happened to meet a familiar face from the my first ICT years ago and we chatted a bit. It turned out that he was a job recruiter with Adecco; maybe I can look him up in future. Our next ICT together is coming up in November.
At around 5:30 pm, the M+1 batch were finally allowed to go. There goes my Saturday. haha.
I was even playing Prototype on my Xbox 360 (which I bought from the PC Show) all the way through Friday night and only slept at 5 am. When I received the automated notification on my handphone at around 2+ pm, I was cursing. I quickly got everything ready and the nice Uncle (my guardian) gave me a lift to Tanjong Gul camp. I was quite hungry as I totally missed breakfast and lunch.
I arrived at the camp at around 3:30 pm. It was then my phone rang and the Detachment I/C told me I was activated to which I replied rather irritatedly, "Yes, I am there already."
I was quite surprised when they gave me the M+1 tag. I felt somewhat happy at the notion that I may be released early. So I sat down and waited. And waited. The new CO of our company was walking around and chatting with everyone. He asked me what I did for a living. He seemed like a nice guy.
But then... hours passed. The M+2 and M+3 people were all coming in but I was still not allowed to go. Looks like they are not releasing us in batches like the last time. I happened to meet a familiar face from the my first ICT years ago and we chatted a bit. It turned out that he was a job recruiter with Adecco; maybe I can look him up in future. Our next ICT together is coming up in November.
At around 5:30 pm, the M+1 batch were finally allowed to go. There goes my Saturday. haha.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
(Not So) Home Alone
My mother left for her overseas business trip on Monday. She will be gone for a whole year as she is travelling to various countries (USA, Hong Kong, etc) and going back to Indonesia for some time.
She made arrangements for the family before she left so life will go on as for normal. She had an old friend of hers move in with us as an acting guardian. He'll take care of all the bills and stuff. With all the basic necessities being taken care of, I'm actually more worried about her safety. I think it's dangerous to be traveling alone in foreign lands.
I wanted to take leave today to see her off at the airport but she told me it was not needed. We said we will keep in touch by phone/SMS. Maybe I could pay her a visit in Indonesia or whatever country she is in during the holiday seasons.
She made arrangements for the family before she left so life will go on as for normal. She had an old friend of hers move in with us as an acting guardian. He'll take care of all the bills and stuff. With all the basic necessities being taken care of, I'm actually more worried about her safety. I think it's dangerous to be traveling alone in foreign lands.
I wanted to take leave today to see her off at the airport but she told me it was not needed. We said we will keep in touch by phone/SMS. Maybe I could pay her a visit in Indonesia or whatever country she is in during the holiday seasons.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
March of the Penguins
I went to Ikea at Tampines to shop with my mother on Saturday. I was going to pick a new shelf and a desk for my room.
This was my first time at Ikea and the place was huge. I didn't know the place had only one floor for display, and if you wanted to buy something, you had to copy down the item number and go collect it yourself from their stores area. Everything would come unassembled and it was all DIY.
We spent over two hours there but I managed to pick some simple designs that I liked. We wanted to have lunch at the cafeteria (it looked real nice; had some Swedish theme going on or something) but it was overcrowded so we went home.
The rest of Saturday went on for normal with me playing video games. That was until one particular commercial on TV caught my eye; March of the Penguins! And it would be shown at night on Okto.
I heard it was one of the few movie-documentaries that was popular last time. I remembered one of the reasons I didn't watch it was because it would contain 'violent' scenes (as are most documentaries). Now, I am fine with violent movies, but in documentaries, everything that happens is real so it makes me feel uncomfortable.
That was years ago so now I felt like giving it a try. The show was in French with English subtitles. The story was narrated as if spoken by the penguins themselves. It basically touches on the Emperor Penguin's breeding/mating habits and the hardships that they faced. The show was very heartwarming and there were many scenes that touched my heart (and I am not saying this just because I am biased towards penguins).
There were some 'violent' bits that were somewhat cruel and made me uncomfortable and sad. I guess they were essential to evoke emotions from the viewers.
The March of the Penguins really left an impression on me. After watching it, I realized that penguins are really amazing creatures.
This was my first time at Ikea and the place was huge. I didn't know the place had only one floor for display, and if you wanted to buy something, you had to copy down the item number and go collect it yourself from their stores area. Everything would come unassembled and it was all DIY.
We spent over two hours there but I managed to pick some simple designs that I liked. We wanted to have lunch at the cafeteria (it looked real nice; had some Swedish theme going on or something) but it was overcrowded so we went home.
The rest of Saturday went on for normal with me playing video games. That was until one particular commercial on TV caught my eye; March of the Penguins! And it would be shown at night on Okto.
I heard it was one of the few movie-documentaries that was popular last time. I remembered one of the reasons I didn't watch it was because it would contain 'violent' scenes (as are most documentaries). Now, I am fine with violent movies, but in documentaries, everything that happens is real so it makes me feel uncomfortable.
That was years ago so now I felt like giving it a try. The show was in French with English subtitles. The story was narrated as if spoken by the penguins themselves. It basically touches on the Emperor Penguin's breeding/mating habits and the hardships that they faced. The show was very heartwarming and there were many scenes that touched my heart (and I am not saying this just because I am biased towards penguins).
There were some 'violent' bits that were somewhat cruel and made me uncomfortable and sad. I guess they were essential to evoke emotions from the viewers.
The March of the Penguins really left an impression on me. After watching it, I realized that penguins are really amazing creatures.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Staying Up for E3 Press Conferences
During the earlier half of last week, this year's E3 was being held in the USA. When I heard that they were going to have Live streams of the various company press conferences, I decided to stay up till the ungodly hours of the morning just so that I can catch them first hand. Of course, this meant that I would be a zombie the next day I went to work but it was still (kinda) worth it.
GameSpot was one of the sites offering Live Stream for the press conferences and the videos are still available for watching.
Microsoft (Monday Night, 1:00 am - 3:00 am)
Microsoft cut to the chase by showcasing their games and demos (instead of boring the audience with sales pitch, sales figures, powerpoints, etc).
Most notable titles to me:
- Modern Warefare 2: CoD4 multiplayer all over again? Sign me up.
- Halo 3 ODST: Droppinng in September 2009!
- Halo Reach: Fall 2010. I'm gonna get my hands on the Fall of Reach novel.
Unfortunately, I went to sleep at 2:30 am and missed out the last 30 minutes where the really fun stuff happened. I caught them all later on video.
- Hideo Kojima came out to reveal Metal Gear Solid Rising. I am sure the audience was just as shocked.
- Felicia Day (from The Guild) came to reveal that Facebook and Twitter will be coming to Xbox Live in fall 2009.
- Project Natal was revealed; Microsoft's motion sensor technology. It's nice and all but seems to be aimed at casuals.
Nintendo (Tuesday night, 12 midnight - 1:30 am)
I was actually falling asleep during Nintendo's press conference. I felt as though I was back in school sitting through a boring lecture. Way too much talking, presentation slides, sales figures, yadda yadda.
Everyone agreed that it sucks bad. GameTrailers slammed it for wasting 58 minutes, then finally showing 12 minutes of goodness at the end. This Penny Arcade strip pretty much sums up the entire Nintendo conference. Team Ninja + Metroid = Win.
Sony (Tuesday night, 2:00 am - 4:00 am)
Sony's press conference dragged a little at the beginning with PS2/PSP related stuff. But once they got on track and started showing PS3 games, it was great. The press conference had a lot of jaw-dropping moments. The PS3 has possibly the best line-up of exclusive games coming up.
Most notable to me:
Assassin's Creed 2 (multiplatform) - Game looks amazing. I loved it when the audience was like "Whoah!" at the part where Ezio knifed two enemies in the face at the same time.
Uncharted 2 Among Thieves - Game looks stunning.
MAG - 256-player FPS. Never thought it would work out but there they were, demo'ing it on stage.
Final Fantasy - After rolling some footage of the new Final Fantasy XIII, Sony suddenly announced that Square will be bringing Final Fantasy XVI (14) to the PS3 as well. At that moment, the audience went completely silent. I, too, sat there dumbfounded. Was this Sony's killer app? 13 was not out yet and they were talking about 14 already? But then the game footage rolled and the title flashed: FFXIV Online. Haha.
Do I even have to mention God of War 3?
Sony also brought out their motion sensor technology. Looks like everyone is out to get Nintendo. But I still think it's aimed at casuals, so until I see any actual games for it, it's just a gimmick to me.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The E3 press conferences were all great (except for Nintedo's). Looks like there is another great year of gaming ahead for everyone.
GameSpot was one of the sites offering Live Stream for the press conferences and the videos are still available for watching.
Microsoft (Monday Night, 1:00 am - 3:00 am)
Microsoft cut to the chase by showcasing their games and demos (instead of boring the audience with sales pitch, sales figures, powerpoints, etc).
Most notable titles to me:
- Modern Warefare 2: CoD4 multiplayer all over again? Sign me up.
- Halo 3 ODST: Droppinng in September 2009!
- Halo Reach: Fall 2010. I'm gonna get my hands on the Fall of Reach novel.
Unfortunately, I went to sleep at 2:30 am and missed out the last 30 minutes where the really fun stuff happened. I caught them all later on video.
- Hideo Kojima came out to reveal Metal Gear Solid Rising. I am sure the audience was just as shocked.
- Felicia Day (from The Guild) came to reveal that Facebook and Twitter will be coming to Xbox Live in fall 2009.
- Project Natal was revealed; Microsoft's motion sensor technology. It's nice and all but seems to be aimed at casuals.
Nintendo (Tuesday night, 12 midnight - 1:30 am)
I was actually falling asleep during Nintendo's press conference. I felt as though I was back in school sitting through a boring lecture. Way too much talking, presentation slides, sales figures, yadda yadda.
Everyone agreed that it sucks bad. GameTrailers slammed it for wasting 58 minutes, then finally showing 12 minutes of goodness at the end. This Penny Arcade strip pretty much sums up the entire Nintendo conference. Team Ninja + Metroid = Win.
Sony (Tuesday night, 2:00 am - 4:00 am)
Sony's press conference dragged a little at the beginning with PS2/PSP related stuff. But once they got on track and started showing PS3 games, it was great. The press conference had a lot of jaw-dropping moments. The PS3 has possibly the best line-up of exclusive games coming up.
Most notable to me:
Assassin's Creed 2 (multiplatform) - Game looks amazing. I loved it when the audience was like "Whoah!" at the part where Ezio knifed two enemies in the face at the same time.
Uncharted 2 Among Thieves - Game looks stunning.
MAG - 256-player FPS. Never thought it would work out but there they were, demo'ing it on stage.
Final Fantasy - After rolling some footage of the new Final Fantasy XIII, Sony suddenly announced that Square will be bringing Final Fantasy XVI (14) to the PS3 as well. At that moment, the audience went completely silent. I, too, sat there dumbfounded. Was this Sony's killer app? 13 was not out yet and they were talking about 14 already? But then the game footage rolled and the title flashed: FFXIV Online. Haha.
Do I even have to mention God of War 3?
Sony also brought out their motion sensor technology. Looks like everyone is out to get Nintendo. But I still think it's aimed at casuals, so until I see any actual games for it, it's just a gimmick to me.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The E3 press conferences were all great (except for Nintedo's). Looks like there is another great year of gaming ahead for everyone.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Sacred 2: Fallen Angel
I have been playing Sacred 2: Fallen Angel on the 360 for the past 2+ weeks. The game is a port of the PC version from last year.
What can I say? It's a like Diablo. And we all know what such games can do to me. This one is actually pretty WoW'ish with its open-world concept, littered with towns and quest-giving NPCs. I have clocked over 50 hours already. Grinding and boss hunting is just so addictive.
The console version appears to be a lot more popular than the PC version! It makes me wonder if it will do to consoles what Monster Hunter did to the PSP. haha.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Distant Worlds: Final Fantasy
I went for the Distant Worlds: Final Fantasy concert yesterday. This was the first concert I've ever attended and also my first time going to the Esplanade. Sitting from high above in the 3rd storey, I could see both a Cloud and Tifa cosplayer in the crowd below. I also spotted my friend, Duelist & Mutouren sitting below.
It was quite enjoyable, though regretfully, I only knew like 3-4 of the songs so I could not really relate to the rest in their lineup. haha. I found it nice that they played Eyes on Me (not in the original list) and gave us 2 encores (FFVI: Terra's Theme and One-Winged Angel).
The highlight to me was FFVI: Opera House (Maria & Draco) because that was one of the more memorable moments of the game. Now I got to experience it fully vocalized as opposed to the blips and boops that passed off as lyrics on the SNES.
This event definitely made me look forward to the upcoming Video Games Live in June.
It's definitely a good year for video game fans in Singapore.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Beam Me Up, Scotty!
Rhyfe dropped by at my place on Saturday. As we jammed on Rock Band, I noticed he was looking down at my Sonic Array soundbar every few minutes. He remarked that he couldn't hear the bass.
It was then that I pointed at the unopened box containing the sub-woofer at the foot of my bed... and wondered why the heck didn't I hook it up to test it since the day I bought it.
I paused the game before the next song and set it up. The difference was immediately noticeable. I was amazewd by the newfound awesomeness of my Sonic Array. There was more a lot more oomph to the music. That was more like it.
Halfway into the day, I received a phonecall from FunZ saying that my broken drum kit has been replaced. Finally! It took them over 5 weeks!
At night, we cabbed to AMK Hub where I was meeting up with YongHao and friends to watch Star Trek. I never did follow the TV series so I had no idea what it was about. The only thing the show was famous for (to me) was the pointy-eared alien known as Mr Spock and the infamous "Beam me up, Scotty" line. haha. The movie was great. It's a prequel of sorts and introduces the characters very nicely. Definitely one of the better movies I've watched this year.
After that, I dropped by at FunZ to collect my drum kit and eagerly cabbed home to try it out. It worked fine but still sucked. haha.
I played games through the night and went to bed at 5 am. I have noticed that this has become a very unhealthy habit of mine; going to sleep at 5-6 am on weekends. Maybe I am rebelling against the notion of sleeping early cos' sleeping early always symbolized that there was work the next day.
I ended up waking up on Sunday at 1 pm with a massive headache. I was planning to just stay home for the day to rest and play games. Just when I was deciding which pizza to order for dinner, YongHao gave me a call and asked me out for dinner at Tampines One. I went there to met him along with Brainy, Akira, Darius.
We walked around a bit before settling down at the restaurant named SayCheese (or something). Food was pretty meh. The chicken I had only me crave for Kenny Rogers'.
And that was the end of the week. I started feeling annoyed that there was work on Monday. There should be off-in-lieue or something for Vesak Day which fell on Saturday. Work sucks.
It was then that I pointed at the unopened box containing the sub-woofer at the foot of my bed... and wondered why the heck didn't I hook it up to test it since the day I bought it.
I paused the game before the next song and set it up. The difference was immediately noticeable. I was amazewd by the newfound awesomeness of my Sonic Array. There was more a lot more oomph to the music. That was more like it.
Halfway into the day, I received a phonecall from FunZ saying that my broken drum kit has been replaced. Finally! It took them over 5 weeks!
At night, we cabbed to AMK Hub where I was meeting up with YongHao and friends to watch Star Trek. I never did follow the TV series so I had no idea what it was about. The only thing the show was famous for (to me) was the pointy-eared alien known as Mr Spock and the infamous "Beam me up, Scotty" line. haha. The movie was great. It's a prequel of sorts and introduces the characters very nicely. Definitely one of the better movies I've watched this year.
After that, I dropped by at FunZ to collect my drum kit and eagerly cabbed home to try it out. It worked fine but still sucked. haha.
I played games through the night and went to bed at 5 am. I have noticed that this has become a very unhealthy habit of mine; going to sleep at 5-6 am on weekends. Maybe I am rebelling against the notion of sleeping early cos' sleeping early always symbolized that there was work the next day.
I ended up waking up on Sunday at 1 pm with a massive headache. I was planning to just stay home for the day to rest and play games. Just when I was deciding which pizza to order for dinner, YongHao gave me a call and asked me out for dinner at Tampines One. I went there to met him along with Brainy, Akira, Darius.
We walked around a bit before settling down at the restaurant named SayCheese (or something). Food was pretty meh. The chicken I had only me crave for Kenny Rogers'.
And that was the end of the week. I started feeling annoyed that there was work on Monday. There should be off-in-lieue or something for Vesak Day which fell on Saturday. Work sucks.
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