Movie Review: Taxi

I wanted to watch The Incredibles with Benedict today, but by the time we got to Tampines, the tickets were sold out. We then opted to watch Taxi. Other than knowing it was a comedy, I didn't really know what to expect. I initially thought it was some spy show since I remembered seeing a cop and a suped-up car with gadgets from a trailer.

To sum it up, it is basically about a cab driver (played by Queen Latifah) with a passion for cars who assists a loser cop (played by Jimmy Fallon) in cracking a case. After I got home, I realized that this is actually a remake of a French show of the same name.

The movie is not bad. It's those typical slapstick comedy with silly jokes. The car chase scenes are very nice and the criminals are hot.

Daily Routine

What I do everyday now when I am at home.

• Wake up at 12noon-1 pm for lunch in front of the computer.
• Surf the net and/or play Maple Story.
• Dinner in the evening while sitting in front of the computer.
• Continue sitting in front of the computer. Maybe watch TV if something nice is on.
• Goes to bed at 1-2 am
• Most likely unable to sleep, so get up shortly after to sit in front of the computer again or, for a change of pace, play my PS2.
• Finally feel sleepy and eventually go to bed at 5am.
• Wake up at 12noon-1pm for lunch in front of the computer...

Priston Tale: Ultimate Force

I never thought I would play Priston Tale again, but Hobbes somehow managed to persuade me into it. I even had to borrow a payment coupon from Kraazg cos' the one I had tucked away for six months had somehow expired. I downloaded the game, which now clocked at a massive 700+MB intead of the old 300+MB. It is now in its 3rd major revision; its subtitle is no longer PT: Age of Renaissance as I knew from many months ago, but now PT: Ultimate Force.

The changes were great and very significant. The average level of the community is now in the level 70s, rendering all level 55 & below equipment worthless. I found it funny NPCing stuff that I once spent my entire fortune to buy. I guess it is better for everyone this way. 3rd-Tier jobs are out, which made it very refreshing to play my Knight again. I am in love with the new 'Grand Cross' move, as depicted in all my screenies of it from many angles. And of course, there are other tons of typical new MMORPG changes (character balancing, new maps, new events, etc).

At first I thought I would just play to check out the new changes, but after one day, I found myself hooked again. It was the game's fast-paced battles and super-difficult enemies that reminded me why I was addicted last time. I felt that same adrenaline rush all over again and my fingers were tired after every gaming session. I guess I can now carry on my unfinished dream of reaching lv 70 (though now it is no longer a groundbreaking achievement that makes everyone look up to you).

I partied with Kraazg, and it was a lot of fun. As for Hobbes, I haven't seen him online yet even though he was the root of all this.

Now I have Maple Story and Priston Tale to keep myself occupied. wee.

Going-Ons

I seem to have lost track of time during the past few days. I would stay up till 3 am everyday without knowing, then go to sleep and wake up at around 12 noon.

And during the time I am awake, I will be playing Maple Story. I am beginning to see a pattern here. It seems that I am always playing some sort of online MMORPG during every one of my holidays. (I was playing Cronous during the mid-year holidays, and last year, I was playing MU Online and Priston Tale.) Oh, well. That's the best way to past the time for me, since I am not a very outdoorsy kind of person.

Speaking of which, I just turned Lv40. I wonder is it me, or the armor just looks plain bad.

Impressions: Shining Tears (PS2)

Been playing Shining Tears (PS2) for the past week. Yes, I am the sort that easily goes absolutely beserk over any Shining series game, and since there was a lot of hype surrounding this game, I told myself that I had to get it no matter what. Thanks to Chris, he got me the game straight from Japan on its official day of release and I am very grateful for that.

I must say that I enjoyed the game a lot. The anime intro is spectacular. The opening and ending songs by 保志 総一朗 left me wanting more (quick, MP3s! I don't think HMV will import the CD Single). The storyline, though short & cliche, is pleasant and full of neat little twists. The character designs are great; the allstar cast of seiyuu (which includes 林原　めぐみ) do justice to their characters. Everything else about the game is highly reminiscent of the Shining Soul series, which is just the way I like it.

But somehow, I feel a little sad that such a beautiful game is marred by technical flaws. Yup, technical flaws. Load times are inexplicably long (5 seconds between screens, 10-15 seconds for battles) and you can only save 1 game per memory card (story no longer progresses after finishing the game unless you start a totally New Game). It's pretty bad and somehow, I felt that such issues could've been averted. (What are you doing, SEGA?!)

Oh, well. At least I don't regret my purchase. I haven't touched my PS2 for quite a while and it's quite refreshing to get in touch with the Shining series once more.

Saved by the Alarm

I finally managed to fix the problem that had been plaguing my computer for the past 2-3 weeks. The problem caused my laptop to crash every 15 minutes (or 1 hour, if it is in a good mood) every time I am connected to the Internet. Despite checking out various tech help forums online, I still had no idea what the problem was, though there seem to be people who are also suffering from the same glitch/bug/virus as me.

All I know is that the problem stopped after I installed Zone Alarm. I've had it for four days and I am convinced that it works.

So now, I am recommending it to everyone. Get Zone Alarm firewall and protect your computer from all the evil things on the Internet.

Outing at Orchard

I went out with AL, JN, and SL on Friday for a little get-together/celebration. (Outside of the classroom, they are quite fun people after all.) I was informed of the outing at the last minute via phonecall when I just got up.

We first went to Marche at Heeren for lunch. I tried the Rosti, which is some kind of shredded potato. Being a potato freak myself, I kinda liked it.

After lunch, we decided to catch a movie. JN proposed stopping along the way to take Neo Print. (This was my first time taking Neo Print...) We stepped into the booth, posed for shots, and after that, the girls started adding graffiti to the image before they were printed.

Later, at Orchard Cineleisure, everyone was debating over what to watch. The girls wanted Princess Diaries 2. SL said House of the Dead was okay, too, but JN didn't like horror movies. AL suggested anything that was MA-18 or R(A), like Everyone has Secrets. We finally decided on Shark Tales. I wasn't expecting much, but to my surprise, I actually enjoyed the show a lot. :)

Before the movie started, they showed a trailer for another computer-animated movie called Madagascar. From what I gather, it's a comedy about animals who try to escape from the zoo. The fact that is has penguins in it (that actually knockout humans with flipper chops to the back of the head) earns an automatic 'must-see' from me.

After the movie, we went to Swensen's for ice cream. I ordered a Ring-A-Ding-A-Ling for myself. We just went on talking for a few hours, then everyone went home.

I enjoyed myself very much as it has been a very long since I have gone out like this.

The End of a Long Journey

My group just presented our project for today. Everyone was okay; Danny kept smiling even though our website looked amateurish and our functionalities were very limited. I don't think he will be so evil to fail us since we were pretty okay people. I hope.

I guess that marks the end of my University life. Now just gonna relax all day until I find my result slip in the mail or something.

Peace.

J2EE: The Final Conflict and Aftermath

The deadline for my J2EE project is now over. It marks the end of another one of those unpleasant and nerve-wrecking responsiblities in my life that I will remember down the road.

During the last few days or our project, we carried on with our meetings as usual, but were still as confused and lost as ever. We simply had nothing but raw Java codes to hand up as nothing was truly working as all. Saturday was a complete waste of time, with everyone sitting in front of the computer, staring blankly for hours on end, doing nothing.

By Sunday, most of us have already resigned to fate. We could not get anything done, so we will just hand up our raw codes with no form of implementation at all.

For me, I have been fiddling around with some sample reference codes I got from my friend (DJ aka 'Giant Hamster'). It was a JSP login page that I was trying to get to work for the past week, but to no avail. Just for fun, I asked XJ (sleepyhead who usually does nothing) to see if he can help debug my little JSP. Surprisingly, XJ did get it to work. I shared my find with the rest of the group, and at this very moment (11 am on Sunday morning), it became a turning point for the project.

I started creating several more simple JSPs to test my friend's codes, and when everything started working, I was very surprised and pleased with myself. And so, it all began. Everyone started refining their Java codes and passing them to me, while I took charge of integrating them into the website. I always considered myself a 'backseat rider' when it came to such difficult and arduous programming projects due to my lousy Java skills, but this time, I ended up being the 'driver' instead. I had a sense of achievement that I never felt before.

But, of course, that initial feeling of excitement died down as we worked into Sunday night. By then, I was very sick and wished it all to be over. I remember I was quite moody as my workload increased with every of my friends' compiled clsses. I even hinted that I was unhappy ("Please don't create more & more work for me; I can't do so many the JSPs, you know."), but I guess I really shouldn't have.

We worked through the night without sleeping (well, only the lazy slacking/leeching bastards slept), and decided to tie it all up by Monday morning at 9 am (Deadline was 3 pm). I was feeling moody/pissy from the lack of sleep. I was relieved that it was all over.

Indeed, it was quite an amazing feat. We actually did more work in 24 hours than in all of our 12 weeks combined. At last, it was all over. I am now pretty sure that I will not fail this module; our project is, by no means, an above-average effort, but I feel at least it warrants a "D" or "C" grade at the very least.

And so, just to formally wrap things up. Props & Slops:

Props to:

• AL, who is always the hard-working/responsible person he is, and endured my whinings during the wee hours of the morning.
• XJ, who made me rethink my opinion about him. I used to hate him because he was always late, or did not show up for our meetings, but during the last two days, he proved how excellent/resourceful he was at debugging all our problems. I take back my words; he is not a 'disgrace to all China students'.
• JN. I used to think she was a slacker as she just sat quietly at her laptop, quietly doing her own thing. During this time, she actually coded an entire booking system herself.
• DJ (Giant Hamster), who supplied me with J2EE reference codes, and consoled me during my horrdenous J2EE experience.

Slops to:

• SL, the ultimate bitch who did absolutely no coding during the entire project at all. She always sat in front of the computer with solitaire on and talked about irrevelant bitchy stuff all day. She would act like a selfish fooktard by repeatedly asking "How is the project?" every hour. She also was the only one who got more than 8 hours of sleep while everyone was slogging. True, she may have done the static web pages for us to add our codes to, but she did that like within 3 days. It wasn't well done at all, and even I could've done better in that same amount of time. SL is the perfect definition of a bitch, a slut, and a whore, all in one.
• KH. Ah here's the 'depression' boy. He came back to watch us work like slaves on Sunday, while always remarking how sorry he is that he is unable to help out. At least not as bad as SL. I can forgive him since he is such a nice guy.

Well, that is the end of my J2EE project. Quite an unexpected ending.

So now, let all the fun & games begin.

Maple Story - Lv 35

Managed to hit Lv35 in Maple Story recently. Here I am, posing with Evil Eyes. I told myself that I would start hunting them beginning from Lv35, but alas, they still aren't worth the trouble. I'll just stick to Wild Boars.

The picture shows with some of my new gear. The nice Cross Chainmail is just for show; it is so weak, I prefer to just continue using my Lv30 armor. I love the Axe & Shield, though.

J2EE Countdown: 3 Days

A few days more and it will be the end of my misery. The J2EE project isn't going too well. Everyone is still slacking as for normal. It doesn't matter matter that this is the last week cos' it feels just like the first week.

Aside from worrying about meetings, my Acer laptop is suffering from some unknown problem that appears to be the result of the virus I got rid of.

Once everything is over, I will do a clean reformat to also symbolize a clean start after the end of my nightmarish semester.

Virus Attack; Thank You Norton

I got hit by some idiotic virus again in the evening. It got me depressed. The same old symptons resurfaced (on me, not the computer): splitting headache, loss of appetite, nausea.

I thought of reformatting again, but I decided to run all the anti-virus progams on my PC first. Norton managed to detect the malicious trojan and deleted it. My PC has survived another ordeal. Yippee.