Hori EX2 Plus Sanwas Equals...

I got back my old Hori EX2 recently after TraitorAI (budding modder/hobbyist) was done working on it (the guy actually built his own arcade cabinet). Hooray, my first modded stick. Now I have 2 working sticks.



I asked him to change the ball-top and have all 6 face buttons replaced by Sanwa's. All the parts were ordered from AkihabaraShop.jp. The Sanwa buttons are more responsive and easier to press (less resistance).

I went for a purple/dark blue theme because I initially wanted to have a matching decal printed. In the end, I was so fickle-minded that I gave up on the decal because I simply could not decide what I wanted on my stick. It would have either been Devil May Cry or Gears of War or Halo. I kinda wish I had went with a decal, though. It would have made the sitck all the more personalized.

A Tale of Two Prinnies

I recently received an e-mail from SingPost. They informed me that there was a package with an incomplete address for me. I was quite amazed that they actually managed to track me somehow (where did they get my e-mail address from?). At the same time, I had the feeling that the package was the lost Prinny from my previous overseas order.

I provided my full address and, at the same time, told them to help me mail it back to the sender if the package happened to be from RosenQueen. I explained to them that the company had already replaced my lost order.

They must have decided to ignore my instructions cos' this little guy turned up at my house today.


Okay, so now I have two Prinnies. I feel like returning it but I am afraid I will be told to bear the shipping costs. I think I'll hold onto him for now and see what happens.


"Dood! It must be real uncomfortable in there!"

Dinner & Zombies @ The Cathay

I went to Takashimaya to shop around yesterday, having learnt from SgCollect that there was a sale on some items in the toy department. I was delighted to find that their Halo figures were on sale and bought some. It kinda made me feel bad that I have paying rip-off prices for mine from shops in the town areas.

After shopping around, I set off for Plaza Singapura as I have arranged to meet Darrell and YongHao for dinner. I arrived early and noticed a large group of people standing outside Plaza Singapura, offering to give out 'free hugs' to passers-by. I had a playful idea and wanted to lure YongHao into the group of huggers when he arrived. I could imagine myself walking up to them and go, "Hi, this is my friend. He desperately needs a hug. Please show him a good time."

Unfortunately, the 'huggy squad' was gone by the time he arrived. Oh well.

We went to walk around a bit before going to queue at Aston's. We stood 45 minutes in line before we were let in, and Darrell arrived soon after. I'll never get sick of Aston's food.

We were about to leave for home after dinner when Darrell suggested playing Left 4 Dead at E2Max for an hour. We took some time to set up and host the game. I played the Xbox 360 version before, though L4D on the PC with high graphical settings looked a million times better than the console version. haha.

I knew that one campaign lasts about an hour and, sure enough, the staff disabled our computers the moment we finished the No Mercy campaign and the credits started to roll (he could've at least let us view the stats screen...).

All that zombie-killing made us hungry so we went to Ben & Jerry's for ice cream before going home. It was a great way to end the weekend before Monday Blues seep in.

Dinner at Outback Steakhouse

I dropped by at Funan Centre last Friday after work to shop around. I met up with Duelist & Justin, and we made our way to the Outback Steakhouse at Millenia Walk to join Raccon for dinner.

It was my first time eating there. The exotic-sounding waiter was very friendly and enthusiastic. The food was pricey but the serving was quite generous; I had an overdose in potato dishes but I love them so much (baked potato, mashed potato and cheese fries). I also had 4-5 glasses of Coke since it was free flow.

*Photos are not mine. haha*

Week in Review: I am Exhausted

I spent the weekend staying at home and sleeping to recuperate from my unhealthy habit of sleeping late every night. I had a very tiring week and was totally exhausted. I blame it on work. haha. the middle of the week, my SingNet connection went crazy but they managed to promptly resolve it on their side. It caused me a lot of undue stress. Boy was I glad when the weekends came.

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Watching the Watchmen


Last weekend, I watched the Watchmen with Akira, Max and Darrell. I read a lot of mixed opinions online on the movie. All I can say it people who are bashing it and saying Street Fighter or Dragonball Evolution are better (OMG) simply "don't get it".

The Watchmen is a mature, multi-layer mystery with a deep plot and emphasizes on character developement. I loved the way how the main plot followed that of the graphic novel very faithfully. They removed a lot of long, filler'ish parts and a slight change in the ending (the original's was too ridiculous by today's standards). Definitely one of my favourite movies this year.

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Suntec IT Show

On Thursday after work, I went to the IT Show at Suntec with Duelist. It was so packed and squeezy but better than going on a weekend I guess. Still, it kinda deterred me from scouting out gaming speakers to buy (maybe I am just too lazy).

I was also interested in checking out gaming deals but was a little disappointed. The previous IT show had better selection and better promos. Not wanting to go home empty handed, I picked up a copy of Halo 2 in case I want to play it for the story one day.

We had a sumptious dinner at NYDC before going home.

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Bugis Junction

On Friday, I dropped by at Bugis Junction to sell my copy of Ninja Blade to Aheda, despite me warning him that it was the worst action game I ever played. (True enough, he is now trying to get rid of it after his first night with it. haha.)

Since I was at Bugis, I thought of hanging around the arcade to peek at the SFIV 2v2 tournament organized by SFIV Singapore and perhaps meet some of the BoB arcade goers. But in the end, I decided that I was too tired and wanted to go straight home to rest.

I passed by Absolute Comics to take a peek before I left. They had the Halo Wars Heroic Collection but they only sold it as a complete set of 4. *Sadface*

Saturday Morning Watchmen

Note: I almost thought it was a real 80's cartoon. It's a fan-made parody. Be sure to try and catch all the weird, contradictory stuff going on. haha.

I Hate it When my Internet Dies 2009

My SingNet connection started acting up yesterday. I kept d/c'ing every 5-10 minutes. This made it impossible to play games on Xbox Live and it was highly annoying when trying to surf the net. I thought it was just SingNet being laggy for the night so I kept myself occupied with other things before going to bed.

To my dismay, I came back today and the problem still persisted. I called up SingNet and they said they will send someone down to check next Monday.

This made me depressed and I started thinking what I should do to make the wait less painful. This was when I thought about my old StarHub connection. I was waiting for the contract to end before cancelling it. Somehow, it slipped my mind as I forgot when it was ending. Given my situation, this happened to be a good thing!

I dug out the old Motorola modem and hooked it up to my Xbox 360. To my relief, it still worked after over ten months of non-use. Things aren't as bad as it seems anymore. I can still play games and surf the net.

Like an old friend waiting in the shadows, the congested Green Pipe jumps in and rescues me from SingNet's failure. How ironic. Now I just have to wait till next Monday.

EDIT: SingNet called me and told me that they did some fixes on their site. Everthing seems to be workng now.

The Red-Scarf Prinny

This little Prinny plushie travelled a great distance and arrived at my home last Friday.



I ordered it from RosenQueen. They accidentally messed up my shipping address so the first Prinny package was lost. After e-mailing their customer service, they apologized and quickly sent out a 2nd Prinny to me at no extra charge. They were nice enough to enclose an apology letter and gave me a free Prinny strap. Such excellent service!



I <3 my Prinny.

Halo Overdose

A long overdue post that should've been up last week because I was too busy playing games... :(

I snapped up the Limited Edition copy of Halo Wars on its release date. This must be one of the best LEs for a game ever. For $89, it came with TONS of stuff, so much so that the game itself may as very well be free.



What I liked about the LE was the metallic case the game came in. I spent some time to admire the contents the first time I opened it. Amongst the freebies, one of the things I made good use of was the poster.

This is not the same 'Arbiter' as the one from Halo 3.

I am quite hopeless at RTS but that didn't stop me from enjoying the game and having some epic battles online. The game may be simplistic compared to the big guns like StarCraft and WC3 but that didn't stop it from earning its own show on Korean TV.

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To promote the release of the game , there was a Halo Wars tournament at E2Max and a launch event at Funan's XXZ (Xbox Xperience Zone). They also held the Singapore's Halo Biggest Fan competition. I went there to support a friend who was one of the 5 participants.


My friend, the Halo Nut (Gamertag/forum nick: DuelistHKLeong2)

He didn't win, though, because the results were solely based on votes. His competitors all brought tons of supporters which included parents, relatives, classmates and other random people who probably have absolutely no idea what Halo is about.

This sucks and reminds me of the Singapore Idol. But all's fair in love, war and... er, fan contests I guess; that's life. In my honest opinion, my friend would have stand a good chance at winning if this event was based on judging and not by votes. The passion and devotion he showed that day was a performance not to be undermined.


Can you find me in this photo?

On a side note: The guy dressed up as the Master Chief was terrible. He was way too skinny and too tall. His chest armor looks like a bra and his pants are always falling off. Check out the spacing between the chestplate and his pants.



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Before I end my post, I have to make special mention about one particular machinima comedy series on YouTube that I got totally hooked on. It is called "Arby 'n' the Chief" and is about two action figures who come to life when their owner is out and they talk about Halo and games in general. The one thing that stood out for me was that the figures are 'voiced' by Microsoft text-to-speech programs. If you don't know what that means, just think of the robotic voice that comes out of Ventrilo whenever someone enters the channel.

Arby 'n' the Chief - Episode 1

If it quite a critically acclaimed series, so check it out if you are even remotely interested in games.

Can I Really Be the Hero?

Yes, you can, Prinny. Yes, you can.



I picked up Prinny over the weekend. I've never played a single Disgaea game before but those little demonic penguins are so cute. The game also comes with the OST.


Prinny Sountrack: "Can This Really be the OST?"

It's a real pity that the bundle is missing the Prinny plushie and PSP case that were available with pre-orders in the U.S.


I must have that Prinny plushie! It's so adorable!

P.S.: I support Prinny rights! Display this stamp in your siggy/site/blog if you do!

Pretty Fly (For a Penguin)

I woke up on Sunday at around 12 noon because I was planning to go to Funan with Miya to redeem my SFIV calender and buy some gaming speakers. I decided to play some SFIV before I go and this was when I realized that one of my buttons was faulty. I think it has become like that due to months of non-use, just that I never noticed it till today.

So I went to Funan with Miya. We shopped around and I managed to picked up an SCIV stick (which was a surprise since it is supposedly sold out everywhere). This meant no speakers for me today.

It was around 5 pm when I started to make my way home. Jeremy suddenly called me out for dinner since he was at Pasir Ris with Darrell. I met them at White Sands but we then decided to eat at Changi Airport instead.

We stopped by at my place first so I could unload my stuff. We ended up playing some Rock Band. Everyone, including myself, hated playing the drums so we stuck to singing and strumming on the guitar. haha.

We cabbed to Changi Airport T3 at around 9 pm and walked around to find a place to eat. We eventually settled with Secret Receipe, which I always thought was a cafe that served cakes.

We all went home after dinner and I was surprised to learn that Bus 53 from the airport dropped me a short distance from my block. How convenient!

By then, it was quite late already and Monday blues was beginning to seep in. I played a bit of SFIV online with Kyo to give my new stick a workout before preparing to go to bed. Even in the virtual world, my fashion sense is just as boring (plain shirt & jeans ftw). Can you guess who is who?

Dinner & Drinks with Friends

It was Saturday evening when I received an MSN message from Max, asking me out for dinner & drinks. I was actually quite tired and had things to do but he somehow managed to persuade me to go.

I met Max at Clarke Quay MRT station at around 8:30 pm and it was then I realized he had somehow worked his Jedi Mind Tricks on more unsuspecting people. Akira was there. Kyo & Jeremy turned up despite their long, tiring day of work.

It almost looked like a gathering of single, unattached people on Valentine's Day. We had curry at Waraku (which was great!). Then we went to HOOTERS!!!

HOOOOTERS!!!

...

Nope, we did not go to Hooters. I lied. No one wanted to go to Hooters. It would've matched the whole "single, unattached people" theme, though. :(

Back on track, we made our way to Archipelago, a little half open-air pub by the street with a taxi stand right outside. I had no idea what the exotic-sounding drinks were on the menu so Max ordered me a "Jack Daniels" with added coke. It was pretty mild which was fine by me.

The waitress was a PRC whose English was hard to understand and brought Jeremy "lamb juice" (lime juice). Max said that the regular waitress was not there that night. She was most probably out ona date since it was Valentine's Day.

We chatted till around 11:30 pm. I then flagged a cab down and was on my way home.