No.1 Gaming Geek

2010-02-20T09:26:00.000-08:00

Hello! Oh man, there's a whole bunch of stuff that I want to talk about, but I am being so damn lazy. Procrastination is what blogging has become for me.

It's not that I don't want to write, its just that many of my posts end up not seeing the light of day because I get distracted half way through and when I come back to finish them, it always seems that the information they contain are not relevant any longer.

Oh well. I am going to start writing again! Several minor updates, which I will be talking about more in future posts:

1) Microsoft's X10 event wrapped up about two weeks ago. Lots of juicy details for upcoming games were revealed, including first ever game play videos of games like Fable 3 and Halo Reach.

2) I survived Valentines' Day 2010, thankfully!

3) On the flip side, Chinese New Year 2010 was a fail for me when it comes to ang bao.

4) I had several interesting outings over the pass few days.

5) Mass Effect 2 seriously kicks ass.

6) I'm making plans on celebrating my 18th birthday, hopefully at a chalet.

7) I've decided to stop being a pussy and go get my piercing.

8) I am beginning to love Korean girls a lot.

9) Korea has their own series of movies similar to American Pie!

10) Super secret announcement that I am really happy and proud of!

Yeah, that's 10 updates which I could think of. But I'm not going to be talking about them, because they are meant for other posts! For now, I'm going to be watching Naruto Shippuden episodes. That is, if I can get myself to playing Mass Effect 2 first. Check back soon!

2010-02-07T23:51:00.000-08:00

Hello! Whoa! I got a lot of photos to upload onto Facebook! I'm not uploading majority of the random shots in school, unless they're exceptionally funny/awesome/WTF-inducing, because I'm free but not that free, but I will be uploading all those other shots soon!

These include photos taken during photography, as well as outings. I lost most of my fashion photography photos several weeks ago, and I was really, really disappointed, because fashion photography was the best lesson of the whole module, but I recently managed to get half of them back! That's better than nothing, I guess.

So yes, I'll be uploading a whole bunch of photos soon!

Ugh, I am having a migraine right now. I don't know why, but I suspect it's because of the warm weather just now, combo-ed with the smell of my mother's cooking from the kitchen. It's not that her cooking smells bad, it's just that the smell is too strong. Doesn't help that my bedroom is right opposite the kitchen.

I woke up at 3pm today. Result of staying up until 4.30am yesterday playing DotA. I've already told myself that I ain't going to get addicted to DotA again, so I'm just a social DotA player! Like you know, social smokers or drinkers don't smoke or drink unless at social events. Same with me and DotA :D

Since I woke up until now, I've only left my bed four times. Once to eat lunch, once to bathe, once to say bye to my uncle and auntie, and one last time to eat dinner. I don't plan on moving anymore. Yes, today is a lazy lazy Sunday.

Maybe it's because I'm not moving, so my blood circulation and respiration are too slow, and my heart can't pump enough oxygenated blood to my brain. Maybe I should move a little so my brain doesn't suffocate to death. But you know what? I think I'll take my chances, because I'm feeling too lazy to move.

Today, I'll be starting this new segment I'll be doing on my blog from time to time. Trailers for video games and movies are released daily. Watching through a trailer once is only going to tell you the release date for the product.

You've got to watch it several times to really get every bit of information out of it. That's where I come in. Your geeky, fanatic, nothing better to do friend, Shiva! I'll be doing an analysis of the latest game and movie trailers as they are released, but only if I am interested in them myself.

To start things off, I'll be taking a look at the debut trailer for this year's biggest anime game, Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 2. The first game was released exclusively for the Playstation 3 in 2007, and now, it's sequel is coming at us!

In this trailer, most of the footage is from cinematic, but there are several seconds of actual gameplay.

Here's the trailer:

The trailer begins with all the usual developer and publisher logos, then it quickly changes to a scene of Naruto and a clone leaping down to Kakashi. Kakashi is using Raikiri and Naruto and the clone are using Rasengan.

Their attacks clash and the impact causes waves to form on the water that they are fighting on. I don't recall Naruto ever really fighting Kakashi this seriously, so there are two possibilities.

One is that this is actually a Versus mode fight, but I doubt that, because it looks pre-rendered. The other possibility is that this is during the period which Kakashi and Yamato help Naruto train for Rasen-Shuriken. So maybe we'll finally get to use that move in a Naruto game? Definitely keeping my fingers crossed.

Then this pops up, pretty much confirming that the game would take place during the Shippuden time line. This was expected since the first game ended with the Naruto vs Sasuke fight of the original series.

Naruto suddenly goes into fox mode while his Rasengan clashes with Kakashi's Raikiri. As far as I can remember, Naruto only clashed with Kakashi once during training for Rasen-Shuriken, and while he did lose control many times during the training, he didn't when he clashed attacks with Kakashi. Maybe a slight deviation from the story?

The title for the game is revealed to be Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2, the sequel to the first game. The calligraphy brush art style can be seen in the title, similar to the one used in Street Figther IV. I guess it is fitting, since people in Naruto's world write with calligraphy brushes.

Here we see Naruto fully entering his fox mode. I really like the attention to graphics, like the tiny glowing specs within his chakra field, the thick, sketchy lines to emphasize his rage, and his facial expression.

The trailer then transitions from Naruto and Kakashi's fight to a series of random scenes. This one looks like it's from the beginning of Shippuden, when Naruto and Sakura take the bell test again. This is definitely the impact of Sakura's punch, as seen in the trailer.

This is during the fight against Sasori. Sakura punches through one of his puppets, destroying it. Once again, attention is paid to the fine detail. Look at the individual parts of the puppet fly as it shatters! Also, seals can be seen on some parts of the debris.

This is a really random scene of a hundred copies of Naruto launching upwards to the sky like rockets, defying gravity as they do so. I like how they don't all have the same expressions. But I can confirm that this is Naruto's Shadow Clone Jutsu being used, not a cutscene.

Deidara makes an appearance. This scene is from the part where he fights and captures Gaara. Since earlier footage already showed Sakura fighting Sasori to rescue Gaara, we could assume that this part would have already been in the game, but it's nice to see that it is confirmed.

An explosion caused by Deidara. This can either be a cutscene, or one of Deidara's in game special attacks.

I'm assuming that this is from the Sasori fight, because he does have an attack similar to this in that fight, but it also looks kinda like Kakuzu doing one of his attacks as well. Maybe Kakuzu and Hidan will be making an appearance in the game as well?

Sakura gives Kakashi a punch, which he blocks. However, the impact of the punch causes the ground below to shatter. Apparently, Kakashi's body and legs are more sturdy than the rock hard ground.

More importantly, this confirms that the bell test part is in the game. Whether it will be playable or not is another question.

Deidara is confirmed for the game. I like the detail the developers have given to the mouths on his palms, like the saliva and the way the tongue wags about hungrily.

Sasori is confirmed too. He is taking out his scroll, which he uses to summon his puppets. Other than the detail to the characters, I like how the battlefield has been accurately recreated.

Sasori summons his army of puppets, confirming that the 10 vs 100 puppet fight between him and Chiyo Baasama is in the game. It is good that the puppets don't all look the same.

Here we catch a first glimpse of the in game combat. As you can see, the battlefield is huge, as compared to previous Naruto games. Also, details like Chiyo Baasama's chakra strings can be seen.

Sasori is able to control his puppet army and use them to attack the player. I hope the puppets in the background are able to move around as well, and not just remain stationary.

Kazekage Gaara takes on Deidara above the Sand Village. Look closely, and you'll notice that individual grains of sand can be seen.

Deidara dodges Gaara's attacks. I like the motion blur, and it would be cool if we could fly around using the bird when playing as Deidara.

Thousand years of pain! This is most likely a cutscene, but I wouldn't rule out the possibility of it being one of Naruto's specials.

Really badass scene with Chiyo Baasama and her 10 puppets. I love how the puppets turned out, because they look exactly like their anime counterparts. In the background, you can see further evidence of how much detail was put in. To get into the cave, Sakura shattered the boulder blocking the entrance, and the remains can be seen.

This is probably part of a cutscene. Sakura is delivering a kick to what looks like the former Kazekage puppet. Details like the dust trail from Sakura's boot give the game more of the anime vibe.

One of Chiyo Baasama's puppets punches a hole through Sasori's puppet. This is definitely part of a cutscene, but I would really love to be able to play as one of the puppets during this sequence.

This is Deidara's bomb dropping towards the Sand Village.

Its mouth gets distorted by the wind as it falls towards the village.

Attention is paid to the facial expression of the characters. This look is common in the Naruto anime and manga, and it makes an appearance in the game as well.

The bomb lands on what seems like the sand village, but if you watched the anime or read the manga, you will know that Gaara saved the village just in time by protecting it with a barrier of sand.

Another in game fight scene. From the way Naruto's clones moved in the trailer, it is possible for the player to be controlling all three at once via different buttons, but I think it's more likely that the AI will be controlling them. This confirms that Shadow Clone Jutsu is in the game.

And this confirms that Rasengan is in the game. Will there be other forms of the Rasengan in the game? Like, say, Rasen-Shuriken? Pleeeease?

So the game is announced for the Playstation 3, which is expected since the first one was a PS3 exclusive.

But this time round, Xbox owners are going to be able to enjoy the game as well. I'm really hoping that they port the first one for the 360 as well, and bundle both for a limited edition. I would totally buy it.

Once again, the expression on the characters' faces changes, as we can see with Sakura above. Also, notice that whip looking thing behind her. That's actually a sword from one of Sasori's puppets, and possibly the one she uses to finish him off.

Naruto is seen standing in a foresty area, with the bell from the bell test in his hand. Again, this confirms the sequence for the game, but not whether it will be playable or not.

Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2 will be hitting store shelves in Fall 2010, which means the period from September to November. That is if it doesn't get delayed, which I'm hoping that it won't.

After the release window for the game is mentioned, there is a short clip of Sasuke fighting Naruto. He uses this move, which is something he learns while training with Orichimaru.

Also, Sasuke has Akatsuki robes on. This can either be just an extra costume to select while playing versus, or it could be related to the story. If it is related to the story, that would mean that the game will at least cover the events up to the point when Sasuke first joins Madara and dons the Akatsuki robe.

That includes thing like the rescue Gaara arc, the first time Naruto confronts Sasuke at Orochimaru's hideout, Orochimaru vs the 4 tails, the Hidan & Kakuzu arc, the Sasuke vs Deidara arc, all the way until Sasuke defeats Itachi. That would mean that I'll be getting my Rasen-Shuriken! :D

Of course, there are still a whole lot of unknowns for this title, and I'm expecting more information to be released as its release date draws closer. The first game was well received by majority of the critics, so I'm keeping my hopes high about this one.

The other next gen Naruto series, which includes the Naruto: Rise of a Ninja and Naruto: The Broken Bond games, is expected to release its third game as well this year end. This means that there will be a power struggle among both games to attract more Naruto fans, but you know what?

I don't really care, because it's only going to mean that I'll be having more Naruto games to play this year end.

2010-02-06T23:17:00.000-08:00

Hello! I am totally in the holiday mood right now. This is usually the time of the year when all Poly students are frantically preparing for project presentations, and the exam weeks will follow soon after. Logically speaking, I should be stressed to the max right now.

But no.

The bulk of my stress producers (oooh Psychology) are gone. I'm just left with an individual speech presentation, which I'm really looking forward to, Photography group project, and one last group presentation for Psychology. Other than that, there aren't any more assignments left for Poly year 1. Even my end semester tests are already over.

So yes, I am in the holiday mood! It's basically holidays already for me people! But no, I will not rest until everything is properly finished up.

AHAHAHAHA. Who am I kidding. I just wrapped up an hour long Xbox session and then I decided to write blog.

On a side note, Bayonetta's difficulty is no joke! Getting my ass kicked while playing on NORMAL difficulty. That's the second easiest difficulty setting by the way. "This difficulty setting is for players who have played action games before" says the description when you highlight normal difficulty.

As cool as this scene looks, it's just several seconds away from a Game Over screen. Trust me.

Nothing wrong with that right? Here's how a gamer sees it. "This difficulty setting is for players who aren't complete PUSSIES" Normal mode starts out alright, but it really gets tough as it progresses.

The temptation of changing the difficulty down to easy has emerged in my mind more than once, especially during several ridiculous parts which pit you against enemies whom are tough enough for you to mistake them for bosses, but then the real boss arrives and tears you a few new holes, but I fought it back, because easy mode is automatic.

This means that all attacks and combos will be automatically performed for you by the AI, all you've got to do is continuously hit the Y button, which is basically as fun as doing a Powerpoint presentation. At least when doing the presentation, there is the challenge of needing to know when to change slides.

Ok, I just realised that I am deviating from what I was initially saying. That's what happens when I start thinking about games.

Back to what I was saying. I decided the write blog! It's been what, like a month since I last posted? Blame it on school, and all the projects and assignments that comes bundled with. But that said, I still love school, so just blame it on my inability to plan my time well :D

I finally decided to stop procrastinating and get started on my training routine! It consists of 16 weeks of proper diet, gym and cardio. Technically, the 16 weeks are going to start next next week, once my holidays begin, but until then I'm doing the cardio part.

I went swimming this morning, after like a year long hiatus. I wanted to go at 8 in the morning, where the weather would be cooling and the pool water still clean, but I only woke up at 11. Despite it nearing the worst time possible for a swim, I decided to go with it. Besides I'm already dark a little darker wouldn't do any harm.

But whoa, has my swimming stamina dipped or what. After 18 laps my body hurt like crap and I couldn't even do one lap of free style at my maximum speed. Disappointed. I'm going to train until I am back on form. I swam for an hour, then took a shower, and went to meet Say Yin.

Along the way, I dropped by at this skate shop in Queensway, because it was nearby. If I'm not wrong, this is the shop that Damien goes to because he knows the shop owner. They recommended several pair of skates for me, but all are within the $350-$600 range.

I also saw those pair of skates Damien was talking about; the ones where you just clip onto your own pair of shoes. Those were $400 if I'm not wrong. Oh well, I can't afford them just yet, but hey, my birthday is coming soon! Only 2 more months! :D

Then I went to meet Say Yin at Marina Square. We played pool for two hours or so, then we went to have Pepper Lunch. It's been a really long while since I ate there. Tried the hamburger today. I want to try the spaghetti next time I go there!

After lunch, we went down to Vivocity to pay Desiree a visit at her workplace! First time I drank a drink from the Boost store. It had strawberries, bananas and some other stuff in it. Tasted like frozen Yakult. I like.

We then went back to city area to have dinner at Wendy's, which is my new favourite fast food restaurant. The food is cheaper than Burger King and Carl's Jr, and in my opinion, tastes better too.

Only bad thing about Wendy's is the fries. They are probably one of the worst among all fast food restaurants, but that's alright because the burger makes up for it with its 3/4 pounds of SHEER AWESOMENESS.

So yeah, the holidays are now coming. Next week is going to be the final week of year numero uno. That means the last few days I'll be sharing with my awesome awesome class 1C01. We're still going to be in the same lecture theatres and all, but we're never going to be in the same class again.

As much as I know that I'm going to miss all the crazy shit that went down, I am also looking forward to the upcoming well deserved holidays. By right, there's supposed to be three more weeks before the holidays, but because we only have 1 end semester test, it was brought forward to last week.

So CMM people have holidays starting from 13 February 2010 all the way until 19 April 2010. That's 9 weeks by the way. That may be too long, and would get boring really fast under normal circumstances, but a whole lot of things are going to be happening during that period.

The most major one is of course my trip to University of Western Australia (UWA), which is in Perth, for an exchange programme. The trip has already been confirmed, and it will be from 19th March to 2nd April. It was initially stated that the cost would be $3000, but it has now been cut down to $1850, because I'm sharing a room with 3 other guys.

The trip is actually part of a module called Global Citizenship. There will be lectures and tutorials held locally for a week, a field trip during the end of that week, a 25% weightage common test (for 1 week's worth of content, lol), the actual trip, then finally a group project when we get back to Singapore.

The whole thing is expected to take up the whole holidays. Meaning that not only am I paying for the trip, I'm also giving away my holidays.

But it's ok, because 1) I'll be spending it with most of my good friends, 2) There will only be lecturer supervision for a week, 3) We're staying in a 3.5 star hotel, 4) I'll have full access to an (almost) personal gym and pool for 2 weeks and finally, 5) It'll be an experience that I won't forget.

Other than the exchange programme, there also all the outings planned for during the holidays. I'll definitely need to catch up with the guys from MSHS. And I really need to do all the things that I've wanted to do for a long long time.

I want to go jamming. I want to learn how to roller blade properly. I want to buy a new guitar. I want to buy skates. I want to complete a whole bunch of games. I want to stay over at people's houses. I want to slack the night away outdoors at certain places.

There are already several outings happening the week after next. There's the roller blade day at ECP. I want to go back to the barrage and fly kite again, this time with more people. And our 2 alliance groups need to go to ECP food village for all that good food again! TULANG LA SIA.

By the time the holidays are over and Semester 2.1 starts, I'll be 18 years old. I plan to take my driving theory soon. I want to pass and get my driving license by the end of this year, if it is possible.

I was looking at a whole list of second hand cars a few days ago. The prices ranged from $9,000 for a vintage Mazda model to $650,000 for a Lambo. Oh well, looks like the Lambo is going to have to wait for a while. A LONG LONG while.

I'll also be attempting to work from home during the holidays, rather than work outdoors. Some of you might know that I have been working on the script for this trilogy of games for several years now.

While the script for the first game is still a long way from being done, I've decided to try and do something useful for the time being.

Rather than waste my holidays away, I'm going to look for a small team of talented individuals. I need someone who can draw Western comic book style (meaning that characters look human, and have normal faces unlike the bug eyed characters found in manga), and someone good at inking and colouring. I'll provide the story.

I already have all these scenes in my head, but I'm a fail artist, so I need some one to help me put all those scenes down on paper. As for the colouring, I can do that, but I'd rather have someone dedicated to it.

If you can draw/colour/ink like this, I want you.

The plan is for us to work on the first issue of the comic, then put it on as many social websites a possible IE. Facebook, Deviantart, etc. It would obviously be better to have a copyright before doing this.

We then approach as many local publishers as possible, until one decides to give us a chance. Then I would be a small step closer to realising my dream of having my own universe of characters, with manga style of storytelling but Western comic style of art.

If this whole thing is successful, whatever money we get will be split 25 - 25 - 25, no questions asked and no strings attached. The remaining 25% will be kept as back up and for promotions.

Imagine, if we make a thousand from sales, that's $250 per person. And the best part about this whole thing is that we only need to work hard at the start, then we can sit back and relax as the money comes in.

So yes, if anyone is interested, just leave a note. It would be better if I know you personality, and if you are located in Singapore. Don't just go for the money, you've got to hear me out and you yourself will have to be interested. There isn't that high a priority for this whole project, just several hours a week will be enough.

I will also be doing that 16 week training thing I was mentioning earlier throughout the holidays. This training will ensure that I get about 8-16 kg of muscle at the end, but I don't want that! I'll just be following the training schedule until I'm happy with how I look, then I'll stop.

Finally, I want to get new clothes and hair before year 2 starts. I am freakin uncomfortable with wearing other colours, but I'm going to try to do that. That means that I'll need to get new clothes soon. But I am hopeless at getting clothes, so I will need a shopping companion. Anyone?

I also want to get my hair cut properly. I have always been doing it the way my parents want me to, so I'm going to try something new for a change. I'm thinking of shaving the sides, and a little of the back, while keeping more hair on the rest of my head. I'll be keeping a little of my fail fringe I think.

The back will have to be cut in a V shape, and I'll be letting it grow into a tail. The hair on the top of my head will probably be made into a Mohawk, or I might just leave it as it is, I'm not too sure about that yet.

Something like this. Bonus points if I can rock the beard. I can grow it definitely, but will I look good with it?

I'll also be piercing my ear, since my mom has already given me the green light. I'm thinking two or three piercings on my left year. I'll probably be using those ear studs that look like nut and bolts, or those that look like bones.

So yes, the holidays are coming, and a whole lot of things are going to be happening over the next few months. So far, 2010 is shaping up to be a much more awesome year for me than 2009 was, and a whole lot of good things are already happening :D

Also, since the holidays are coming, and I'm much more free now, I'll be posting more often! So remember to check back tomorrow for more awesome shiva-ness! See you! (:

2010-01-03T23:18:00.000-08:00

Hello! The first week of 2010 has past, and we're left with 51 more weeks of it, or if you think like me, many many many hours left. The year is still young! With all those weeks left to come and go, no one can be certain about what to expect from the year.

But still, there's always those fixed things that are sure to happen, and we can always look forward to them. Here are, in no particular order, 10 things that I'm looking forward to this year.

1) Turning 18

If you've been reading my previous posts, you probably already know how excited I am about turning 18. I mean, being 18 years old is sort of a big deal. Remember when we were all in primary school, and when we met someone who was 18 years old, we'd all be in awe.

Now it doesn't feel all that amazing to be the age, but the privileges you get are still pretty cool. There are no many age restrictions left for you. M18 movies and games, drinks, cigarettes are now legal if you purchase them.

You get to learn how to drive. And despite the fact that sex has been legal since you were 16, girls tend to get a bit more relaxed about the whole thing when they turn 18.

Of course, turning 18 also means that you're getting older, so that means more responsibilities, and you're expected to behave better since you are no longer a minor, meaning you can be arrested.

We're also a year closer to NS, getting married, having kids, and dying. But still, I am really looking forward to turning 18. My parents have been treating me like an adult since I was 15, but now I really am closer than ever to being one, so soon they won't even be controlling me any longer.

So basically, the reason why I'm looking forwards to 18, is not just for all the added perks in life, but also due to the fact that soon, I'm going to be free. Really free, not that false sense of freedom your parents give you throughout your early teenage years. It's going to be worth the wait.

2) Year 2 in TP

I love Temasek Polytechnic. I ain't saying that because I'm being forced to. I really love the place, from the bottom of my heart. To me, TP is a place of energy, happiness and fun. It's a place where I can be myself, a place where I can actually enjoy learning.

I'm almost done with a whole year in CMM. Back then, when I was applying for my course, I was selecting a course, I was really unsure. Now, I have no regrets. Getting into CMM was one of the best things that has ever happened to me.

Besides being able to do what I am passionate about, I got the opportunity to meet a whole lot of awesome people, do things that I have never done before, a really develop into a better individual. If I had applied for a different course, or even for JC, I don't think I would really be this happy with life right now.

Year 1 is not yet even over, and I am already looking forward to year 2. It was just the basics which we were learning this year, and next year, we get to do all the cool stuff. The fact that we get full access to the MediaBiz Studios, possibly the coolest place in all of TP, is more than enough to psych me up.

3) Learning to Drive

Hello, this isn't just anything, it's driving! Everyone should look forward to this. My parents are fully supportive of me learning how to drive, and they want me to enroll as soon as possible. And seeing how the new driving law has yet to be passed, I can still learn it as soon as I turn 18!

I am seriously hoping that I can pass on my first attempt. I've been sitting at the passenger seat in my dad's car since I was in kindergarten, so I've spent a whole lot of time watching how he drives. Singapore streets aren't that big an issue either because I can remember how to get to many of the locations I've been to before.

Once I passed, my dad claims that he'll loan me his car on several occasions. I'm guessing that I'll become his chauffeur. But it doesn't matter, because I would be able to drive. Until I save up enough cash for a second hand ride. Just a few more thousands :D

4) All the New Games + Natal

It has been happening every year since the start of this generation, and it is no different for 2010. No matter how crazily awesome one year's line up of games may seem to be, the next year will be better.

2009 was undeniably a great year for gamers, with huge titles like Modern Warfare 2 and Assassin's Creed 2 being released, but 2010 is already shaping up to be more epic.

As some of you might have heard, a whole lot of games due holiday 2009 were delayed thanks to Modern Warfare 2. The game had an insane amount of hype surrounding it, so many developers decided that it was pointless competing with it.

These delays may have sucked last year, but seeing how many of them are due this year, I am not complaining.

2010 already started off well with Bayonetta, which many critics claim to be the best action game yet, and the rest of the year is looking fine with tens of awesome games due for release, like Halo Reach, Dead Rising 2, Final Fantasy XIII and Bioshock 2.

To top it all off, 2010 is the year that Microsoft will be releasing Natal, its much anticipated motion sensing camera. Natal isn't just another accessory for the Xbox 360; it's almost like a new console on its own.

Sure, it needs to be plugged into the 360, and it works in conjunction with 360 games, but Natal really opens up new doors for developers and gamers alike. Yes, I am kind of disappointed that Natal is considered the next Xbox, and that there isn't going to be an Xbox 720 any time soon, but the idea of Natal is quite interesting, don't you think?

5) Games Convention Asia 2010

I went to GCA for the first time in my life last year. I almost got an orgasm. It has always been a dream of mine to be able to attend E3 on day, ever since I first read about in back in 2004. Well, I can't say that my dream was fulfilled, but it was definitely a satisfying experience being able to attend a game convention.

Believe it or not, I didn't know GCA 2009 was even taking place when I was at Suntec. I was watching a movie later that day, and I had gone to Marina Square earlier to get tickets. After a while I got a stomach ache, and I remembered the nice, clean, spacious toilets in the Suntec convention hall.

So I headed down to Suntec and this huge yellow sign board caught my eye. It was for GCA 2009, and when I saw the dates, I realised that it had just begun that day. So I went up, signed in, and I forgot all about my stomach ache. I attended GCA 2009 for three of its four days.

Aside from getting to play games which were yet to be released, I also got to enjoy the discounted prices for games and memberships, and of course, let us not forget about the awesome cosplayers.

This year, I'm looking forward to attend all four days of GCA. And with games like Halo Reach, Metal Gear Rising and the much anticipated Project Natal expected to make appearances, I am more excited about it than ever. I also haven't forgotten about my plan to go dressed as a Big Daddy!

GCA 2010 will take place from 8th-12th September 2010 at the Suntec Convention Hall. Which is great for me, because it conveniently takes place during the polytechnic holidays. But damn it, it takes place during everyone else's holidays too so I guess I'm going to have to fight for a chance to play games with dumb secondary school kids.

Anyways, if you are a gamer of any sort, you owe it to yourself to be there! It may not be all that epic, but it's still the closest we'll ever get to E3, and it isn't going to be held in Singapore every year, so enjoy it while we still can.

6) Buying a PS3

Oh what is this? Shiva, the Xbox 360 fanboy, is thinking of getting a PS3? Alright let me get one thing straight. I ain't a fanboy. I stopped being one ever since my brain got developed enough to think properly.

I respect the Playstation 3. Sure, this generation hasn't exactly been a good one for it, but it still managed to persevere on. If it was anyone other than Sony, they'd have killed off the console by now. But they didn't, and now, the PS3 is finally starting to pick up.

Make no mistake, the Xbox 360 is still going to be my main gaming platform, because I grew up with Microsoft consoles and I am really familiar with them. I want a PS3 because I feel that there are finally games exclusively on the PS3 that are worth trying. These include inFamous, Metal Gear Solid, and of course, Uncharted 2.

Also, the PS3 has Wi-Fi, an Internet browser, and it is also a Blu-Ray player. While its motion wand thing isn't a big a deal as Xbox 360's Natal, I am still pretty intrigued by it. If nothing else, you have to admit that it looks pretty damn sexy.

With the PS3 Slim now out, I'm just waiting for the God of War 3 bundle to hit stores, then I'll try to convince my brother to help me buy it.

I am still never ever buying a Wii though, because it is shit.

7) Perth Trip

Yes, I'm going to Perth this year! But I'm not going there as a holiday with my family or anything. I signed up for an exchange programme between my course and the University of Western Australia.

The trip will be taking place in late March, and it spans three weeks. Now, the trip isn't cheap at all, costing $3000, which only covers air fare and lodging, but I'm really glad that my parents allowed me to go.

It's all about learning new things and making new friends. Also, we won't be supervised at all after the first few days, and we are CMM people, so let's just say that its going to be crazy shit. Really looking forward to it.

8) Epic Journeys

The blacknight thoroughly looks forward to this. Ever since the term of the second, our marry party hast been heading out on journeys of the epicest sort. To the suspending bridge in the sky we travelled. To the kingdom of great foods along the East Coast we went. The discovery of the great lower reservoir of the Peirce. And let us not forget the magnificent barrage of the Marina.

A new year hath dawned upon us, and the blacknight hast foreseen in his dark rift portal the future. And the future consists of numerous new journeys. The memories of our future are still bleak for majority of us, and it is up to us to bring the hammer upon the anvil of our minds, and forge eternal memories.

We shalt hath epic journeys in this tenth year of the 2000s, and we shalt start the new decade with good times to remember. Impromptu or planned, the blacknight is up for them all. All thou hast to do is send the Blacknight a sign, and he shalt come riding on his worthy steed, Ruin.

9) A4 Album

Yes, this is one of my New Year resolutions, but it was only when I told my band mates about it that I got more enthusiastic about it. This will be an epic album, featuring both original songs as well as covers.

We are an awesome band, and bands like ours aren't common. After all, how do you combine two classical guitars, a violin and a ukulele together and make music that people would actually want to listen to? But I prefer it this way, because when we come up with songs, we really have to be creative.

We have already decided that we have to make songs based on our moods at various periods of time, and several songs may even be created overseas, during the Perth trip. If we can all finish the album by Christmas 2010, it'll be the best Christmas present I have ever received.

10) Love

Yes, that is pretty self explanatory. It's been more than a year since I last had it, and I am really missing the feeling. While I am alright on my own most of the time, there are some times when I really need someone. We all do. After one whole crappy year, I'm hoping 2010 will be a better one for me.

So there you have it, 10 reasons why I'm thinking 2010 will be an awesome year. Now I got to get back to my assignments, things are really starting to get busy! Check back soon, and thanks for reading :D

2010-01-02T22:58:00.000-08:00

Oh hoho, hello there. It's the second day of the new year, the second day which I unfortunately spent at home. Still, it wasn't too bad, because my cousins came over and we had a whole lot of fun.

My sister had this prayer/ceremony thing this morning, so my relatives had to come. Me waking up at 8am on a Saturday morning is a very rare happening, but it happened today. My relatives started coming in as early as 9.45am.

As always, I was the photographer for the day. My dad was really excited about the whole thing, so he made me take a whole lot of photos. If I'm not wrong, I ended up with 300-400 photos of the ceremony alone.

Once the thing was finally over, I got my chance to do some crazy shit with my cousins. I would describe everything we did, but we all know a picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll leave it all up to you imagination :D

The day ended well, with me completing Mass Effect after months and months of procrastination. See, I am working hard at fulfilling new year resolution number 5! Anyways, I finally completed, and now I can see why critics all over the world agree that it is the best game this generation.

The game has been over the top from the beginning, but the final level really blew my mind. It's one of those incredibly rare moments in video games when they go from being "awesome" to "WHAT.THE.FUCK.EPIC."

So I've been chasing this traitor called Saren throughout the galaxy, and when I finally manage to access his lab, I find out he's just a pawn in a much greater plan. It turns out that this extinct race of machines, known as the Reapers, were not as dead as everyone was hoping for them to be.

I encounter one in Saren's lab, and it reveals everything to me. A confrontation with Saren follows, and the bastard admits that he knew about everything, but he willingly let the Reaper modify and use his body. A shoot out breaks out, and he runs away after I destroy his shields.

I quickly head back to the Citadel, which is a central hub for the Alliance, which is a joint operation force consisting of hundreds of races from all over the galaxy. I report to the Councillors, which the three heads of the Citadel, but they deny the existence of the Reapers, and they lock down my ship, preventing me from leaving the Citadel.

But you know what, fuck it, I'm a badass human who doesn't take no for an answer, so with the help of my former captain, I get the ship back online and I travel with my crew to this planet called Ilos, which is where this artifact called the Conduit is supposed to be at, and I don't know what this thing is yet, but I can't let Saren get his alien paws on it or the galaxy is screwed.

So I get to the planet and I order my pilot to drop our all terrain vehicle, the Mako, right on top of Saren and his troops. They manage to avoid us, and they lock us out. After a minor detour, I bypass the security, and I venture into an underground ruin.

Halfway through, force fields appear, trapping me and my squad. An elevator activates to my right, so I get in. It takes me down to the lower levels of the ruins, and I encounter an ancient AI known as the Watcher. The Watcher explains to me that the Conduit is actually a back door to the Citadel, and Saren is planning to use it to allow the hidden Reaper fleet to ambush the Alliance.

That cannot do! So I get back into the Mako, with a counter code for the Alliance from the Watcher, in case Saren gets inputs his code first. I drove the Mako back to ground level, and then off a cliff in a desperate attempt to save time.

Crash landing into a man-made trench, I sped the Mako towards the Conduit, which starts to glow an intense blue in the distance. There is heavy resistance, but any one foolish enough to stand in my way gets to meet the front bumper of my vehicle. Finally, I reach the Conduit and I drive the Mako straight into it, transporting my squad to the Citadel.

Unfortunately, Saren gets there first.

At this point of time, I was greeted by this epic cutscene. Saren's ships appear through ripples in space, and soon an entire armada is heading for the Citadel. The Council is evacuated, but they come under heavy fire. Saren quickly seals of the Citadel, and his ship, Sovereign, which was the Reaper whom I encountered earlier, attaches itself to the central control room of the Citadel, ready to open transport channels for the Reaper fleet.

All hope seems lost, but then suddenly, my Mako gets through to the Citadel, splattering several enemies as it crashes through its portal. I hurry out with my squad, and we take a lift up to the central control room, but Saren shuts it down. There is no time to waste, so we put on our space gear, and smash out of the lift.

With zero gravity in the environment, the whole game goes vertical as we walk down the inner walls of the maintenance duct. Saren throws his most formidable guards at us as we make our way towards the central control room, but they quickly go down under the combined firepower of my squad.

Finally, we get into the control room, just in time as well. Saren leaps onto his glider and starts firing missiles at us. Using a combination of evasive maneuvers and special abilities, we bring him down, and I order the Alliance to strike the Reaper. The Council ship was in the way, but I ordered the Alliance fleet to ignore their distress signal. They were bastards anyway.

The Reaper retaliates, and he modifies Saren's corpse, turning it into a mechanical, spider-like creature. We kill him again, the Alliance destroys Sovereign and the Reaper, and all ends well. The Council is dead, and a new Council needs to be elected. Being a hero of the galaxy, I nominate my Captain to be the new head.

Now all I've got to do is wait two weeks for Mass Effect 2! I cannot wait! JANUARY 26.

2010-01-01T22:40:00.000-08:00

Oh wow, it's the first day of 2010! Think about it. A freakin decade has past. This is the first year that's ending with a two digit value, unlike the past ten years. If you ask me, this day is significantly more significant than yesterday.

And check this out people. 2010 marks the year I turn 18! Like, I'm almost free! Just 3 more years to the big 21. And like 7 more years until I get married! 18 is an awesome age to be. I can do everything I have been doing for the past four years, but legally! How awesome is that. Also, 18 year old birthday parties are crazy shit, so I'm looking forward to that.

So, as we all usher in the new year, everyone will be busy writing down their new year resolutions. First, let me say that I do not see the point of setting resolutions, since you're going to break them next week anyway, but I do admit that they're fun to do.

Let's see how I did for last year. Here were my resolutions, which I set around this time one year ago:

1) Fulfill all my other new year resolutions. Obvious fail.

2) Learn to understand people more and treat everyone better. A partial victory? I understand some people more, but I know I did somethings that hurt some people as well.

3) Complete the script for my first game and get a copyright for the series. Ok so I was really ambitious. A bit too ambitious I guess. Still working on it.

4) Avoid spending cash so impulsively. Hoho, fail.

5) Get bigger arm muscles and more visible stomach and back muscles. Hmm, my arm muscles got smaller, but I did fulfill the other two.

6) Get my Gamerscore past 20 000. Success! 23,065G.

7) Do well in my studies and submit everything on time. Another win.

8) Abstain from sex D: Hmm. Oh well. This was a stupid resolution anyways.

9) Get my family members and close friends birthday presents regardless of whether they get me anything or not. I'm way too nice. I did it for some, but not for all.

10) Complete every one of my games. Definitely have more complete games now, but still a long way from achieving this.

11) Clean, paint and re-decorate my room, and I must maintain it. Yes I did this :D

12) Improve my [non-game related] memory and at least remember every one's birthday. Believe it or not, I do remember birthdays now!

13) Avoid being an Xbox fanboy. I must be neutral. Yep, and I'm even thinking of getting a PS3 now. The Wii is still shit though.

14) Grow taller if possible :D I'll be happy once I reach 1.95m. I'm not that height, but I've definitely grown.

15) Eat less meat or else I'm going to die soon. Fish and chicken are alright, but less of everything else. I've begun eating less altogether, so I guess we can count this one as a success.

16) Get a new amp and start playing my guitar more seriously. Check.

17) Complete my Animorphs book collection. Only 5 more books from the main series and 8 more side story books. Damn it, only 3 more freakin books!

18) Find that elusive game The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and buy it. The epic island-wide search ended in sweet success.

19) Get at least a silver for napfa test. Oh what the f I don't even have a napfa test. I probably wrote this because I wanted to go to JC that time.

20) Buy everything I want with my own cash, not my parents cash. Yes, as much as it sucks, I did it for the most part.

From that, we can conclude that 1) I fail at keeping to things and 2) new year resolutions are meant to be broken. Out of the 20 resolutions I set for myself at the start of last year, only 9 were really fulfilled. Well, 9 is better than nothing I guess.

Here are my new 20 resolutions for 2010, and this time I'll actually attempt to stick to them:

1) Stay on the Directors Honour List
Like I mentioned yesterday, I have a spot on the list, thanks to my results from last semester. It's not going to be easy, but I have to work hard and stay on the list if I want a chance at going to University. Competition is strong, but I'm going to try my best.

2) Exercise
This time, it's not for anyone else but myself. I'm talking about both cardio and weights. Now I'm thinner than I ever was before, and I'm at the ideal size to build up. I'll need to do up a detailed exercise plan. Aside from visiting the gym at least thrice a week, I'm going to be jogging everyday, and I've decided to start swimming again.

3) Be An Optimist
Yes, I have been trying to see the bright side in everything that I do, but I don't think I have been trying hard enough. I was hit pretty badly by several things which happened last year, and let's just say I wasn't able to handle my emotions that well for those periods of time. So this year, I have to be optimistic.

4) Plan My Finances
I'm lucky when it comes to money, because I've never ever had a problem with it. My parents give me enough cash, and when I'm running low I can always ask for more. Still, I spent my allowance way too fast throughout last year. This year, I have to plan. Money for school, money for games, money for clothes, money for going out, and hopefully I'll have a little left over to save.

5) Stop Procrastinating
We're all guilty of procrastinating, even though we know too well how unhealthy it can be. I have always been a supporter of last minute work, mainly because I work better under pressure, but it will be nice if there could be a day when I know that my project is due in a week, but I've already completed it.

6) Be A Nice Guy
Alright, according to many of you out there, I'm generally a nice guy. I plan to keep it that way. It's true that nice guys are always trailing behind the assholes when it comes to certain things, but it's the nice guys that get the things that really matter. After all, everyone deserves respect, regardless of who they are.

7) Help My Parents
I think I've been pretty well behaved over the past year. Two arguments with my dad, and a few with my mom, but other than those, I haven't done anything to make them raise their voice at me. They've already done enough with raising me, so I feel that it's time I help them. This includes housework, doing well in my studies, helping with my siblings.

8) Develop A Sense Of Urgency
People who know me, especially those who have been in the same project group as me, will know that I lack a sense of urgency. This may be good, because I hardly get stressed, but it can also get me killed one day. So for the sake of myself and for everyone around me, I will develop one.

9) Become More Independent
By being more independent, I'm not talking about going out more or being responsible for my actions. I'm talking about going places myself, without my dad having to give me a lift. I also want to do my own chores, like ironing my own clothes and keeping my own room clean, and it would also be great if I could earn my own money rather than take it from my parents.

10) Get A Job
So in order to earn my own cash, I have to get a job. I've applied for several jobs in the past, but I've never gotten a real job. I'm not looking for food & beverage or service job, because the pay isn't all that attractive. Instead, I want to give tuition to primary school kids. Since my mom is probably going to start giving Maths and Science tuition soon, I might as well start giving English tuition to her students.

11) Stop Being Lazy
I have been lazy since the upper primary. This is a habit that's near impossible to kick nowadays, but I think I'm improving. Instead of lying around at home, I'd rather head out even if I have to purpose to do so. I also prefer walking around rather than taking public transport, if the distance to my destination isn't too ridiculous.

12) Understand People Better
I used to think that I understood people well, but 2009 showed me that I still have a long way to go. I tend to read between the lines sometimes, and I have also insulted people without realising it. I'll be working on this one.

13) Learn To Rollerblade
I've only done it once in my life, but it was fun! Sure, I fell, but that's the only proper way that you can learn. I've been looking for a pair in my size, and I found several, but their prices were a little too steep for me. I'll probably request a pair for my birthday. Once I own them, I'll be skating everyday until I'm good enough for the skate park at East Coast Park.

14) Become A Better Photographer
I've always had an interest in photography, but I didn't pay special attention to it because 1) I didn't own a proper camera back then, and 2) I have a greater interest in producing videos. But ever since I got my DSLR this year, my interest in photography has been steadily increasing. Now, I'm familiar with the basics and settings of the DSLR, but I'm still not that satisfied with my photos.

15) Maintain Friendships
The past 12 months taught me how to value my friends more. All it takes is for one small mistake, and friendships can be hurt. Everything is well now, except for one friendship which I'll have to work on mending, but I would like 2010 to pass without me have a single argument with any of my friends.

16) Eat Healthy
My parents have always been telling this to me, but it took me 17.5 years to finally understand. I've seen too many of my older relatives ending up in the hospital for a blocked artery or liver problems. It's all got to do with what you put into your mouth. And it's not just the meat stuffs that can harm you. Alcohol, sugar, cream, the list goes on and on. Got to watch what I eat because I want to live long.

17) Resurrect The SD
Last year was a tough on for the Sex Demon. Love has been harsh, and the SD's confidence has definitely been battered. But things took a turn for the better around the time of Christmas, and the I slowly feel that ol' caged beast reemerging. Time to become a player again.

18) Produce An A4 Album
Pssst, let me let you guys in on a secret. I'm one quarter of an acoustic band. Of course, my instrument of choice is the guitar. A4 is still young, and we may not have the instrument playing skills of many others, but yet we were able to produce a decent sounding song in less than two hours. Practice band mates, and we'll write more songs over the next year. Hopefully by next Christmas, we'll have a full album!

19) Be Safe
Yes so, abstinence is too strong a word. Still, I'm all prepared for it. But if something does happen, we always have to remember to be safe. I know there's more thrill without protection, but it's just stupid to not take precautions. This should be on every one's resolution list by the way.

20) Wait
Some of you may know what I mean, some of you may not. I tried to forget after that day, but I just can't. And as hard as I tried, I can't have that sort of feelings for anyone else now. I don't know how long it's going to take, or even if it's ever going to happen, but I can wait.

So there you have it, my new list of new year resolutions. Like I said, things on this list are meant to be broken, but I'll try harder to stick to them this year. We'll see how I did a year from now.

In the meantime, I've got to go and enjoy being 18 man! I'm only going to get to be 18 once in my life, so I need to go crazy for a bit. Really excited to see what's in store for me in 2010, and I have a feeling that I'm really going to enjoy myself this year.

So my dear readers, usher in the new year with me. For those of you who are 18 this year, congratulations, for those below or above the age, you really got to try harder.

Alright before I go, you might have noticed that I blogged yesterday, as well as today. You know what that means? Shiva is going to return to blogging everyday again. This blog has been dead long enough, time to type some life into it! Check back tomorrow people :D

2009-12-31T23:43:00.000-08:00

~~~

It's okay to be angry and never let go

It only gets harder the more that you know

When you get lonely if no one's around

You know that I'll catch you when you're falling down

We came together but you left alone

And I know how it feels to walk out on your own

Maybe someday I will see you again

And you'll look me in my eyes and call me your friend

~~~

Here we are. The last day of 2009. Yes, it may be just another normal day, but it isn't if you think of it this way: It's the very last day we get to spend in 2009. It's down to the last few hours in fact. It's a special moment, because no one in the past has ever experienced, and no one in the future will ever be able to.

So in actual fact, today is a really special day. If you want to think of it that way. But don't, because it's just weird. Even if you are the sentimental kind, there's going to be a whole lot of last days of the year for you to enjoy.

Yes so, year in review. First of all, the most important: Studies. 2009 marks the year I got into poly. It also marks the year that I finally found something I'm good at. After mediocre results throughout my whole Secondary school life, it is incredibly satisfying to know that my name is on the director's honor list. A good start to my new life, if you ask me. Now the challenge is to stay at that standard.

Next, friends. Hmm, a little mixed feelings about this one. This year, I met a whole bunch of awesome people in Communications and Media Management, and some of them proceeded to become some of my closest and bestest friends I have ever had. It took a while, but I finally feel the connection to my whole class. I'm really going to miss them next year, the crazy shit, the stress, the random senselessness and all.

Outside of TP however, is a different story. There have been several bumps in the road this year, and while most have past and healed, I managed to lose one of my bestest, dearest friends, possibly the only one who truly loved me, due to my own stupidity. It's also been too long since I've seen many of my good friends from MSHS.

Thirdly, games. What can I say, every year just never fails to top its predecessor. Sure, this year's holiday season was pathetic in terms of number of AAA game releases, but then there was Modern Warfare 2, Assassin's Creed 2, Dragon Age: Origin, and Left 4 Dead 2, and in my opinion, those four are worth more than all the holiday season AAAs for the past three years.

Aside from the releases of some of the best games this generation, I've been buying more games as well. I've gotten smart this year when it comes to buying games, so I now frequent Gamescore at Funan for my games because 1) The games are way way cheaper and 2) The staff actually know their stuff.

I've also gotten smarter because I have finally come to accept second hand games. They're a helluva look cheaper, and they are in acceptable conditions. Still, I only bought two second hand games, ones that were released back in 2006 and 2007.

Over the past twelve months, my game collection has grown considerably bigger. 2009 welcomed 30 new games to my collection, which now stands at 70 games. All the new members of my big happy family have pushed my achievement score up to 23 065 G, 3000+ over the target I set at the start of the year.

Next up, music. Well, my musical taste has changed quite a bit this year. Yes, I am still a metal head who is proud to be Slipknot's maggot, but I've discovered the joy of listening to other genres of music. I now listen to a wider genre of music, and basically anything that sounds nice ends up on my phone play list.

I have been digging up music from bands that I have been listening to in the past, like Green Day, Sum 41 and Yellowcard, and I find that I am now able to appreciate their music way more. I've also discovered new bands through my friends, the most significant one being Hollywood Undead.

Also, I have finally bought a guitar amplifier after years of procrastinating. This investment has allowed me to greatly improve my skills with a guitar. In the past, I was just playing along to bands like Good Charlotte and Boys Like Girls, but now I've moved up to bands like Green Day, Sum 41, My Chemical Romance, Blink 182. I have even had some successful attempts at parts of Avenged Sevenfold songs.

I also learned several classic songs from bands like Nirvana, Bon Jovi, Deep Purple, and the Scorpions. Of course, I didn't forget about all those popular tunes that every guitarist has to know, like Smoke on the Water and Canon Rock. I also know several TV and movie theme songs, like the Power Rangers and Iron Man movie theme.

So yes, that's pretty much my year in review for 2009. Some of you may have noticed that I deliberately left out my love life, because it has been really crappy for me in 2009 and I don't really feel like talking about it, but I'm excited to see what 2010 has in store for me in that area.

2009 was a difficult year overall for everyone around the world. Global recession, diseases, terrorism, global warming, constant reminders of 2012; yes, we can all agree that 2009 was just cruel.

But the thing about us, the thing about the human race, is that we are mostly optimists. We find a ray of hope, we cling onto it, and we maximise it's impact. If there's one thing we have to be proud of ourselves of, it's this ability of ours. We're optimists, fighters and survivors.

We withstood all the shit thrown in the past 365 days, and we all came out well and alive, and maybe even a bit stronger and wiser than we were before. Now a whole new year is dawning upon us, a year full of uncertainties. We know there will be joy, and there will be sorrow, but we don't know when these emotions are going to be brought out.

But you know what? That what I like about something new. You never know what's going to happen. What happens, happens for a reason. Which again supports my believe in fate, which is all we really need to live life.

So yes, I'd say we're all ready for whatever 2010 decides to throw at us.

Here's wishing every one of my dear readers a HAPPY 2010! Work hard, play hard, and find the joy in everything you do! Good luck guys! :D

2009-11-20T13:35:00.000-08:00

Ok so this post was supposed to be up by Tuesday. Which Tuesday? I don't know actually. Anyways, just read on :D

Oh wells it's Tuesday, and as we all know, there really isn't anything much which happens on Tuesday. I mean, there's always something happening on every other day of the week, but Tuesday is just like 'Ugh. Tuesday.'

Not making sense? Good. Moving on.

I finished reading World War Hulk today. The pacing of the story is kinda weird. It starts alright, gets slower and slower as it progresses, and as soon as the story starts to get interesting again, it ends way too abruptly.

So the Hulk overthrows the King of the alien planet which he is stranded on, and he becomes the new ruler. Under his rule, the various warring factions are able to call upon a truce, and slowly but surely, they begin to unite once more.

The Hulk even gets married to the king's former protector, and she gets pregnant with their child. Everything seems to be going well until one day, the space capsule which the Hulk entered the planet in explodes, killing almost everyone except the Hulk and 5 of his friends.

Upon discovering that there had been a nuke in the capsule, the Hulk recalls his hatred for the human race. He was finally at peace, residing in a world which respected him, and he had a family, but all those were now gone.

Needless to say, he was pissed.

So together with his 5 warbound, he launches a brutal onslaught upon Earth. The Hulk, now angrier than ever before, was also stronger than ever before. And close to no one on Earth could stop him.

Heroes who once had a chance of defeating the Hulk, like the Thing, Hercules and the Juggernaut, now didn't even manage to bring him to his knees. Without much difficulty, the Hulk captures Black Blot, Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic and Doctor Strange.

He dumps the four of them into a makeshift arena, and with the help of obedience disks, which were embedded into their skin, the Hulk forces them to fight each other to the death. Just when everything was looking grim, help arrived.

The only one on the Earth who could fight and defeat this raging incarnation of the Hulk. The most powerful super being on Earth. The Golden Guardian of Good. The hero whom contained the power of a million exploding suns within him.

The Sentry appeared and with a single punch, he sent the Hulk flying. At first, this gave hope to humanity, but it quickly died off when everyone realised that the Sentry wasn't himself.

In order to fight the Hulk, the Sentry had to tap into a large portion of his power, and this had awoken the other half of him, the evil entity known as the Void. Soon, a vortex of burning energy was surrounding the Void, and nothing could stop him.

Nothing but the Hulk.

Even with the intensity of the energy tearing his flesh and skin from his bones, the Hulk continued to fight the Void. After several minutes of fierce combat, and with most of New York City destroyed, the fight ends with the Hulk and the Void punching each other in the face.

The impact of their blows cause the surrounding area to shatter, and several nearby buildings collapse. However, the vortex of energy soon dissipates, and both the Hulk and the Void revert back to their weak human forms.

While Bruce Banner remains standing, Ryan Renolds falls to the ground, unconscious. Hulk's warbound had rushed over to aid him, but they found Banner instead. Seeing Hulk in his human form for the first time, one of the warbound attempts to turn him back into the Hulk.

To anger banner, the warbound tells him that he had known of the bomb's existence in the space capsule, and it wasn't the humans who had put it in, but member's of the old king's guard.

Instead of destroying the bomb, the warbound choose to leave it as he thought that it would remind Hulk about how humans had treated him, and it would cause him to go to war with them.

Realising that he was being used by others for destruction no matter where he was, and feeling betrayed by his warbound, Banner is consumed by rage and transforms into the Hulk once again.

However, his anger cannot be contained this time, and it radiates out of his body in the form of Gamma Rays, threatening to shatter the surface of the Earth. The Hulk asks Iron Man to stop him before he destroys the planet, and Iron Man quickly fires a satellite laser onto the Hulk, seemingly reducing him to vapour.

Several weeks pass and rebuilding has begun in New York City. The heroes have recovered and are helping with the repairs. Life seems to be getting back to normal on Earth, but there is a sudden disturbance on the planet which the Hulk had once been exiled to.

Out of the ashes, a new form emerges. Resembling the Hulk, but a little leaner, and with longer hair, this new character is revealed to be the son of the Hulk, Skaar.

Ok yes so that is about all I have to tell you for today. It's Tuesday damn it.

2009-11-19T15:19:00.000-08:00

Time flies.

It seemed like just yesterday when I was stepping out of the Maris Stella High School hall, celebrating the end of the O Levels.

And now here I am, with new friends, new experiences, new knowledge and a new life, just a little over a year after that day.

The first semester in Temasek Polytechnic is now history, and we welcomed in the second one several weeks ago.

The last semester was great. I wasn't saying that because I was worried about accidentally offending some TP staff who just happened to come across my blog. Semester 1.1 was really quite an experience.

It took a while for me to shed my secondary school attitude, and when I finally did, life started getting more interesting. I've been to new places. Learned new things. I've been experiencing something new everyday.

My studies are now better than ever, since I am actually studying about things which I am genuinely interested about. I managed to secure a spot amongst the top 10% of my course, though I barely made it. Got to work harder this semester.

So. Now we're mid way through Semester 1.2. Things were rough for me at the start, especially with my falling out with someone dear to me, but things are starting to get back on track.

I'm closer to my class now than I ever was before. I look forward to going to school the next day. I've been managing my finances well. I've been making new friends. I'm starting to enjoy this semester's subjects. And I've got a new crush :D

Since this semester is more relaxed and all, I've gotten the chance to hang out more with my friends after school. It's fun and it helps us relax, but unfortunately it also means that we have to spend more money.

Last Friday was awesome. It was Campus Care Network Day, or CCN Day for short. Basically, all lessons after 12pm were cancelled, and there was this massive fun fair held in TP to raise money for charity.

Each class was expected to come up with a booth. We had several ideas, but we eventually settled on one which involved water, plastic bags, and all the guys in the class. If you guessed something along the line of 'water bomb', you're right :D

We were selling three water bombs for $2, and six for $5. Participants had to use the water bombs to hit targets. Of course, the targets ended up being the guys in the class.

On the actual day, I hurried down to Business School after having my CDS tutorial, and we spent about 1 hour preparing. Then we realised that it was going to rain, which was bad, because our stall was located at the non-sheltered ground level.

Then someone came up with the idea of allowing participants to throw the bombs at us from the plaza level, which was one floor above. The good thing was that this way, people wouldn't have to climb down stairs to play our game. The bad thing was that it was way more painful for us.

At first, business didn't seem good. People seemed interested, but they just spared us a glance at most before walking away. It was only when our first participant purchased her water bombs that things got better.

The moment she approached the throwing area, the area surrounding her rapidly filled with people, all curious to see what it was all about. Soon, more an more customers came, and it felt as though we were on a stage.

We were all having a whole lot of fun, while raising money for charity at the same time. Also, there was an added perk of being down there while numerous ladies crowded around the railings.

Let's just put it this way: "After the downpour, a rainbow emerges." Go figure.

Soon it started raining, but we carried on. After several hours, it was getting too cold to keep the stall going, so we decided to go for a grand finale.

All eight of us lay down on the floor, our crotches unprotected. Like I said, all in the name of charity. By this time, the bombs were being sold in large amounts, with groups of people buying up to 20 bombs at a go.

At the end of the day, we made about $200 profit, and it all went to charity. I have to admit, I never expected our stall to be such a success, neither for it to be so much fun.

I guess we just have to thank ourselves for being crazy enough to go for it, the group of 'quieter' girls who were noisy enough to attract such a loud crowd, everyone who participated, and Gerald's coconut bra :D

Some photos of the event, taken by Christel:

So yes, school has been awesome so far.

I just decided to post because you know, I've been talking about this 'post everyday' thing for way too long, but nothing is happening. Ah well, we're all guilty of procrastination.

Anyways, I have to head for my CDS tutorial now (which I really don't feel like going), so be sure to check back tomorrow.

2009-09-28T23:26:00.000-07:00

Hello hello my faithful readers. All seven of you. I have an urge to announce that today's post is going to be a short one yet again, but I've decided not to say that because every time I do, the post ends up to be on average length.

I spent the morning playing more of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. I'm playing a separate save file from the one I'm playing with my brother. Since the other save file is for the Anti-Registration side, I'm playing for Pro-Registration side.

That's Captain American and Iron Man's side respectively, for those uninitiated to the Marvel universe. The differences between the two sides are the path of progress, the boss battles, and the unlockable characters.

Anti-Reg side gets Captain America, Luke Cage and Iron Fist, and Pro-Reg side gets Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic and Songbird. The rest of the heroes can be played on either side. Needless to say, these heroes are only available if you play the correct side.

For some reason the Thing is locked as well. I know he stayed neutral and went to France during the Civil War arc, but if they wanted to stay true to the story and make him unplayable for both sides, then why even include him in the game?

Now I know that the game's story doesn't stick to the comic story arc, and the other than the characters I mentioned above, you are free to use the rest no matter which side you play, I can't help but feel that the game is subtly urging you to stick to the comic story arc.

For example, while both sides were at fault during the Civil War, majority of the readers supported Captain America's side because 1) He's Captain America; 2) All the cool heroes, like Spider-Man, and Hercules were on his side; and 3) Iron Man was a bit of a bitch during the arc.

While the game lets you make the decision whether you want to be Pro or Anti, from the moment you choose Iron Man's side, it feels as if the game is ranting at you. Every boss you defeat has something to say to you, all of which basically translates to "Shame on you, you fuck."

And then comes the hero selection. In the comics, the heroes were divided down the middle. Some followed Iron Man, some followed Captain America. The game lets you choose the sides of most of the heroes, but secretly, it wants you to follow to comics.

For example, Wolverine followed Captain America in the comics. In the game, it's fine if you want to use him while playing the Pro-Reg storyline, but he doesn't get any unlocks. However, he does unlock alternate costumes while playing the Anti-Reg storyline.

Alright enough of that. It was getting confusing anyways.

I met Say Yin and Marcus at Iluma in the afternoon. We were heading to the sexy Colosseum LAN shop. At first it was screwed up, because the server was down, meaning no Garena for DotA.

Still, we managed to get another 3 people within Colosseum to play a 3v3 match. We eventually lost, because one of their heroes was too fat, and the other was just imba on its own, but it was a fun match. Managed to learn some stuff from it, and that's all that matters.

We went on to play Team Fortress 2, but due to the screwed server, we couldn't connect into a proper game, and later we couldn't even open the game, so we went back to Warcraft 3 and played some Bleach vs One Piece game, which was fun.

Finally the servers were back up and Colosseum went from being quiet to being normal again. The giant screens went back on and the music started playing. I noticed that Colosseum had their own CG advertisement which was actually quite cool, and they had a good music play list.

Now with the servers back up, we went to play Team Fortress 2 online. The competition was tough, as it always is online, but I feel that we're all improving. At first, there was the urge to just chiong for the enemy Intel, but we soon learned to play the part of our characters.

The last match was especially fun because we made part of an ultimate defence. There was an Engineer who built a turret next to the Intel, and two of us stood at the sides of the turret, using Heavies. All we needed was a Pyro and a Demoman, then the ultimate defence would have been complete.

Throughout Team Fortress 2, we were also spamming all sorts of vulgarities to our opponents through the mics on our headsets. I'm usually a calm gamer, but I have to admit, it was fun. Good times.

Speaking of TF2, the amount of players for the game would probably increase by tenfold if the character select screen looked more like this:

After 3hrs at Colosseum, Say Yin and Marcus headed for dinner, while I went to Tiong Bahru Plaza to find my Yiling. I met her at Coffee Bean. I couldn't help feeling a little sad though, because we used to meet there every Friday night, with Kim.

Alright I'll tell you this now. I don't understand anything about Econs. The Econs textbook is scary. Words upon words upon words. Damn, at least put in a few photos. Still, it's alright because Yiling didn't understand my Med Soc textbook either.

We had budget sushi for dinner! Since I'm broker, and I refuse spending her money, we skipped the Sakea sushi dinner. Instead we just bought 14 pieces of that lower grade sushi from some other sushi store, and we went to eat at some playground nearby.

Ok I know this is going to sound gay and all, but I feel damn sad when I listen to that 'Love Drunk' song by Boys Like Girls, especially when I'm walking home alone at night. The lyrics just remind me of the past and it makes me think, which is not what I want to do.

I got back home and watched some giant machine drilling a hole in the ground at the construction site opposite my room for a while, then I just got back to reading World War Hulk. Now the Hulk has met his Warbound, a group of aliens, each about the same strength level as the Hulk, who have sworn to follow Hulk to the death.

Today was an alright day. I got myself confused trying to decipher what exactly Marvel Ultimate Alliance was trying to get me to do through all its subliminal messages. Colosseum was epic fun, whenever you people are going again, please count me in.

While I didn't get my Sakae dinner, I thought it was cooler having dinner at some ulu playground. And the talk was really deep and meaningful, totally made my day. I'm feeling much more at ease right now after hearing everything. It's all going to get better :D

Oh yes but I didn't manage to go for my run today which is a little saddening, but I guess its worth the trade off for the rest of the things I got to do today.

2009-09-27T23:56:00.000-07:00

I was MIA for two days! Say Yin, Marcus, Yan Ming and Yeow Boon came over to my house on Friday, and some of them stayed over as well. And we still went to Junction 8 on Saturday. So I had no time to post.

I wanted to go running at Bedok Reservoir again today, like I did last Sunday, but my running buddy Fiona had work. So I ended up slacking the whole morning away. I played a bit of Xbox and just went back to reading Wiki pages on the Internet.

In the afternoon I went for a run by myself. I planned this new route that is actually quite good. Here's how it goes:

First of all, forgive the noobish drawing skills. I did it in Microsoft Paint, so you can't expect much. The star is the start point, the red line is the running route, and the red circle is the end point. I end there because there is an exercise area.

I met Yiling at Burger King and slacked there for a while. She was there studying with her friend, and me being me, I distracted them so much that they went from 'muststudymuststudy' to 'screw study'. Yes I am proud of that.

At night I started to read Empowered again, which is one of my favourite comic series. It's more of a fun series, although there are some heavier moments. The series revolves around the life of the character known as, you guessed it, Empowered.

She is a super hero who is part of a super team called the Super Homies. She has this super powered suit which makes her one of the most powerful super beings on the planet, but then only problem is she doesn't know how to use it.

She's also insecure about her looks and figures, despite the fact that she's smoking hot. I should probably mention that the series is meant for adults, and since it's an American product, anyone 17 years old and above is considered an adult. So I can legally read it ^^

Empowered is a nice series because it combines the art style of Japanese manga with the deeper plots of Western comics. The end result is fun to both read and look at. Like I said before, it's an adult series, so many of the things that happen in the comics are of adult nature.

That just makes it all the more awesome to read. If you ever get a chance to read any of the 5 volumes, you should.

Today was an alright day. I feel really satisfied because I went for a run, and I also exercised by arm muscles. I guess I've just realised that NS is not that far away, and I just have to start getting fit. Also, my arms are super weak now and I don't like that at all.

Also, I'm happy because I finally got to see Yiling after so damn long ^^

2009-09-24T23:10:00.000-07:00

Here is another short post coming at you. I had nothing to do today. After spending the other days of the week mostly out of home, I just felt the urge to be lazy and stay at home for a day. Besides, I had Halo 3: ODST to keep me company.

Still, a game can only keep you occupied for so long. The appeal lasts even shorter when you've only got access to Firefight mode, because your sibling forbids you from playing Campaign mode without him.

I visited my usual few websites which I frequent daily, which isn't a lot to be honest. Soon I got bored and started reading random pages in Wikipedia. Then I stumbled upon the Wiki page for Marvel's recent World War Hulk series.

So I went to get the complete World War Hulk arc. I've only read the first few issues so far, but it looks promising. As we all know, the Hulk is one of the most misunderstood super powered beings in the Marvel universe.

Despite the amount of times he has unknowingly saved the Earth, majority of its occupants consider the Jade Giant more of a threat than a hero. After way too many of his rampages, Iron Man, Black Bolt, Doctor Strange and Mr. Fantastic meet to discuss a solution.

Finally, the decide to play God, and they vanquish the Hulk to a faraway planet by tricking him into a space capsule. However, the navigation on the capsule malfunctions halfway, and the Hulk crash lands onto the wrong planet.

Initially, the Hulk was meant to be headed to a planet with conditions close to Earth's. It had wildlife and vegetation, but no sentient life forms. No one the Hulk could hurt if he were to lose control.

Instead, the Hulk was now stranded on a planet with some of the toughest and most brutal species in the galaxy. Weakened by his entry to the planet, the Hulk is captured, and sold as a slave.

He is later thrown into a gladiator's arena, alongside other alien species. A towering alien beast is let lose upon them. The crowd grows wild rooting for the beast, especially when it swallows the Hulk, but soon silence falls upon the crowd as the Hulk tears his way out of the beast.

It takes a while for the crowed to recover from the shock, but soon they direct their cheers at this new champion. Unhappy with the results, the ruler of the planet, known as the Red King, dons his suit of battle armour, and he attempts to slay the Hulk.

The overconfident king charges head on at the Hulk, and he manages to create some deep wounds with his sword, but it only makes the Hulk angrier. Grabbing the king's arm, the Hulk tosses the King to the ground, and uses a blade to slash at the king.

Silence descends upon the crowd a second time, as they are shocked that the Red King, who claimed to be a god, could actually bleed. The king himself is shocked. The Hulk attempts to deal some more damage to the king, but the Red King quickly retreats.

His bodyguard, a female alien known as Caiera, defends him, and while the Hulk is distracted, the king attacks from behind with a powerful jolt of electricity, rendering the still weak Hulk unconscious.

That's about as far as I've read. Like I said, it's looking promising. On Earth, the Hulk is considered an Omega level threat. A force of nature. Amongst the top of the food chain. On this planet, he is close to the bottom. Interesting series.

Speaking of the Hulk, I unlocked him in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2! I had to search for 5 hidden Gamma Regulators throughout the game in order to get him as a playable character. While I'm not exactly that satisfied with him, I'm not disappointed either.

For starters, Hulk is the most damaging and has the most hit points among all the characters in the game. He has all his standard moves, like the ground pound and sonic clap. He also has a guided attack, as well as a powerful debuff.

I find the ground pound most useful because it uses up little energy, does moderate AOE damage, and it can be used in rapid succession. The sonic clap is alright, especially when surrounded, since it pushes enemies back.

But then, if I wanted to push enemies back, then I would just use the ground pound, since it's more damaging and has a larger AOE. What's more, the ground pound can juggle enemies in the air, and they still get damage while in mid air.

The guided move is basically a dash attack. Use it, and Hulk runs at an enemy like a mad gorilla. Of course, you can control the direction he's running in. This move is fun, especially when used on larger foes, because if you collide into them successfully, the Hulk will leap onto and pound the shit out of them.

But I find it stupid that the move cancels out upon the first hit. I mean, when the Hulk collides into smaller foes, why can't he just continue charging while battering other foes out of the way. Why the hell does one small soldier stop the Hulk from charging.

Finally, the debuff. While it might not seem like it, it's Hulk's second best move, right after the ground pound. When you use it, the Hulk bellows in rage, causing the entire area to shake. All enemies on screen get stunned for a few seconds, and their defence points go way down.

I guess Hulk is a fun character. He's biggest problem is probably the fact that his ground pound is overpowered, making his sonic clap and charge redundant. Still, it's awesome being a mindless beast who specializes in smashing.

Today was more of a boring day. But some times, boring is good. I don't mind going out, but I also don't mind staying at home and lazing the day away. Also, by staying at home, I don't spend a single cent!

Oh, and Yiling finally called me again today! ^^

2009-09-23T23:15:00.000-07:00

Today is the day I finally got to get my hands onto Halo 3: ODST! A full 24 hours after the game launched! Alright so I'm going to keep today's post short. I swear, it has got completely nothing to do with Halo 3: ODST's awesome, epic, super fun Firefight mode. Honest.

I headed down to Junction 8 to collect both my phone and my game. I headed for the game store first. They already packed my game and my freebies into a nice plastic bag. I claimed my copy, then I went over to the phone service centre, which was several stores away.

I had to wait for quite a while for my turn to collect the phone, so I just listened to some music. I didn't dare leave the area, because I didn't want to miss my queue number. Soon, even more people started to occupy the area outside the shop.

I was really tempted to check out the freebies that came with the game, but I didn't because there were too many people around and I didn't want to look like an idiot who was trying to show off.

Finally, after an hour of waiting, I got back my phone. I tested it. It turned on and worked fine, but it STILL didn't read my memory card. Damn it. I went to the information counter to complain.

I was kinda pissed by the attitude of the man and woman at the information counter. Both clearly weren't bothered to listen to my problems. I spent about two minutes explaining the problem in detail to the lady.

Once I was done with the explanation, she just started at me with her dumb looking eyes, nodded and said, "Uh huh, so what exactly is the problem." Luckily for her, the man at the counter stood up and came over to help me.

Seeing that her colleague had now got me off her hands, she proceeded to sign into her Facebook account and started tagging a photo of a dog with some guy's name. The man wasn't exactly great himself.

He seemed like he couldn't be bothered about helping me, and he had this tone in his voice and a look on his face that just made me feel like saying "Fuck you".

In the end, they took away my memory card. My precious memory card. The same one which I got so worried over at the Mac lab when I thought that I had misplaced it. I was worried that they would check the content. Even worse, if they decided to wipe out all those photos. That wouldn't be good.

Having wasted close to an hour and a half of my life at that dumbass repair center which paid dumbass retards who just slacked at the information counter, I took a train down to Vivocity. I met Syafiqah, who was already there, and we bought tickets for Crows Zero II.

Since we were watching it with others this time round, we decided to wait for them at the rooftop amphitheatre. It was here which I finally got a chance to check out the freebies which came with the Halo 3: ODST pre-order.

I already got the Sgt. Johnson unlock card back at Comex 09, which allows you to play as that character in Firefight mode. I got the Halo 3: ODST console skin, which is supposedly worth $40. It looks beautiful enough in it's cardboard casing, so I'm probably not going to stick it on.

Even if I do decide to stick it, I'll do so once the next Xbox is out, and then I'll be able to display my 360. Then I saw this small sticker on the cover of the game. And then I remembered. Every copy of Halo 3: ODST came with a beta invite to the Halo: Reach multiplayer!

Of course, the offer is on a 'while stocks last' basis, but then again, so was the Halo 3 multiplayer beta invite, which came with Crackdown back in early 2007. Even today, you can still see copies of Crackdown with the invite sticker.

For those of you who haven't heard, Halo: Reach is said to be the final Halo game being made by Bungie, who are the creators of the entire Halo franchise. After Reach, Bungie will be moving on to new game franchises. It is not confirmed whether Halo will continue to live on through another developer.

Halo: Reach takes place before the first Halo game, and some time after Halo Wars. Not much is known about it, but from the title, many have guessed that the game will be based on the novel 'Halo: The Fall of Reach'.

That novel explains the origins of the Spartan II super soldiers, the ways in which they helped humanity, and how majority of them met their demise. Master Chief may be the last remnant of that batch of soldiers, but there used to be a hundred and twenty of them.

This theory was later supported by a wallpaper which Bungie released, showing the planet reach, and the silhouettes of 5 Spartans. These are probably the same Spartans in Master Chief's squad in the novel.

Soon, we went to meet Damien and Shaun, and Julia arrived much earlier than expected, considering the fact that she finished work at 6pm and had to travel to Harbour Front from Orchard within 45 mins in order to catch the full movie. For her Japanese man, she can fly.

Watching the movie a second time was better than I expected. It still felt fun and fresh to watch, and it still remains within my top three movies of this year. While the movie mysteriously passed faster for both me and Syafiqah this time round, it was more funny because of Shaun's commentary.

After the movie, we went to Burger King for a late dinner, and then we all left for home. If all goes well, I'll probably be playing LAN at the awesome Colosseum in Iluma. Now, I need to go put down some more Grunts.

2009-09-22T23:52:00.000-07:00

Today is the release day of Halo 3 ODST! I was waiting the entire day for a call from the game store which I pre-ordered the game from, but it didn't come until 3pm. By then I had already decided that I was not going to Junction 8 any longer to collect the game.

See, I have changed. I can now practice self restraint. Those of you who were in the same class as me during Sec 3 might remember me almost getting an orgasm while waiting for Halo 3 to be released. And I wasn't even queuing up for the game, my mom was.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like games are starting to take a lower priority in my life or anything. I've been a gamer for a really long while, and I think I'm probably going to be a gamer for the rest of my life.

It's just that in the past, I used to be more of a hardcore gamer. I would play online, try my best to unlock achievements, get the limited edition of every game which had a limited edition, and made sure that I got the games on their release days.

Now I'm more of a recreational gamer. Gaming is my hobby. I'm not in it to win. I'm just in it to have fun. I practice proper gaming etiquette during online gaming sessions, which means I hold back on the sarcasm and I ensure that I don't spoil some one else's fun, whether win or lose.

It's kinda amazing actually, when I stop to think back of how I was back then, and how I am now. I always got heated up in the past while gaming, especially when playing with cousins and my brother.

I find it increasingly difficult to get pissed off with some one during a game nowadays. It's a game. Some one has to win, some one has to lose. And no matter the outcome, everyone in the team has a part to play towards getting that result.

Well, I guess all those years of gaming has at least taught me proper social behaviour while gaming, and while doing anything else for that matter.

Yes, gaming can be beneficial for you!

Alright enough about that. Now that I no longer had to head down to Junction 8, I was free for the rest of the day. I decided to head down to Orchard to meet Say Yin and Yan Ming. We were meeting at Orchard Central.

Say Yin, Yan Ming and one of their classmates were there when I arrived. They wanted to go to Gelare because it is half price Tuesday. While looking for the Gelare, I asked Julia to join us since she had just finished work. Had to use a bait, but it worked.

So we headed to Gelare and I went out several times to look for Julia, who was supposed to be with her friend. We decided to meet at the Sony store on the fourth floor. So I went there. And I waited for close to twenty minutes.

I gave Julia a phone call, and she told me she was inside the Sony store. I couldn't see her at all. Then it occured to me. So I asked her if she was in Orchard Central or not. Turned out she was in Ion.

I do not know why the eff there was a Sony shop at the fourth floor of both Orchard Central and Ion.

So we walked back to Ion, where we met up with Julia and her friend. She went to get something for someone, then her friend and Say Yin and Yan Ming's friend left, leaving the four of us to head down to Burger King for dinner.

As we all know, Ion is a place of higher class, filled with products targeted at the rich. So how could a Burger King outlet possibly fit in? Well, they gave it a more designer looking entrance. Black walls, golden Burger King logo, LCD screens which displayed promotions and ads.

Inside, it's pretty much the same as any other Burger Kings, just that there's an exclusive area for the staff, and the prices of the foods are all jacked up. Since most of us there were close to being broke, it was painful to eat there, but it was the cheapest food available within that evil place.

So we just slacked and ate and talked. Yan Ming left after about 45 minutes, and the rest of us stayed there for about another hour and a half. When we left the place it was already 10.15pm, and it took me an hour of walking and waiting and travelling before I reached home.

I guess today was an alright day. I didn't spend much, and I got to meet friends. And since my brother is not allowing me to play Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 without him [yes, the MUA2 which I paid a full $75, and he didn't contribute a single cent for], it sure beats rotting at home.

Oh, and if anyone ever asks: Pikachu is a dog. And Bulbasaur totally is a freakin fat cat.

2009-09-21T22:09:00.000-07:00

Today was a public holiday! Within our on-going holiday! And I feel like I kinda wasted the day away. I mean, I don't exactly spend other days fruitfully, but I wanted to do so much stuff today, but ended up not being able to.

It's a public holiday. Meaning that everyone is supposed to be off, whether you're schooling or working. There isn't school for JC students today. And I wanted to pay a visit to one particular JC student whom I have not seen or talked to for quite a while, but I wasn't able to.

My morning was completely taken up because I had to head to my father's workplace to help my sister complete her D&T project, which is honestly crazy for Secondary School standard. Basically, she had to make this night lamp with three LED lights and a switch to activate them.

I actually had to solder the wires to the contact points of the switch and LED lights. For those of you who don't know, let me tell you. Soldering is a bitch. There's a high risk of you getting burnt, and the molten solder wire is annoyingly hard to move into place.

Still, I did that for her for several hours, and once I got bored, I went around my dad's workplace scavenging for stuff that can be useful for building my Big Daddy suit, which I plan to use to steal the show at next year's Games Convention Asia.

Here's a glimpse of my top secret plan, but don't try to steal it! I'm going to next year's GCA, dressed in a Big Daddy suit, with emphasis on the BIG. I plan the final suit to be about 2.5m tall, and it's going to be too wide to fit into an MRT train.

The suit will be made out of cardboard and expanding foam. The drill arm will be able to swivel. The portholes will have both green and red LED lights which can be turned on and changed at will.

There will be two speakers at the sides of the main body, which will play the bellow of the Big Daddy. The bottom of the boots will be about 30cm tall, to give an extra height boost.

Here's a few really good images I found in the Bioshock art book, which can serve as perfect blueprints for my very ambitious project.

Ah actually, forget what I said earlier. If you want to steal the idea, go ahead, but then you'll owe me a Big Daddy brawl next year at GCA, which would be awesome. Also, I need someone to cosplay as a Little Sister, so if any one's interested, let me know.

Anyways, I managed to snag a couple of green LED lights from the warehouse. I only need ten, but I have thirteen, so I have some back up. I also managed to get myself a soldering gun, some solder wire and tons of wires. A good start I would say.

So after I was done at the office, I headed back home, and I just slacked a whole lot until I decided that I was waaay too bored, so I decided to pay my cousins a visit. I wanted to pass them the WWE poster and stickers I got for them during GCA anyways.

I headed down to my grandmother's house and played a little with my cousins, then my auntie decided to bring both of them to my house, so I followed them back and we played several missions of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2.

If you're a gamer, or if you hang out with me often, chances are you know that the reviews for MUA2 are mixed. Some find it a great game, while others find it a bug and glitch fest. Well, I think that if you can ignore the bugs, then it's a great game.

The bugs aren't exactly game breaking. Enemies freezing, getting stuck by invisible barriers, clipping, etc. Minor stuff that's present in close to every game released thus far. Except they happen much more often in MUA2.

MUA2 is still the original game at its core, with prettier graphics and a larger sense of scale. You still have two attack buttons. You still have four special moves per character. But the new Fusion powers are awesome.

Now any two characters can combine their moves to result in one damaging and visually spectacular attack. For example, Human Torch and Storm can create a hurricane of fire, and the Thing can spin Wolverine around and launch him at enemies.

I'm kinda disappointed though with fact that Fusion moves can only be pulled of my two characters. Imaging how epic it would have been if all four members of the team could combine attacks. And why just limit to four. There should be at least 8 player support while playing online.

But overall, MUA2 is still a great, fun little button masher that will be really fun to play with a group of friends. If there's anything about it that really pisses me off, it's that dumbass in game camera, which is a total bitch.

2009-09-20T23:51:00.000-07:00

Ok so today's post is going to be mostly photos of Games Convention Asia 2009, which I have a lot of, thanks to Fiona. Before heading down to Suntec, we went running at Bedok reservoir. Completed 4.8km in 36 mins, which is quite an achievement for people who have not exercised for quite a while.

After the run, I got to try out the showering facilities at Temasek Poly's swimming complex. To be honest, I expected the showers to be in crappy condition, but they turned out to be really good. The cubicles were super clean and there was warm water.

We took a bus to Suntec, and had Pepper Lunch for lunch once we got there. GCA wasn't as crowded today, probably because it's a Sunday, and also because most people just preferred to attend the food fair next door instead.

I followed Fiona around as she snapped photos of majority of the cosplayers, and she helped my take photos of certain things I wanted to have photos of, like the displays for the various games. After spending close to an hour deciding whether or not I should get Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, I eventually did.

We then went to some coffee place to slack. I forgot the name of the place but it's in City Link Mall, near HMV. Fiona had her drink, while I marvelled at my new game. We then went to Esplanade were we slacked for about an hour and a half, then we left.

So yes, that's as summarized as I can make it. Now for the photos :D

2009-09-19T23:45:00.000-07:00

Oh today was a busy day. I went to East Coast Park twice, once for a walk, and another time for seafood, and I also attended the third day of Games Convention Asia.

My sister had drama practice today, so she had to go to school early. Since my dad was sending her, and since her school is directly opposite East Coast Park, the rest of us tagged along. After dropping my sister off at school, we went for a walk along the beach, which was cut short by the rain.

We headed to McDonalds for breakfast, then we headed home.

After about an hour, my sister finished, so back we went to East Coast Park. My dad decided that we should all have seafood, since my sister did well for her common test, and my results for the sem test ain't too shabby either.

We ate at Long Beach and ordered the usual dishes. I'm kinda surprised by my appetite nowadays. It's not like it's increasing or anything. More like it's getting smaller. In the past, I could clear all the leftover foods without any problem, and I would usual eat three bowls of rice at least. Now, it takes just one bowl of rice, and small portions of each dish, and I'm done.

The lunch was satisfying though. It's been a while since I've had good seafood. I was going to Suntec to meet Say Yin and Yan Ming for GCA, so my dad gave me a lift. I was there earliest, so I spent some time walking around the painting galleries.

The various paintings all depicted famous scenes from big name video games, like God of War, Little Big Planet, Super Mario Galaxy, Halo and Gears of War. I never was a art person, but I can totally appreciate this kind of art. People should do more of them.

After Say Yin arrived, we signed in and went to walk around the hall for a while. There were many cosplayers today. There were these two guys, one dressed up as Sage Mode Naruto, and the other as Sasuke in his white and purple robes.

In fact, there were many characters from the Naruto gang there. I'm referring to the main characters of course. There were many other characters as well, but I didn't recognise many of them. Yiling actually got an invite to cosplay as one of the Naruto characters, but she was busy because promos are around the corner.

Soon Yan Ming arrived and we walked around some more, then I got an sms from Marcus, telling me that he was sick of studying, and asking if he could meet up with us. I played a bit of Brutal Legend, and we watched others play games like Street Fighter IV and The Beatles: Rock Band while waiting for Marcus to arrive.

Once he got there, we headed over to the arcade. In the past, I used to frequent the arcade to play those basketball and music games, and occasionally the shooters. Nowadays, it's all about the fighting games.

It was these kind of games that Japanese arcades were founded on, and they continue to be the kind of games that most people prefer to play up til today. Fifty cents gives you the chance to complete the entire game with a single character, considering that you don't lose a single round.

I played Marvel vs Capcom 2, Tekken 6, and House of the Dead 4. We spent close to two hours in the arcade, and then, after realising the amount of cash we had just spent, we decided to head for dinner.

Marcus had the urge to eat at Mos Burger, and I did not mind since I love their fried mussels. We headed over to Marina Square, thinking that there was a Mos Burger there, but it turned out that there wasn't, so we headed over to Carl's Jr instead.

I was super reluctant to spend my cash, because I am broke and all, but I ended up buying food at Carl's Jr, which isn't the cheapest fast food chain around. So now, I am broker than broke. Still, I'm planning to buy Marvel Ultimate Alliance within the next week ^^

After dinner, we left for home, and I actually managed to get home before 11pm, which was great.

Today was a great day. The weather was cooling, so I had an excuse to wear my hoodie jacket. I got to go to GCA 2009 with a bunch of good friends. I managed to keep my spending to less than $20. I got to play fighting games at an arcade using a fight pad, which is super old skool but awesome at the same time :D

I'll probably be going back to the final day of GCA tomorrow, then I'll make the decision whether or not to pre-order and purchase several games.

2009-09-18T23:57:00.000-07:00

As much as I wanted to attend Day 2 of Games Convention Asia, I could not, because I had to visit my cousin. Ah well, there's always tomorrow and Sunday. Since there isn't much to say for today, I was planning on posting my 'Top 10 Most Anticipated Games' list, but damn it, I can't find it.

So now I have totally no idea what to post for today. Oh wait, actually I do. A picture paints a thousand words, so a video probably paints a million.

The latest Angry Video Game Nerd episode. It's Godzilla this time. One of the best episodes ever in my opinion. Go ahead, press play. You know you want to :D

2009-09-17T23:13:00.000-07:00

Ever had one of those days where you wake up not expecting much to happen, but a whole lot of stuff actually happens in the end? Well, I just had one of those days.

I got a woke up at 9am today, which is super early for me, and by 10am I was out of my house and on the way to Marina Square. Today marked the release of the Japanese movie 'Crows0 II', which is based of the manga series of the same name.

I was going to watch it with Syafiqah, who couldn't wait to watch it because 1) it was a Japanese movie, and 2) it was a Japanese movie with a lot of Japanese men in it. I was goingearly to ensure that we got tickets. Of course, at that time of the day I was still expecting several other people to turn up for the movie.

Once I reached Marina Square, it turned out that not everyone who we asked had been able to confirm whether or not they were interested in watching the movie. So I ended up having to wait a while.

I went to Burger King and got breakfast. I actually like having breakfast at a fast food restaurant, but the place has to be mostly empty. It has been really long since I just took my time with eating breakfast. After that I went on msn using my laptop. I talked to several people online.

After sitting there for close to two hours, I decided to leave Burger King since the lunch time crowd was starting to appear. I called Syafiqah and we decided to get two tickets, since we weren't getting replies from the others.

So I got the tickets. The seats were second from the back, and in the middle. Good seats. But I didn't like the fact that they cost $8.50. Are poly students applicable for student prices, or do we have to add movie tickets to the ever growing list of things we have to pay adult prices for?

Nonetheless, I was happy that I managed to secure us our tickets. Now I just had to find something else to do for the remaining two hours before Syafiqah arrived.

Since I had already been walking around Marina Square for the past hour and a half, and also since I have been there way too many times, I decided to walk to some place else.

So, there was Suntec, Raffles City, Central, Peninsular, Funan and the Esplanade. I'm a gamer above everything else, so which do you think I picked?

Once I got inside Funan, I began walking from store to store, checking if they sold games, and if they did, at what prices. Right now, the only game out that I want is Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. After comparing the prices today, the most expensive it's being sold for is $89, while the cheapest is $75.

I'll probably be getting the game next Tuesday, when Halo 3: ODST is out. I need to head down to Junction 8 to collect my copy of OSDT, and I also need to collect my phone. Since Junction 8 has possibly the best game store in the entire island, in terms of prices, I'll be getting Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 there.

Funan is a cool place and all, but there are only so many shops to check out before you realise you've actually swept through the entire mall. And anyways, I was beginning to feel a stomach ache.

I don't like Funan or Marina Square toilets, and I was thinking that the toilets in Peninsular would be even more screwed up. Then I remembered that nice, big, clean toilet at Suntec Convention Hall.

So I started making my way there. At first everything seemed normal. It was lunch time, so the sight of hordes of office people walking around wasn't anything unusual. But I did notice other people, people in civilian clothing, taking the escalators up. So I followed them.

The toilet I was headed to was located on the six floor, so I would have had to take the escalator anyways.

Once I got to the second floor, this huge yellow sign board caught my attention. 'Game Convention Asia 2009 17th-20th September' it announced. I checked the date on my phone, and it really was the 17th.

I was super excited at that point. I mean, I knew GCA was this month, but what I didn't know was that it started today. How lucky is that? Just because of the urge to use the toilet, and just because I was took picky to use any toilet except that one, I stumbled upon the freakin GCA.

For those of you who don't know. GCA is an event that showcases tons of games due for release in the upcoming months, and attendees get to be among the first in Singapore to get their hands on these games. There's also tons of freebies to collect, booth babes to check out, and attractive offers to enjoy.

However, while GCA does have a public segment, it is mostly a behind the scenes event which main purpose is to house the annual D.I.C.E conference, which is a conference for game developers to meet and discuss the future of the game industry.

Of course, those lucky bastards who make up the local game media get closed door previews of games, and these previews may or may not eventually be released to the public.

This is probably the closest we will ever get to experiencing the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) locally, so I couldn't let the chance slip. With all thought of using the toilet suddenly evaporating, I headed to the entrance.

All members of the public had to sign in with their name, IC and email, possibly for the lucky draw, and also so that if you break the embargo of the games, and post footage online, they will be able to pin point just who to send that lawsuit flying at.

Once you sign in, you get this cool sticker that has to be on you at all times while within the exhibition hall. Also, if you're wondering, entry is free of charge. Yes, you're interested in going now, aren't you?

Here's the best way to describe how I felt when I first stepped inside the hall. Think of your favourite things. Be it clothes, jewellery, sports equipment, girls, just as long as you pinpoint the one you like the most.

Now, imagine a massive exhibition hall, filled with various booths housing nothing but that favourite thing of yours. And if that isn't exciting enough, most of the things being showcased there aren't on sale yet. Also, the sole purpose of that exhibition is for you to try all those things out.

So yes, that's how it felt. I was fighting back the urge to go crazy and run from test console to test console, trying everything I could get my hands onto. But I willed myself to practice self restraint.

Fortunately for me, it was about 1pm on a Thursday when I was there, meaning that there weren't much school kids, as well as working adults. So majority of the test consoles were free of queues. In fact many of them didn't even have anyone playing the games they contained.

The first game I got to test out was Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2. Like I mentioned earlier, the game already has been out for several days, but I still haven't bought it yet so I decided to try it out.

The portion which I played took place in some underground lab area. I later found out that the lab belonged to the Tinkerer. The team I used was already pre-set, and it consisted of Storm, Gambit, the Human Torch, and the Invisible Woman.

To be honest, I don't really have that much to say about the game. It's pretty much the same as the first game. Graphics are definitely prettier, and yes, the Fusion moves are both fun to use and impressive to see, but everything else is almost identical.

Next game I played was Halo 3: ODST. As you can expect, there were a little more people waiting around the ODST test consoles, despite the fact that there were six of them to test the game on.

So when it was finally my turn, the first thing I did was marvel at the graphics. The Halo series never put that big a emphasis on graphics, but damn, ODST is one pretty looking game.

The night sky, the looming skyscrapers, the flashing lighting, the gentle drizzle; everything on screen compliment each other, and the overall effect is a sight to behold.

Then I clicked on the visor mode. Wow. Every tiny detail on screen gets highlighted by a yellow outline with a faint glow. Things that you probably would never have noticed before instantly become obvious, and the whole city suddenly seemed alive.

Alright so Bungie did a remarkable job with the graphics. Next thing I wanted to check out was game play. But I didn't know what to do. I was in a huge city, with no radar like in prior Halo games, and to make matters worse, there seemed to be a possible route every where I turned.

For the first time in a Halo game, I was lost.

So I started walking towards the nearest path when a hint popped up on screen. Turns out there's a map in the game after all, and it's displayed on your heads up display. There were three possible areas to head to, so I went to the one nearest to me.

Along the way, I ran into a squad of Covenant. Several Grunts and a Brute. Of course, I saw them long before they saw me. Visor mode is definitely one of the best new additions.

Having a chance to test the new weapons, and threw a grenade into the fray, and fired at the enemy with my silenced SMG. The difference is instantly noticeable. The gun sounds softer, and the vibrations on the controller were much more subtle.

I tried rushing head on at the Brute, which was a mistake. ODST aren't Spartans, so they do not have energy shields. After being hit once by its Brute Shot, I was close to death. I backed away and waited for my health to regenerate, and then I switched to my other weapon, the pistol.

I am in love. Remember that beast in the first Halo game? The pistol that killed anyone with two shots to the head? It's back. Well, maybe it isn't that overpowered, but it feels powerful, and three slugs to the head were enough to put the Brute down.

Along the way I ran into another Covenant patrol, which I decided to avoid. When I reached my checkpoint, my visor highlighted an object lying on the floor. I went towards it and interacted with it.

After a brief loading screen, and a short cutscene, I no longer playing as the same character. Also, it was a different time of day, as the sky was now orange instead of maroon. Multiple arrows appeared on my HUD, pointing my to my objectives.

I was just thrown into the flashback, and I didn't really know what was happening. All I knew was that there were tons of enemies at the other end of the bridge, my people were on this side, and I had to blow the bridge up.

So I followed the arrows towards several of the bridge's support beams. There were already explosives placed on them, so I followed the onscreen prompt to arm the explosives. And then I followed the final arrow to a watch tower, triggered the explosives, and watch the spectacular explosion that followed.

While ODST was not my favourite game at GCA, I am certainly liking what Bungie did to it. The Halo formula was getting stale, so they changed it, but still managed to ensure that it still was a Halo game. Looking forward to that next week.

The next game I played was Borderlands. Oh man I am so tempted now to just say that it's Fallout 3 with cartoony graphics, but I am not going to.

Borderlands bears a strong resemblance to last year's Fallout 3, and it has cell shaded graphics, similar to those of anime based games, but it does certain things to ensure that it doesn't live in Fallout 3's shadow.

For starters, the game looks really good. I mean, most games these days look really good, but Borderlands is one of the few that manages to use more than the standard brown, grey and black in their colour palette. The whole game has this easy going, brighter vibe surrounding it.

I like the detail of the game, like how each of the various non playable characters look unique and carry on with their own individual set of activities. For example, I was just walking past this table where three men were playing a game of poker.

This character, whom I had just escorted in to the town, settles down on the remaining seat to play. Before long an argument breaks out, and finally the character whom I escorted pulls out a gun and blows the head of the man directly opposite him.

At this point of time, I'm given the choice either to help him, or to help take him down. If I help him, I have a whole town to fight off, but I will eventually get that character as an ally and I will be able to get free guns from him. However, I will never gain peaceful access to the town ever again. Of course, if he dies, I don't benefit from him at all, but I can stay at the town.

I also like the vehicle combat portions of the game. Details like motion blur and smoke are added as your vehicle accelerates, making it seem that you're travelling at extremely high speeds. The guns mounted on your vehicle have a mild auto lock on ability, to make it easier.

Next I went to play Brutal Legend. It might have been alright to say that I was exaggerating back then when I said that Brutal Legend was going to be the best game ever, since I had not played it and all, but now having played it, I can only confirm that statement once more.

In six words: Most awesome thing I've ever played.

I am an absolute metal head. I worship metal music. Brutal Legend was made by an entire team of metal heads. Brutal Legend worships metal music. I have been waiting my entire gaming life (about 6 years) for a game like this to come by.

I took over when the guy playing left, and it was some where halfway through the demo. Several minutes after I started playing it, I knew that it was something different. It's funny, it looks great, the controls are perfect, the voice acting and sound track are top notch, and most importantly, the game play is awesome.

Just listen to how freakin awesome the game is. I killed demons with a huge battle axe. Just by strumming the strings on my guitar, I attacked my enemies with lightning from the above and fire from below. I summoned a badass looking car by playing a sick guitar solo.

Then came that boss fight. Some huge snake thing came out of the ground, and I had to drive around in the car, which is called the Druid Plow by the way, and I had to use the nitro boost to avoid being crushed by the beast. While it's tongue was stuck to the ground, I had to boost the Druid Plow into it to rip it out of the snake's mouth.

After being satisfied with a taste of the game, I reluctantly let go of the controller in order to give others a chance to feel its awesomeness. Now that my eyes weren't glued to the screen, I noticed a small crowd gathering at one of the booths.

So I made my way there, and it turned out that the closed door previews were beginning. The games being previewed there were in the booths because they were considered the more 'mature' games, so it wouldn't be good if the kids saw them.

By right, you had to be 18 years of age to enter, but no one stopped me, so I just went with the flow of the crowd and got seated. There was some short presentation by some Asian guy with an American accent, telling us about the games we were about the preview.

Then we were allowed to preview the games. I'm really lucky that there weren't many people at GCA today, or else it would have taken a really long time to get a chance to play the games in the preview booth.

The first game I got to play was Assassin's Creed II, since there were four test consoles for it. The first thing that hit me was the colour. The portion of the game which I played took place in Venice, during the night. There was colour everywhere.

Then I noticed the crowd. How they seemed to be in significantly greater numbers as compared to in the first game, and how they behaved more realistically. They now talked to each other, apologized if they bumped into each other, and they responded appropriately when I interacted with them.

As you might have already guessed, the next thing I did was try to scale the nearest wall. The controls are basically the same as the first game, but the animations are way better. Ezio moves with a fluidity that his ancestor Altiar lacked.

Once I got onto the roof of the building, I started to make my way the the objective, which was this tall watch tower. I lept from rooftop to rooftop, until I stumbled upon a guard. The weapon selection system now consists of a ring of different equipment.

The weapon that immediately caught my attention? The hidden gun. It is freakin awesome to use. It takes about two seconds for Ezio to focus the aim of the gun, and then he fires it. There was a loud bang which echoed in the night, startled pigeons flew off, and the guard fell off the roof.

Ignoring the screams from below, I hurried to the watch tower and scaled it. There was a guard a the top, but I pulled him over the ledge and threw him down. I climbed higher up the structure, and I came upon Leonardo Da Vinci's flying machine.

At this point of time, I decided to hand the controller over to some other guy, because I had already seen that part tens of times in the previews. I just wanted to check out the controls and some weapons, and having done that, I was more than happy to go try something else.

I went to over to the projector screen, where a demo of Mass Effect 2 was being played. Since I didn't get a chance to play the game, I can't say anything about the controls, but the graphics, animation and sound seem to be better than the first game.

The last game I played at GCA was Dante's Inferno. It's a fun, violent little game that can benefit us all with its chartartic properties. Ok, so it's a whole lot like God of War, and the hundred other games that ripped off God of War, but it has its own unique flavour that allows it to stand out.

First of all, let me get this straight. Dante's Inferno isn't just another God of War clone. It borrows from God of War. Most action games do. Anyways, it's not like God of War invented action games with Quick Time Events, Shenmue did.

Basically, you control Dante, who is some historical figure. To save the woman he loves, he willingly steps into Hell, and fights through it's various circles, right to its core. Now, that is undeniably badass, but it's not all.

As well all know, Hell isn't a nice place to be in. Demons and tormented souls everywhere. And all of them are pretty much hostile to a living entity amongst them. So Dante has to fight them off as he goes deeper and deeper.

He has several weapons, but I only used two of them, and to be honest, those two are all you'll ever need. The first weapon is a huge scythe, which doubles as both a melee and range weapon. The staff portion of the scythe is able to extend and become flexible, turning the scythe into a whip with a serious business end.

The second weapon is this holy artifact that is able to fire out white, glowing crosses. These crosses not only damage enemies, they also stun bigger foes and push back weaker ones. The animation for this weapon is pretty badass too.

The game looks good, with moody colours and distrubing backdrops. Enemies look alright, but I only saw three different enemies in the demo, and I would appreciate more variety. The sound is great, as far as I'm concerned. See, you do not have to play metal music for a satanic vibe, classical music can do that too.

As for the gameplay, it's pretty damn awesome. I'm an Xbox person, so I've not been playing much God of War, but Dante's Inferno does play a little differently from the other game. That isn't necessarily a bad thing though.

While God of War puts heavy emphasis on puzzle solving, and there are 'dead' moments in the game, where you walk around to enjoy the scenery without being attacked, Dante's Inferno just throws at you wave after wave of unholy filth.

The action never stops and it can get overwhelming at times, which is great, since it's supposed to be the whole 'one man against Hell' thing anyway. The game is still about half a year from launch, so I'm hoping that there'll be a little changes here and there, but for the most part, it's great.

Now that I finally got my fill of gaming at GCA, I left the hall feeling super satisfied with myself. I walked over to Marina Square to meet Syafiqah, and we slacked at the food court for a while, before proceeding to the cinema.

Before we proceed into the cinema hall, I decided to go to the toilet, where I got an epic shock. I opened the door and looked into the mirror, and this freaky looking girl looked back at me. I was damn shocked man. It turned out to be an ad for some upcoming movie, and it was pasted onto the mirror.

The only other Japanese show I've watched in theatres was Detroit Metal City, and that was in Plaza Singapura, so I was a little surprised to see that the hall was actually super small. If I'm not wrong, only 80 people can fit in it.

2.5hrs later, I came out of the hall feeling happy for the most part. The movie was great. Fun to watch, cool characters, epic fight scenes, and it was filmed in a anime style, which was great.

I was a little disappointed though that the Japanese men dominated the movie, and there weren't much girls in it. The two scenes with a chance for something sexual to happen on screen also went against my hopes. Still, I enjoyed it, and I wouldn't mind watching it again.

We walked down to the Esplanade and slacked there for about an hour, then we left. Once I got home I immediately tried to upload the photos from today, but my freakin memory card is screwed so I don't think I'll ever get the photos back. Sorry Syafiqah!

Ahh well, today was a day well spent. I watched a good movie, spent time with a good friend and played tons of good games. So overall, good day. Damn it now that GCA is on I'm having an urge to attend it everyday until it's over. We'll see how it goes.

2009-09-16T23:29:00.000-07:00

Whoa man, I finally ended a day of this current holiday with a sense of achievement!! Not only did I manage to NOT spend a single cent, I actually managed to earn $10!! And that's just the beginning. Today is like, my Day of Luck.

The day started normal enough. I went out with my mother for a while, then I just slacked about when I got back home. I don't know if I'm the only one, but I really feel that I'm wasting my entire holidays away.

I mean, it's nice not having to go to school, but then my idea of having a fun, fruitful holiday doesn't exactly just involve plain slacking and not doing anything useful at all.

And then I decided. Enough of slacking. Enough of that empty feeling I'm getting at the end of each passing day!!

So I took out an empty photo album from a cabinet in my house, and I started sorting old photos into it, according to the themes of the photos. It took my close to two hours, but it was worth it to see the final product. Empty album to an album filled with 200 hundred photos.

For those of you wondering, I am not randomly sorting photos; my dad actually offered to pay me for sorting the photos. You see, there are probably close to 3000 photos not housed in albums. All these are lying around in some cabinet in my house.

So for each album I fill, my dad is going to pay me $10. Since I didn't get accepted for my dad's workplace job, I don't mind getting some extra cash while helping around the house.

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not doing it completely for the money. It's like a 50-50 thing. Half for the money, half since it's something worth doing.

While I was sorting the photos, I came across many of my childhood photos, of places I had been to on holiday, and also random photos which portrayed my childhood mischief. My childhood photos weren't the only ones.

I actually managed to find my parents photos of the times when they were dating, when they got married, on their honeymoon, and even when my mom was expecting me.

Believe it or not, my parents were actually young once upon a time. My dad used to have shoulder length hair, and my mom used to wear what passed off as FBT shorts at that period of time. It's scary to imagine them with those now though.

After I was done with the albums, I decided to play some Xbox. I am super close to completing Batman: Arkham Asylum at 100%, meaning I've almost found every single secret, and completed most of the bonus challenges in the game.

Due to my luck, and also because of some stuffs I read on the Internet, I was able to find about another 80 secrets, boosting my achievement score by 60 points. Now all that's left to do is to find the remaining 36 secrets, and complete the bonus challenges.

Then I got a phone call from Yiling in the evening. She apologized to me. For hanging up on me. Because I was the one who kept pestering her on the phone. Ahh well ok fine, I'm sorry too. What's that like the fourth time I'm saying it. lol.

So yeah, as you can see the day was a good and lucky one for me. Hopefully tomorrow will be even better!!

P.S. Yes I know this is a damn random, senseless and lame post. But I'm feeling lazy today so live with it.

2009-09-15T23:34:00.000-07:00

So I was thinking of posting everyday during the holidays, like I used to do, but as you may have noticed, that isn’t really happening. Instead of trying to get my posts up to date, I’m just going to mention some stuff which happened over the past few weeks, and then I’m going to post daily starting from this post.

The first major outing I had during this holiday was to Henderson Waves, with the sole purpose of having a surprise birthday celebration for Damien, Fiona and Julia. As you might have guessed, in order for the plan to be a success, they had to remain oblivious about it.

Easier said than done.

I met Fiona at Vivocity for lunch, and by secretly communicating with Syafiqah and Sarah, who were getting the food stuffs, I managed to prevent any accidental meetings.

Fiona and I met up with Julia later on, at Harbour Front MRT station, but since Syafiqah and Sarah had not boarded the bus to Henderson Waves, I quickly came up with several diversions, which included going to the toilet, getting food from Cheers and McDonalds, and walking out of the wrong exit from the MRT station.

Soon I got the green light to head to the bus stop, definitely a welcomed relief. It has been a while since I last used such amounts of brain power to plan, and in such a short period of time no less.

Once we got there, we just slacked and talked, and once the time was right, we ate too. Julia and Fiona opened their presents. Hope they like them. Actually, they better like them because the presents are from me.

As night began to fall, we headed back to Vivocity. I found it hilarious that they were disturbed when I mentioned the word ‘ghost’ or ‘Pontianak’. I was not supposed to say it, since it was the ghost month and all.

Well, I’m half Indian, and there’s no ghost month going on now for that half of me. And if any ghost wants to attack my other half, I have a name that got ripped off by some god, so I think I’m pretty well covered.

We took a bus back, and we went to eat at Marche. Damien joined us for dinner. Marche is nice when it’s quiet, but it was really noisy, crowded and warm that night. On the bright side, I managed to buy the most amounts of foods, and I didn’t spend the most!!

After that Fiona and Sarah left, and the rest of us headed over to Burger King where Damien ate an epic triple whopper. I was next to leave, because my dad wasn’t too happy about me staying out too late.

*All photos by Fiona and Syafiqah*

The next time I went out was to meet Say Yin at AMK Hub. I was checking for the prices of games, so after checking the game stores there, we walked down to Junction 8.

I bought 1600 Microsoft Points at a shop there, so that I could purchase Marvel vs Capcom 2, which costs 1200 points, from the Xbox Live Arcade.

We had earlier asked Yeow Boon if he would like to meet for dinner, so while waiting for a reply, we paid the arcade a visit. We watched a guy play Blazblue. A guy with some serious skills. But that was not the most entertaining thing I saw there.

Those of you who frequent arcades, I’m sure that you must have noticed these bright blue machines, usually surrounded by hordes of kids. If that doesn’t ring a bell, how about this: ANIMAL KAISER.

The game is hilarious. I’m sure everyone remembers MushiKing, that game where you scan beetle cards and watch beetles fight each other. Well, at least that’s sensible. Beetles fighting each other, in their proper habitats, with believable attacks. But that’s what also made it boring to watch.

Honestly, Animal Kaiser is crazy shit. Basically, kids pay $1.50 for 1 card and 1 match on the machine. Each of these cards features an animal or an attack, and they can be scanned using the machine.Z

So if you have a lion card, scan the card, and the lion will appear on screen. Once both players have scanned their animals in, they proceed to bash buttons, and the game works on a jackpot system. The digits spin, and they stop upon the press of the button.

The person with the larger number gets to attack. And it’s the attacks that are so freakin funny. Not only are they so overly exaggerated, the makers of the game actually went the extra mile to make the animals look cool during the attack.

Just to give you an idea on how senseless the game is, a shark can fight an eagle on dry land, and the eagle also has no problem fighting the shark underwater. Now, that’s what I call a WIN game.

I could explain some more, but all you got to do is watch this video:

After those, things were quiet. A little too quiet. I was bored out of my mind. Yes, I have an Xbox 360, a computer, Internet connection, and an abundance of video games to keep me occupied, but I’m just not that kind of person. I am in constant need of new experiences.

Several Saturdays ago, I met Yeow Boon at Plaza Singapura because there was supposed to be an NCC gathering. Heavy emphasis on the words ‘was’ and ‘supposed’. It turned out that the gathering was postponed.

We didn’t want to waste the trip to Plaza Sing, so we called Say Yin and Marcus to join us for dinner. In the meantime, we paid the arcade a visit, and spent about an hour in some LAN shop.

Once Say Yin arrived, we waited for Marcus, who was coming from the SAF Open House. He brought along three friends, two of which I know personally. We ate at Ajisen Ramen. The pork thing was damn nice.

We saw the most epically named promotion of all time, the KAMINABE promotion. Say that out loud.

After that two of Marcus’ friends left, and we were left with Say Yin, Marcus, Yeow Boon, me, and Nicholas Tan K.S, who was our Sec 1 classmate. We went to Paradiz for some pool, then everyone headed home.

The next day, Say Yin, Marcus and Yeow Boon came over to my house soon after, and we played the usual Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Blazblue and a little bit of Halo 3. This time, we had Marvel vs Capcom 2 as well.

Then came the day that our semester test results were going to be revealed. I woke up early to check if they were up on the student portal, but there was nothing, so I went to sleep.

I woke up again at 2.30pm, and I realised that I could no longer access the portal, probably because of the number of students accessing it at the same time.

So there I sat, hoping for the best of results, and then my phone rang. I answered it, and it turned out to be one of my lecturers. He called to inform me that I was part of the top 10% in my course, and I had been offered a place in the Diploma with Merit program.

Basically, the program is offered to the top 10% of all courses in TP, based on the semester test results. In TP, every student has to take three different modules from three different courses throughout their poly life. This is called Cross Disciplinary Subject, or CDS for short.

For those in the Diploma with Merit program, you have to take four CDS instead of the usual three. But instead of choosing the three separately, you choose CDS bundles, which consist of 4 closely related CDS. Upon graduation, you get this extra certificate.

I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t happy. But I was honestly disappointed as well, especially for my Media and Society. I expected to do much better. But oh well, I should be happy.

For the first semester of poly, here are my results:

Click to enlarge

The next time I saw everyone, if I’m not wrong, was during our outing to Comex, or the Suntec PC Show if you’d like. If you don’t already know, I love these kind of events. I bought two games from the last fair at very reasonable prices.

Before I could head down to Suntec, I had to go to the army market at Beach Road first, to help by brother sew on his name tag and school name to his NCC uniform. Just being at the place reminded me of my NCC days, especially the times when we had lunch there during the Kayaking courses.

Say Yin met me there, and we had lunch at the place. The food there is generally good, and there is a large variety. Anything from pizza to TULANG, they have it there.

After lunch, and after collecting the uniform, we decided to walk down to Suntec. I don’t know why, but I’ve found this new liking towards walking around Singapore, rather than using public transport.

We actually reached Suntec early, something which does not happen often. We headed over to the arcade, where we played a bit of Marvel vs Capcom, and attempted the arcade mode for Blazblue. Different feeling using a joystick instead of a controller.

Soon Sarah arrived, followed by Marcus. We just slacked at the arcade for about half an hour, then Yeow Boon called to meet him at the convention hall. He was there with mom, so he couldn’t meet us at the arcade.

Syafiqah joined us outside on of the exhibition halls. I did not waste much time walking around this time, as I did during the last PC Show. I immediately went to see the location of the game stores on a map, and we headed for them.

I had quite a hard time deciding whether or not I should make any purchases. I was greeted by both heartbreak and temptation.

Heartbreak because games which I own were being sold at ridiculously cheap prices. For example, I have Lost Planet ($105), Devil May Cry 4 ($95) and Dead Rising ($94). Those are the amounts I paid for them. Altogether, those games cost me close to $300.

At the PC Show, the three games were being sold as a bundle. For about $75. That’s freakin ¼ of the price they cost me. Man, even typing it out makes me feel like biting my table.

Temptation because great games were being sold at great prices. The recently released King of Fighters had an attractive $50 price tag. Games like F.E.A.R 2 and Prince of Persia were sold at $39. There were a whole collection of games being sold at $15-$25.

In the end, I made my decision to purchase Guitar Hero 5 and pre-order Halo 3: ODST. GH5 cost me $73, while Halo 3: ODST cost $76. I decided to hold off from buying the other games, because there is still Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 this month, not to mention the upcoming holiday season games.

Initially, I was against pre-ordering Halo 3: ODST, since it could be bought on launch day at the same price, or even pre-ordered at any other store if I felt like it. But pre-ordering it at the PC Fair had one advantage.

You get Sergeant Johnson as a playable character for the new Firefight mode, along with the standard Halo 3: ODST console skin and the game. Rather than pre-ordering it else where for the same price and not getting Johnson, I decided to make my purchase there.

As for the console skin, I probably won’t be sticking it onto my 360, although it would look so cool. As we all know, the Xbox 360 isn’t exactly reliable when it comes to prevention against hardware failure.

I’m expecting my 360 to die from RROD some time next year, and then I’m going to have to change it. If the console skin is stuck onto it, then bye bye console skin. Well, the console skin is worth $40, so if anyone is interested, let me know.

So I bought two games, and now I broke for the remainder of the month, especially since I am not allowed to spend the backup cash in my account. I’m still planning to eat a little into that backup to get Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 :D

On our way out the hall, I lay my eyes upon a girl of utter hotness. She was giving out flyers to the crowd. In this tight, form fitting, revealing silver outfit. I know I’m sounding like a pervert now, but yes, that’s what I am, so live with it.

Great body and pretty face. OK MOVING ON.

After we were done with Comex, we went to Marina Square, partially to escape the crowd, and partially because we didn’t know what to do in Suntec. Yeow Boon couldn’t follow us because he had to help his mom carry stuff.

We decided to play pool at Marina Square. Played for a good two hours, then we went back to Suntec to look for some place to eat. The queues at most places were scary, so we ended up going to New York New York for dinner.

The food was alright, but a little too expensive. Then again, we didn’t exactly have many other choices for dinner. All of us had half a chicken with cheese baked onto it for dinner, except Sarah, who did not want cheese because she is extra.

I met up with Say Yin, Marcus and Yeow Boon again yesterday, at Bugis. Yeow Boon suggested going to Iluma, because he wanted to try out the 4 story escalator.

That may sound impressive, the escalator being 4 stories and all, but in actual fact, it isn’t that big a deal. It’s about the same height as the longer escalators at Dhoby Ghaut MRT station and Suntec convention hall.

Anyways, it was the first time I went to Iluma. It’s really empty, quiet and spacious, which is what I like. I can’t stand being surrounded by people.

There is a Comics Connection there, which is awesome. There is a whole floor dedicated to foods. Mostly looks like Japanese food. Half of the fifth floor consists of this huge arcade, which is good because it has tons of fighting games, many of which you don’t see in other arcades.

The cinema takes up the half of the fifth floor. It’s a cinema, so it doesn’t have that large a variety of movies as Golden Village or Cathay.

The seventh floor is where the awesome happens. Honestly, it’s one of the coolest things I’ve seen in my life. And I’ve seen lots of things in my life. There’s this epic LAN shop.

It’s the biggest in Singapore. It’s huge, the lighting is dim, the air con is cold, the chairs are comfortable, the computers are powerful, and all the equipment are from none other than that little company called Razer.

It really looks like one of those game tournament halls, with rows and rows of computers, arranged 5 in a row, and two rows face each other. Perfect for playing team games which require 5 people in a team.

There’s also these three huge screens mounted on one of the walls. The screens play trailers and game play videos of recently released and upcoming games. Also, they have Guitar Hero available for play at the entrance.

To sum it all up, my kind of place.

We played two pub matches of DotA. We would have won the first match, if the enemy team did not leave. We owned the second match.

After DotA, we played Team Fortress 2. For those of you who don’t know, Team Fortress 2 was released in 2007, as part of The Orange Box. It’s an online shooter game where you choose one of nine different classes, and then go crazy.

In my honest opinion, Team Fortress 2 is waaaay above Counter Strike and Left 4 Dead in terms of fun. And we were just playing 2v2. Imagine if it was a full game.

There was one match where both me and my team mate were spies. The other team were scouts. So we used the camouflage to appear like the enemy scouts. So in the end, there were four identical scouts running around on the map.

Another time, I was a scout, and it was just me and a heavy left. I used by bat to hit him about 7 times, and it only took him two punches to put me down. And then there was the time when me and my team mate, both using scouts, batted down a heavy.

It may not sound like much when you read it, but honestly, Team Fortress 2 is an excellent game. I’m sorry I felt it was boring back then, but I’m finding it awesome now. If you’re still sticking to the overly stale Left 4 Dead, time for a change. It’ll be worth it.

As for today, I didn’t really do much. I’ve been playing lots of Guitar Hero 5. I decided to stop being a pu**y, so I’m playing the songs on Expert mode this time, instead of just sticking to Hard. I’m also solving all the riddles in Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Ok yes, so I guess that’s all the stuffs that have been happening since the start of the holidays up to now. I’ve come to realise that holidays in actual fact, are boring. No matter if you stay at home all the time, or constantly keep going out, it’s going to get boring.

But then again, once school starts, everyone is just going to be longing for the boring holidays all over again.

I’m just going to be looking forward to the remaining weeks of the holidays. Lots of plans to be carried out, but not that much time left! We’ll see how it goes.

2009-09-02T23:48:00.000-07:00

It's the holidays!

Yes, that's a delayed reaction, considering the fact that the holidays started last week. Still, I couldn't resist. Sorry.

So it's been a long time since I've posted. You know, busy with projects and assignments. The usual excuses.

The past six months have been fun and hectic. Adjusting to the new lifestyle, learning through an education system that felt alien at the start, making new friends, discovering new places, falling in and out of love, deciding not to be a lustful beast, looking at my guitar with a new interest, and most importantly, growing up.

Considering all the changes I have experienced over that short period of time, I'm feeling quite a sense of achievement. Now, just 5 more semesters to go, and two years of National Service after that. Awesome.

I went out quite a bit during our one week study break. Went to Henderson Waves, which is that sky bridge at Mt. Faber. Great view and it's really relaxing there. A little too relaxing to study though. Went to Bishan library on Friday to attempt to study, then went to AMK Hub for dinner.

As you can see, we were studying.

After study break was over, it was time for exam week. Monday was Marketing, which was alright I suppose. Went to Esplanade library to ~~study~~ slack after the paper. Went to the airport on Tuesday, since we didn't have any paper.

Out of all the places I went to for studying, I find the airport the best. What's more, the food is good too, and there are tons of opportunities for stunt acts.

Essential Graphics was on Wednesday. Easy paper, but I was pissed off that I made this stupid, careless mistake that cost me two marks. Then Thursday came. Day of Media and Society. According to everyone, it was a killer paper. Despite the fact that I might have thrown away 10 marks for that paper, I'm still confident of getting a B.

After using way too much brain power for that paper, I was more than ready to accept the fact that the semester tests were over, and the holidays had begun. Went to Junction 8 for lunch with Fiona and Say Yin. We learnt the hard way that if you're going to Pizza Hut, order only pizza.

Once lunch was done, we walked around the place, considering whether to watch Final Destination or not. Eventually we didn't.

On the bright side, I bought Batman: Arkham Asylum at the bargain price of $60!! Seriously, it's a bargain considering how good the game actually is. More on that later. Since there was nothing left to do in J8, we went to the library and slacked there.

Nice box art

Say Yin and Yeow Boon came over to my house on Friday. Say Yin came first, and we played lots of BlazBlue. As far as I'm concerned, BlazBlue is fighting Game of the Year 2009. If I had known of it earlier, I wouldn't have wasted $90 on Street Fighter IV.

Soon Yeow Boon came and we played Guitar Hero and Rock Band. It was fun, because we actually rotated roles this time round. So everyone got to be drummer, guitarist, bassist and singer at least once. We also played several songs on Hard difficulty as a band, and we managed to pass them. Expert mode next time alright.

We played music games for a solid three hours, and then we went to have dinner at the Indian food shop. After that we went back to my house. Since it was already around 9pm, I asked them if they would like to stay over for the night. Yeow Boon couldn't since his semester test wasn't over yet, but Say Yin could.

After Yeow Boon left, Say Yin and I watched several SNSD and Chick vs Dick videos, and then I watched him play Mirror's Edge and Batman: Arkham Asylum all the way til 3am. Then we ate a bit, and after that we just talked until 6.15am.

Later that day, in the afternoon to be precise, I woke up. I checked my phone and I saw a sms from Sebastian, asking to meet him at Plaza Singapura at 3.30pm. I saw that sms at 2.40pm. Still, we managed to reach Plaza Sing by 4pm. Of course, Sebastian was already there.

We walked around for a bit and I saw this notice board outside one of the game stores, announcing that pretty much every single game due for this holiday season was available for pre order. Very tempting, but I thought the better of it.

Sebastian went to get the books he was looking for, and I went to get for Fiona a birthday present [Shiva is such a nice guy]. We headed to Burger King for dinner, since everywhere else was so damn crowded. After eating we went to get the mussels from Mos Burger. Awesome man. First time I was eating them, but I'm addicted nonetheless.

Sorry for making you hungry. I'm hungry too.

Monday was Teachers' Day. While most people my age would return to their Secondary Schools, I decided to head down to my Primary School, because I'm closer to my Primary School teacher, and the Primary School is way nearer to my house than my Secondary School is.

There were many kids visiting, but I have a feeling that the amount of people from my batch who came back to visit can be counted with ten fingers. From my class, only five people returned, including me. But it was alright, since we managed to get a good, two hour long chat with our P5-P6 form teacher.

I left the Primary School for Bishan after that, because I had to collect my phone from the service shop. Took a train there, and luckily there wasn't much of a queue. I got my phone back. It's the same model, but a brand new unit. I was happy then, but once I got home I found out that while the phone works alright, it doesn't read my memory card. ****.

There was a 4K dinner that night, and we were supposed to meet at 6pm. I still had a bit of time, so I went to look for a birthday present for Julia [Shiva is such a nice guy x2]. I noticed several things in J8, but I didn't know what to get, so I went to AMK Hub to continue my search.

I finally bought the present, and before I left, I decided to pay the game store a visit. Got a pleasant surprise once I got inside. Bully: Scholarship Edition was finally out. A year and a half late, but better late than never. For those of you who don't know, Bully is considered one of the best games of the past console generation, and it was remade for the Wii and Xbox 360.

The game was supposed to be released in March 2008, but it was held back. While there's no official reason why, I'm guessing it has something to do with the "Over the Rainbow" achievement, which requires you to kiss 20 guys. Of course, the main character himself is male. Well, you know how Singapore is when it comes to homosexuality.

Met up with the class later on at Plaza Sing. I was late, because there was some problem with the train rail system, which caused massive delays. We ate at Pizza Hut [This time we ate PIZZA]. Since Pizza Hut was small, we divided into two groups, and sat at two different locations.

After my group was done, we went to Paradiz to play LAN. Played a match of DotA. 4 versus 3. I was on the 4 side. I attempted to use Lion on my own, and realised my mistake only too late. Without a team mate who could work with me and watch my back, I was food during the late game.

After that, we played Counter Strike. Not as fun as the first outing, when we played with 9 players on each side. This time it was more like 3 versus 3. I left half way through because I wanted to meet up with Yiling for a while, just to talk.

I went running with Yiling on Tuesday morning, and we had breakfast at McDonalds. I went back home, and spent the remaining of the morning and the rest of the afternoon completing Batman: Arkham Asylum, and playing through one quarter of Bully.

I'll probably be doing a review for Batman: AA soon, once I'm done with the Top 10 Most Anticipated Games 2009 post. As for Bully, it’s alright. You really have to be one of those gamers who think that game play is most important to enjoy it, because it falls short in terms of graphics and scale.

Also, it is kinda glitchy, especially with the Achievements. I was particularly frustrated with one 20 point Achievement which didn't unlock. It required me to attend 6 classes in game.

I have the achievement for attending 3 classes, and the achievement for attending 9 classes, but no achievement for attending 6. I know, doesn't make sense at all.

The achievements also have some severe lag problems. In majority of the games today, you expect to unlock an Achievement the moment you satisfy the requirements.

At the very least, Achievements should unlock the next time a game loads a new area. But in Bully, the Achievements can pop up as late as 5 hours after they were supposed to be unlocked. Frustrating if you are an Achievement whore.

Anyways, I am looking forward to the next 7 weeks of holiday. Many outings and game releases to look forward to. Not to mention all those hours of freedom I’m going to be enjoying until the next term starts.

After our previous holiday, which lasted for two weeks in June, I’ve decided that I’m going to cherish and enjoy this one a whole lot more, because I have the “Damn I wish it was the holidays again” syndrome once school starts, especially during project weeks.

I don’t think I’m the only one.

So yeah, to all poly students out there, congratulations on successfully completing the first semester of your poly education. Enjoy the holidays!!

2009-08-14T23:35:00.000-07:00

Hey hey. About a month since I last posted. Ah well, I've been busy with project submissions and presentations. I’ve been doing alright with the projects, mostly getting B’s.

Presentation was a little nerve wrecking and I stumbled quite a bit. For those of you who don’t know, most of the presentations in poly require you to present while wearing full formal attire. This means you have to wear a long sleeve shirt, pants, tie, blazer and shoes.

But finally, the projects are all gone for now, because today is the last day of the first semester at TP!!

The semester ended great. During Graphic Design Fundamentals tutorial, we talked a little about the contents of our sketchbooks for about half an hour, and then we played Win, Lose or Draw. After that we played Charades. Fun. Each of the three groups had to come up with three phrases for the other groups to act out.

Our three phrases: "69 Position", "Yelling at Yourself" and "Big Ass Erection". Super hilarious watching others act out the phrases, especially "Big Ass Erection".

At 12pm we gathered at some classroom at the fifth floor, because our care person treated us to lunch. She ordered chicken and pizza. The chicken was good. I liked it. Then we slacked in the room for a few hours and cam whored. At 4pm we went to the lecture theatre but instead of the usual lecture, we had short 15 min talk, then it was the end of school term.

Now all that's left are the Semester tests, which will happen the week after next. Just three papers. I'm going to study hard, do well, and then slack for the remaining 7-8 weeks.

Anyways, now that E3 and Games Convention Online are over, I have to do my annual Top 10 Most Anticipated Games list. I'll be posting that some time next week. We don't have school, since it's study week, but I still have to study, so I'll do the list when I'm free.

2009-07-13T22:48:00.000-07:00

The full Guitar Hero 5 setlist has been revealed. It is actually a pretty good one, with a balance of modern and classic tracks. I just wished that Activision would include more metal songs in the game.

3 Doors Down - "Kryptonite"
A Perfect Circle - "Judith"
AFI - "Medicate"
Arctic Monkeys - "Brianstorm"
Attack! Attack! UK - "You and Me"
Band Of Horses - "Cigarettes, Wedding Bands"
Beastie Boys - "Gratitude"
Beck - "Gamma Ray"
Billy Idol - "Dancing with Myself"
Billy Squier - "Lonely is the Night"
Blink-182 - "The Rock Show"
Blur - "Song 2"
Bob Dylan - "All Along the Watchtower"
Bon Jovi - "You Give Love A Bad Name"
Brand New - "Sowing Season"
Bush - "Comedown"
Children Of Bodom - "Done With Everything, Die For Nothing"
Coldplay - "In My Place"
Darker My Love - "Blue Day"
Darkest Hour - "Demon(s)"
David Bowie - "Fame"
Deep Purple - "Woman From Tokyo ('99 Remix)"
Dire Straits - "Sultans of Swing"
Duran Duran - "Hungry Like The Wolf"
Eagles Of Death Metal - "Wannabe in L.A."
Elliott Smith - "L.A."
Elton John - "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting"
Face To Face - "Disconnected"
Garbage - "Only Happy When It Rains"
Gorillaz - "Feel Good Inc."
Gov't Mule - "Streamline Woman"
Grand Funk Railroad - "We're an American Band"
Iggy Pop - "Lust For Life"
Iron Maiden - "2 Minutes to Midnight"
Jeff Beck - "Scatterbrain"
Jimmy Eat World - "Bleed American"
John Mellencamp - "Hurts So Good"
Johnny Cash - "Ring of Fire"
Kaiser Chiefs - "Never Miss a Beat"
King Crimson - "21st Century Schizoid Man"
Kings Of Leon - "Sex on Fire"
Kiss - "Shout it Out Loud"
Love and Rockets - "Mirror People"
Megadeth - "Sweating Bullets"
Mötley Crüe - "Looks That Kill"
Muse - "Plug in Baby"
My Morning Jacket - "One Big Holiday"
Nirvana - "Lithium"
Nirvana - "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
No Doubt - "Ex-Girlfriend"
Peter Frampton - "Do You Feel Like We Do (Live)"
Public Enemy Featuring Zakk Wylde - "Bring the Noise 20xx"
Queen & David Bowie - "Under Pressure"
Queens Of The Stone Age - "Make it With Chu"
Rammstein - "Du Hast"
Rose Hill Drive - "Sneak Out"
Rush - "The Spirit of Radio (Live, 2008)"
Santana - "No One To Depend On (Live)"
Scars On Broadway - "They Say"
Screaming Trees - "Nearly Lost You"
Smashing Pumpkins - "Bullet With Butterfly Wings"
Sonic Youth - "Incinerate"
Spacehog - "In the Meantime"
Stevie Wonder - "Superstition"
Sublime - "What I Got"
Sunny Day Real Estate - "Seven"
T. Rex - "20th Century Boy"
The Bronx - "Six Days a Week"
The Derek Trucks Band - "Younk Funk"
The Duke Spirit - "Send a Little Love Token"
The Killers - "All the Pretty Faces"
The Police - "So Lonely"
The Raconteurs - "Steady As She Goes"
The Rolling Stones - "Sympathy for the Devil"
The Sword - "Maiden, Mother & Crone"
The White Stripes - "Blue Orchid"
Thin Lizzy - "Jailbreak"
Thrice - "Deadbolt"
Tom Petty - "Runnin' Down a Dream"
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - "American Girl"
TV On The Radio - "Wolf Like Me"
Vampire Weekend - "A-Punk"
Weezer - "Why Bother?"
Wild Cherry - "Play That Funky Music"
Wolfmother - "Back Round"

It's a large setlist, with about 85 songs, and if Activision is even the least bit smart, they would follow Rock Band's example and make all songs from previous Guitar Hero games playable on the upcoming one.

By now you're probably thinking how many Guitar Hero games are they going to make before they quit. Honestly, I don't think they will ever stop milking the GH cash cow. I own 4 Guitar Hero games.

The next thing you'll want to know is how each new Guitar Hero game improves on its predecessor. Well, the changes to music games are huge, revolutionary ones, but rather multiple, small but significant upgrades.

Guitar Hero: Introduced the idea of playing music games at home.

Guitar Hero 2: Cranked the difficulty up to a whole new level. Also added co-op and face off, so you could rock out with or against a friend.

Guitar Hero 3: Introduced battle mode, where two people use different methods to make the opponent fail the song before they do.

Guitar Hero Encore - Rock the 80's: Complied a bunch of hits from the 80's.

Guitar Hero Aerosmith: First GH game to focus mainly on just one band.

Guitar Hero World Tour: Following Rock Band's example, GHWT threw drums and a microphone into the mix, and allowed gamers to create and upload their.

Guitar Hero Metallica: Best GH game to date, IMO. Focused mainly on Metallica, and featured other metal bands. Introduced Expert+ difficulty for drums, which demanded two base pedals and four feet.

Guitar Hero Smash Hits: A compilation of fan favourite songs from all previous GH games. Songs from games before Guitar Hero World Tour now supported drums and mic as well.

Guitar Hero 5: Allows you to customize your band's instrument setup. You can have 4 drummers if you wish, or three guitarists and one singer.

Guitar Hero 5, if sources are correct, will be on sale September 1st 2009.

2009-07-12T00:26:00.000-07:00

Happy 17th Birthday Yiling!! :D

Ahh, I'm having a hard time right now thinking of what to say. The only thing forming up in my mind at the moment are tons of corny sentences. Haha, writer's block? I'll tell you the stuffs later.

Have fun today, and always be happy. Sorry I can't be there for you later!! I'll make it up some how :D

2009-07-11T22:29:00.000-07:00

Hey sup. Been busy ~~completing~~ rushing assignments over the past few days. Now that we have got almost every individual assignment out of the way, I am happy. We submitted our work for Graphic Design and our second reflective journal yesterday.

I wasn't too pleased with my posters for GDF. I think I screwed that one up. Just hoping that I can at least get a B for it. The journal entries were alright, although I spent $9.20 on printing them by accident.

Yeah, almost $10 to print. What happened was, the person in front of me had set the printer option to the colour printer. So I didn't check, and I printed. Then when nothing came out of the normal printer, I went to click print again.

Then I saw the whole stack of papers lying at the tray of the colour printer. Too late to cancel the black and white prints. It is ridiculous, really. A B&W print costs 5 cents a piece, whereas a colour print costs 40 cents. Really screwed up, because only about 14 out of my 25 pages had pictures on it.

So basically, for those pages with no pictures, meaning the paper only consists of B&W, I still had to pay effin 40 cents. Daylight robbery, considering the fact that it costs 8x the amount a B&W print would have cost, but those pages were actually in B&W -_-

At least I learnt that I should always check the printing options before actually clicking the print icon. Expensive lesson, though.

Oh, what is that? You're saying that $10 is expensive? You?

Ah, yes I am. I have no idea why, but I am really feeling the pinch these days. I get $250 per month, and I am supposed to manage all my expenditure with that amount of cash. This includes food, transport, and all the stuffs.

So in order to buy games, I have to save money. Spending $10 on printing stuff that will probably get be a B grade at best isn't exactly my idea of saving. I need to negotiate a pay rise with my dad one of these days.

But I guess this tight budget thing is making me a more responsible person, at least when it comes to spending. I'm currently saving up to get a new amp and tone box, which I'm expecting to cost a total of $200, but in order to do that, I'm resisting the urge to get new games.

Currently, I'm craving Overlord II and BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, but I'm holding back from buying them, so that I can get my amp sooner. But all these unnecessary expenses in school and for transport are really hampering my saving process.

To get to the point, I need more money. Hopefully I can talk by dad into giving me $300-$350 per month, which is much more reasonable in my opinion. That way, I can spend like 1/4 of the amount on food and transport, then I can get 2-3 games at the end of the month.

Man, I am amazing myself. The me now, and the me a few months ago, are two different people. Me of the past would never have even thought of managing finances. Me of the past wouldn't hesitate to buy anything at first glance.

A sign that I've grown up a little, or a sign that my dad's scheme to make me learn the importance of money has actually worked? Hmm.

2009-07-07T23:47:00.000-07:00

I am in the midst of rushing my journal entries now, but I came across this video while doing some "research" on the Internet.

Spoiler Alert by collegehumor:

2009-07-06T23:06:00.000-07:00

Hey. To all those JC people who think you have it hard, and all us poly people are slacking, stop complaining.

At least you have normal school hours. I was in school today from 8.30am to 8.30pm, attending tutorials and rushing projects.

At least you don't have a whole pile of projects to work on. By this Friday, I have to submit about 2000 words of marketing journal, and two posters. From scratch. After that, there's still three group assignments due.

At least your results can be derived from your examination results, meaning that your marks can be good if you study. Some of our courses are completely assignment based, meaning that your marks are obtained through assignments. No exams, great, but that also means that we have tons of assignments to work on.

At least you don't have to spend loads of cash on clothes whenever there is a school event. All you have to do is put on your school uniform and your tie. Us, we actually have to buy formal attire. Long sleeved button shirt, trousers, tie and shoes. I just spent $130 last weekend on those.

Man, I am so tired. I actually stayed back in school all the way up to 8.15pm with Damien and Fiona, just to chiong the marketing journals. I still have two more left, and I'm planning to stay back tomorrow as well.

Ahh, tomorrow. Speakers' Series. I am so confused right now. Confused not knowing whether I should bring the formal clothes to school, and change into them later on, or whether I should just wear it to school.

If I bring it to school, it will be troublesome, and it will definitely get crumpled. If I wear it throughout the day, it's going to be warm as eff. Damn I really can't make a decision now.

So stressed out right now, GD it.

On the bright side, Batman Arkham Asylum is shaping up to be one awesome game:

Also, I've been hearing lots of positive stuff about BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger, stuff like how it's a potential threat to Street Fighter IV. So is it really that good? Watch the review to find out:

2009-07-05T10:36:00.000-07:00

Brutal Legend. Embodiment of awesome.

Rocktober 13th. Ahh, I can't freakin wait.

2009-07-04T11:56:00.000-07:00

Hey hey. In a much better mood today, thank you very much Yiling <3

I just got home from watching Transformers RotF for the third time, and the movie is still freakin awesome. Sure, the story is weak, but then again, no one watches Micheal Bay films for the plot. It's all about the action. Went to watch with my dad and brother this time.

Man, I am totally in love with Green Day's '21 Guns', which is played several times throughout the movie. I was just searching it up on youtube a few moments ago, and I realised that they actually had a music video for it now. Of course, I watched it.

Let me tell you this. There are two reasons why I started playing the guitar again, one, because I got a new guitar for free, and two, because I got a huge wave of inspiration from Green Day's new album, 21st Century Breakdown.

I was never much of a Green Day fan before. Yeah, I own their previous album, American Idiot, and I actually enjoyed it as well, but the songs didn't have any lasting appeal whatsoever in my opinion.

Then came along 21st Century Breakdown. When I first saw the advertisments on TV, I thought that 'Know Your Enemy' sounded quite catchy, so I went to listen to some songs from the album. Later I started listening to more, and now that I've listened to 21 Guns, I've listened to the entire album.

To put it simply, Green Day's music then, and their music now, are worlds apart. The new album is amazing, and it's among the ranks of one of the best albums ever produced, as far as I'm concerned.

Anyways, back to 21 Guns. It's a nice, relaxing song, that will probably be easy to play. Definitely one of the best songs from the new album, and among all the songs they have ever played for that matter.

I just realised that I love playing the guitar now. I used to like playing it, but now it's love. And as I've found out over the past few days, there is a huge difference between liking someone, and actually loving them :D

I'm really looking forward to the September holidays now. 10 weeks. I'm planning to go jammin with Say Yin, Yan Ming and Sebastian. The list of songs we we can jam to is just getting longer and longer.

At the moment, here's the list:

Know Your Enemy - Green Day
21 Guns - Green Day
Memory - Sugarcult
Five Minutes to Midnight - Boys Like Girls
Skyway Avenue - We The Kings

Say Yin will be singing, Sebastian drummin, and Yan Ming and me strummin. We'll probably be needing a bassist, and a lead or backup singer, depending on which Say Yin wants to be.

Yeah, I am so excited. We've been talking about jammin since what, Sec 1? Well, it's finally going to happen in a few months time. If any of you guys happen to be reading this, start practicing those songs on the list!! Practice until you cannot make a mistake even if you wanted to ok.

Oh yeah, just remembered that it's America's Independance Day. Whoooo

2009-07-03T23:56:00.000-07:00

I totally felt like crap today. I miss her like eff, damn it, and I don't have any idea why I am feeling this way. I thought I got over it months ago, but guess what, seems like I didn't.

On the bright side, our visit to MediaBiz studio was AWESOME. It is possibly one of the coolest places within TP, not only because of the ridiculously low air con temperature, but also because of the amount of high tech toys in there.

For those of you who don't know, MediaBiz is basically a miniature broadcast station within TP. It is located towards the end of Business School, on the third floor. Of course, it's only open to students within my course.

Behind the glass doors, down the initially confusing maze of corridors, you can find yourself in one of two possible locations.

One is the radio station. It is in this room where the program for MediaBiz Radio, TP's very own radio channel, is recorded. The room itself is really cool. There is a desk at the front of the room, fitted with all sorts of switches, knobs and buttons, as well as several computer screens, microphones and headphones.

The other room is the broadcast room. This is where we can record live footage of news interviews or talk shows. What's cool is that everything will be controlled by us, from the cameras, to the lights, to the people appearing on screen.

It didn't take us long to realise how insanely awesome a place MediaBiz Studio was for real life Counter Strike. So many corridors and rooms for us to run around in. Also, the broadcast room would be the ultimate place to play in, because it's huge, and it's multi leveled.

Only problem is, we have to wait until next year before we get access to the studio. A whole freakin year. No wonder our seniors kept telling us that Year 2 was going to be the cool year. Man, I can't wait for Counter Strike.

But wait, if we're not allowed to be in MediaBiz before Year 2, then what exactly were we doing in there today? Well, we have this assignment in which we have to make a posters for our course, so we got special permission to enter the studio, just to take some photographs.

Speaking of assignments, they are really starting to stack up now. By next Friday, we have to submit four journal entries, as well as the posters I mentioned above. After next week? I don't even want to talk about it.

This is one of the few times in my life when I feel the emotion commonly known as stress. Didn't feel it during PSLE, didn't feel it during O Levels, but I'm feeling it now.

We also have to get our formal attires by this weekend, because we'll be needing it for Speakers' Series, which will be happening this Tuesday.

Damn, as I was typing that last sentence, I just remembered that Media and Society tutorial is pushed forward to Monday afternoon, because of Speakers' Series, meaning we have to finish our notes by this weekend too. Nice, more work. Eff.

My post seems a little gloomy huh, now that I've read through it once. >:@, I'm really in such low spirits right now. I think I'm going to practice guitar for a while, because I totally need an energy restoration.

Random ridiculous video:

2009-07-02T23:25:00.000-07:00

Angry Video Game Nerd: Mario is Missing. Pure genius.

2009-07-01T23:57:00.000-07:00

Penny Arcade, for the win.

2009-06-30T22:54:00.000-07:00

Hello. Today didn't turn out as bad as I thought it would have been. That's probably because I've decided to take a positive attitude to life. Being optimistic alone isn't enough. We have to learn to love everything we do, no matter how dull or horrible it maybe, and only through that kind of mind set can we truely succeed.

Hence, as of now, Media and Society is my favourite subject, long school days are awesome, and I love the amount of assignments we currently have assigned to us. There, I am feeling more successful already :D

Anyways, we watched this movie during Journalism lecture today. I personally found it kinda boring, but there were some interesting parts. It's about journalistic integrity and stuff like that.

During Graphic Design Fundamentals lecture, we had a forum session instead. I brought up the issue of how screwed that small tutorial room we have for Med Soc was, but it seemed that the allocation of classrooms was out of our lecturer's hands. It's just our luck. Sorry guys, I tried.

For the most part of both our lectures today, me and Siew Keong were reminiscing our primary school days.

The both of us were AV assistants, and we had tons of screw ups during morning assembly. The National Anthem starting at the wrong verse, the school song looping, us playing the school song by accident when we were actually supposed to play the National Anthem.

Then there was all the trading card games going on, especially after our exams. Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, WWE and Magic: The Gathering.

Good times.

Siew Keong kept in touch with many of our primary school friends, unlike me, and he happened to have quite a handful of them on Facebook, so we were looking at who was with who, and how many of our friends looked like now.

One majorly surprising relationship. And some of the girls actually look quite pretty now. Damn, I think I'm going to go back for the next class gathering.

We're having our annaul Speakers' Series next Tuesday, which is this event organised by Communications and Media Management. Guest speakers from different media industries are invited to TP to speak to the students.

Everyone is invited, but it is only compulsory for CMM students. And since many of these people will actually be able to help us in the future with intership and stuff, we have to make a solid impression on them.

How? By getting all CMM students to go to school dressed in business attire. I need a long sleeve shirt, pants, shoes and a tie. By next Tuesday. Win. I'm sooo lusting after this tie, it's so damn cool:

I also found out this really cool bit of info today. The year 2 CMM students are currently covering the Asian Youth Games. We, on the other hand, are going to fortunate enough to cover the Youth Olympic Games next year.

Olympic. No matter which country we're at in the future, having the word 'Olympic' on our testimonial is going to have quite an impact on employers, because it's a globally recognised brand.

One last thing, Zero Punctuation is so effin funny:

2009-06-29T10:48:00.000-07:00

We got back most of our grades for our assignments and our term tests. I'm pleased with the results, but I'm not going to become complacent!!

Journalism Individual Writing Assignment 1: A
This is the assignment which required me to give all you people that music games survey. Thanks for helping me get my grade :D

Media and Society Term Test: A
Studied 8 hours straight for this.

Essential Graphics Skills Test: A
Didn't expect an A for this, because I actually screwed up in the middle of the test and I went to some other window, and our tutor had to help me get back to my work.

Graphic Design Fundamentals Individual Assignment 1: B <---Effin Killjoy -_-
I actually expected worse for this one, because my final product was almost a copy of the existing CMM logo.

We're getting back Journalism Term Test soon, and I'm praying that I get a B grade minimum. I'm also kinda worried about the CMM journals, since our tutor mentioned today that the average grade for the journals was C.

On a completely random note...

I got a new guitar yesterday!! Sure, it isn't the most expensive or of the highest quality, but I'm sure it was a gift of love hmmmm? XD Anyways, thank you very much, I am so happy right now ^^

Now all I need is a new amp, because my old one has a burnt fuse, and I want to get a tone box too.

Probably next weekends, at Paradiz Centre or something. I'm thinking of getting a mid range amp, and a tone box from Line 6. Not going to be cheap, but it's going to be worth it.

Effing long day tomorrow, 9am-5pm. I have the urge to bite something.

2009-06-19T14:55:00.000-07:00

Hi hi I'm going to Video Games Live in a few hours time and I'm so damn excited :D I really should be getting home now or I'm going to be late. I'll post about it tomorrow, and another epic video game related post is going to come soon after.

Also I've started practicing guitar again after a half year long hiatus. I'm practicing "Know Your Enemy" by Green Day right now. Awesome, easy song that's really fun to play. But the solo is a little tricky though, so I'm working on it now. Anyone interested in jammin to that song, lemme know alright!! :D

Wow, totally random post. I'm not using my own computer to type right now, so I'm keeping it short!! Cya :D

2009-06-12T23:43:00.000-07:00

Hello. Today is the EPIC E3 REVEAL POST!! Be warned though. Everything after this sentence is going to be video game related. Strictly for game junkies only.

So. The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2009 has come and past. The biggest news about this year's E3 is probably the fact that it's back to the old E3 that we all know and love.

To bring those of you who don't know up to date, E3 went from being the pinnacle of gaming events to the most boring for the last two years. How could that have happened?

Big names in the industry decided that it was a good move to turn E3 into a highly publicized summit for game developers. Obviously, BAD move. Thankfully, they noticed how badly they ****ed up the whole thing, so now E3 is back to its old self.

Of course, trends started at the start of this console generation will not change. Microsoft will dominate the show once again with their now predictable "huge, "you'll never have guessed it" reveal".

Sony will continue their usual practice of drowning us in dull statistics, just to show us how much closer they are to reaching Microsoft and Nintendo.

And as we've all come to expect, Nintendo is going to prove just how revolutionary they are by introducing new motion sensing devices. That are used to control games with totally out dated 480p graphics. Right.

Anyways, the Microsoft press conference was an epic one. Reveals were aplenty, and things once thought to be impossible have actually been made possible. Here are all the XB360 related reveals from E3, in chronological order.

#1: Square Enix releases a trailer for it's latest game in development, Nier. The trailer reveals game play and the art style of the game. It's a big change from SE's usual anime style characters and cartoony graphics, with the presence of realistic environments and excessive blood.

#2: New trailer for Dead Rising 2 released into the Internet. Capcom won't be attending E3 this year, due to swine Flu, but at least they were nice enough to upload the trailer. The footage in the trailer gives off a much more serious vibe compared to the first game.

#3: Borderlands trailer released. Includes game play footage, and shows off the new cell shaded graphics of the game. I wasn't too sure about the decision to give the entire game a graphical overhaul at first, but after seeing it in motion, I must admit that it looks damn good.

#4: Microsoft announces that it's press conference will be extended by 5 minutes for a 'very special' addition. What exactly is it? Read on to find out.

#5: Crytek announces Crysis 2, the sequel to the graphically stunning PC exclusive, Crysis, for PC, PS3 and XB360.

#6: Square Enix releases yet another trailer, for yet another game. Front Mission Evolved, for the PS3 and XB360, is set to revive the series. Judging from the grittier art style of the game, Capcom is really trying to click with the Western audience.

#7: Halo 3: ODST display put up, revealing the main cast of the game.

#8: The Beatles: Rock Band confirms rumours that it will feature harmonizing vocals. For the musically illiterate, that means that there can be more than one singer at a time. One singing lead, two singing backup while playing other instruments. That kinda stuff.

#9: Modern Warfare 2 map packs will be released on Xbox Live first, before appearing every where else. This is because the Xbox 360 version is expected to lead the online portion of the game.

#10: It was announced last year that development of the Xbox 360 version of Final Fantasy XIII would start when the Japanese PS3 version went on sale. Guess they changed their mind. FFXIII was shown off at E3 2009. Running on a Xbox 360.

#11: Epic games, the ones behind the Gears of War and Unreal Tournament series, announced that their next game will be an Xbox Live Arcade game called Shadow Complex. It is described as a mix of Contra and Super Metroid, and it is a 2D game, but with 'slick 3D graphics'.

#12: Square Enix is targeting a Spring 2010 release for the Xbox 360 version of Final Fantasy XIII.

#13: Left 4 Dead 2 announced for Xbox 360 and PC, and it's set to release Nov. 17 this year. It's a completely new setting, featuring 4 new characters, with a new, with a larger weapon cache at their disposal. Too soon for a sequel? I think so too. But are you going to play it anyway? I think so too.

#14: Big announcement. A new Halo game, titled "Halo: Reach", is set for release next year. The game is an Xbox 360 exclusive, and judging from the title, it will be similar to the events that happen in the book 'Halo: Fall of Reach". Halo: Reach multiplayer beta will be obtainable by purchasing the limited edition of Halo 3: ODST.

#15: Halo 3 ODST worldwide release date has been confirmed. Get ready to don Recon armour on 22nd September 2009.

#16: Alan Wake, the highly anticipated XB360 exclusive, was thought to have been cancelled since no one mentioned it for the past one and a half years. However, this year's E3 reconfirmed its existence. It is due for release next year.

#17: The Xbox Live Video Marketplace is going to be relaunched as the Zune Video Marketplace this Fall, coinciding with the release of the Zune HD. This new service allows you to instantly stream and watch full HD 1080p videos.

#18: Last.fm, the online based social music community, is set for Xbox 360 consoles later this year. It is integrated to the Xbox 360 dashboard, and it recommends artists and songs to users based to the kind of music stored in the console.

#19: Even bigger announcement. They said it was impossible. Never going to happen. Guess what? It did. It has been exclusive to the Playstation consoles for more than a decade now, but the Metal Gear Solid series is finally setting foot on the XB360 and PC. So far, the title has been revealed, "Metal Gear Solid: Rising", and the main character is said to be uber badass Raiden.

#20: Probably the most pointless addition to the Xbox Live services, but I guess it will help attract new customers. Believe it or not, Facebook and Twitter are soon going to be compatible with Xbox Live. So now, instead of playing games, you can go online to poke someone. Cool.

#21: Another pointless addition, but it could be fun. Have no friends? Friends too lazy to come over to your place to catch a movie? Then invite them to your Xbox Live party and you can all watch any movie provided by Netflix, complete with virtual movie screen, background and couches.

#22: Another big announcement. Microsoft announces Project Natal, a motion sensing camera for the Xbox 360. The camera effectively negates the need of a controller to navigate the dashboard, and certain games for that matter. Functions include face recognition, motion sensing, voice recognition, etc.

#23: Peter Molyneux, the main man behind the Fable series, revealed Milo, and interactive AI that works with Project Natal. Milo resembles a teenage boy, and he is able to hold a conversation with a real person, detect expressions and mood, read text shown to him, etc. Just a few more years before computers start rebelling against us.

#24: If you own a XB360, and use Xbox Live frequently, chances are you would have noticed that several full games from the original Xbox are available for purchase and download. Starting this August, the first batch of XB360 games will receive similar treatment. Mass Effect and Assassin's Creed were some of the examples used.

#25: Halo: Reach reveal trailer gets released to the public.

#26: New Left 4 Dead 2 information released: Run out of ammo? Use melee weapons! Weapons revealed so far include a lead pipe, a fire axe, and...a CHAINSAW. omg haxx.

#27: Alan Wake E3 '09 trailer made available to the public.

#28: Microsoft announces plans for an Avatar Marketplace on Xbox Live, where you can download new articles of clothing for your virtual representative. Microsoft also mentioned "Avatar Awardables", which rewards you with unique pieces of clothing for completing certain in game tasks.

#29: Microsoft releases a trailer for Project Natal. I'm not sure what to think of it. Still, it delivers by showing us what Microsoft's new tech toy is capable of. I'm actually really excited about this motion camera thing right now. I actually get to beat up an old man, and be a ****ing 100 foot tall monster. Sweet.

#30: Halo 3: ODST Collector's Edition revealed. It costs USD $100, and it comes with an attractive looking Halo themed XB360 controller, as well as a "free" invite to the Halo: Reach multiplayer beta. Looks like Bungie is using the Crackdown method again: Pay for the beta invite, and get the other game free.

#31: Left 4 Dead 2's first level and poster revealed. It's called 'The Parish'. I think the tagline is kinda stupid though. 'This time it all goes south'? Was that the best they could do?

#32: Bungie announces the 4 player co-operative Firefight mode for Halo 3: ODST. It's like Gears of War 2's Horde mode, but with vehicles and plasma grenades.

#33: Ubisoft releases a totally badass trailer for Splinter Cell Conviction. Glad to see that Sam Fisher no longer has that stupid emo haircut.

#34: Ubisoft pleases once again by releasing another sexy trailer. This time, it's for Assassin's Creed 2. Damn, Ubisoft really knows how to make trailers.

#35: A new trailer is released for Dante's Inferno. At this point of time, the game looks absolutely stunning [the trailer is crafted from the graphic engine of the game]. Amazing graphics, fast pace game play, and burtal animations. Looks a lot like God of War, actually.

#36: Get ready to use that hidden blade again, because the release date for Assassin's Creed 2 has been confirmed to be 17th November 2009.

#37: The first Crackdown 2 trailer is revealed. Why does every open world game these days have to have a city with a serious infection problem of some sort?

#38: First game play footage of Splinter Cell Conviction is released. The game looks insanely badass. I wasn't too interested in the game before, but I can tell you now that this is definitely going to be one of the Game of the Year nominees, if not a winner.

#39: Modern Warfare 2 game play released. The short video features a single player level. The one with the snow mobiles. In my opinion, MW2 seems even more intense than it's predecessor, with crazy cinematic moments and thrilling, rapid game play.

#40: Halo 3: ODST demo-ed. A short portion of the single player campaign was shown. First thing you'll probably notice when watching it: This isn't the Halo we all know. That isn't necessarily a bad thing though, because I'm really welcoming some form of change in the Halo series.

#41: Crackdown 2 has 4 player co-operative mode, twice the amount of players as its predecessor. Also, it has 16 player online multiplayer.

#42: Assassin's Creed 2 is demo-ed live. Looks ****ing amazing. Graphics some of the best seen this generation, fighting looks awesome, Ezio moves with much more fluidity than his ancestor Altair, and new game play elements are shown off. Flying over Venice? OMG I need this now.

#43: DJ Hero's developers explain how the game works, and they proceed to demo it. It is also revealed that the game can be played with guitar and the turntable. I'm praying that DJ parts get added into upcoming Guitar Hero 5, then they'll be able to add more nu metal songs. Slipknot!!

#44: This year, the booth babes at E3 were way too covered with clothing. Here's the reason why: they aren't allowed to be skimply dressed anymore, since kids attend E3 too. What the ****. At least they are still allowed to have big boobs.

#45: The seemingly meaningless text on the Halo 3 ODST controllers are actually some what linked to solving the mystery of New Mombasa, which is something fans have been trying to do for a while now. I, for one, have no idea what the hell those numbers are about.

#46: Microsoft has had Performance Designed Products, a small console peripheral designing company, working on a motion sensing controller for the XB360 way before the Wii was even released. It was revealed for the first time today. I'm just wondering, what's the point of this now that Natal is on the way?

#47: Rumours that Commander Shepherd, the main character of the Mass Effect series, is dead has been put to rest today. Shepherd is in fact alive, but is about to be sent out on a suicide mission with a team consisting of the most skilled and dangerous individuals in the galaxy.

#48: Bungie lets us all know that Halo: Reach is going to be a First Person Shooter. You know, just in case we didn't already guess it.

#49: A small group of protestors staged a protest outide the Los Angeles Convention Centre, which is where E3 is being held. The protest, which lasted several hours, was targeted at Electronic Art's Dante's Inferno, because the setting of the game is Hell. Signs that the protesters used had messeges like "Hell is not a game" and "EA=Electronic Atheists" Awesome.

#50: EA later admits that the protest was staged as a publicity stunt. Damn, there's got to be a better way than that to promote your game.

2009-06-11T23:02:00.000-07:00

Hello, hello. Just a short post today, to inject some much needed life to my blog.

I was at Caldecott Hill yesterday, because my uncle and auntie had an interview on Primetime Morning. I actually got to stand and watch as they filmed it. How many 17 year olds get a chance to say that :P

After that I went to Plaza Singapura to meet up with my project group to "do project". Ended up doing project for 2 hours, then we went to Paradiz Centre to play pool.

On a completely random note, my cousin Velan is super lucky. He won the grand prize of the Okto Monsters vs Aliens contest. What's the prize? See for yourself:

With those out of the way, I can talk about today. I went to the PC Show with Yan Ming and Say Yin today. They were looking for laptops, and I just tagged along because I didn't want to stay at home.

The PC Show was everything I expected, and something I did not. It was crowded, stuffy, and noisy. Kinda predicted that. But what surprised me was that there were actually really good deals.

Since I already have a laptop, I wasn't paying much attention to the prices of the various models, but I did notice the discounts placed on other products. Cannon 500D, the DSLR camera that I am planning to get, is selling for about $100 cheaper than its usual price.

Computer accessories were also heavily discounted. There was a box containing 50 DVDs going for $19, a 8GB USB drive going for the same price, and a 22 inch monitor screen going for $350. If you can believe it, I even saw a USB mouse that cost only $6.50.

However, the items with the best deals had to be the video games. The Xbox 360 wired and wireless controllers cost $39 and$59 respectively, $20 off their usual price. Many games had their prices slashed down to almost 50%.

These offers didn't only affect the older games. New games, like Prototype and Red Faction: Guerrilla, were also much cheaper. Prototype was released just this week, and it is being sold at Comics Connection for $90. However, it's $72 at the PC Show. It's these kinda epic discounts that I'm talking about.

Yeah, I know I sound like I'm being paid to promote the PC Show. I honestly wish I was. I just found the PC Show a really good place to go bargain hunting, especially if you are a gamer, and since I am such a kind person, I'm letting all of you in on that secret.

Also, as you probably would have already guessed, I bought Prototype and Red Faction: Guerrilla :D

I also saw the G.I Joe trailer at the PC Show, and I have deduced that it is ****ing awesome, especially the last 10 seconds or so, and you have to watch it for yourself:

Actually, the whole point of this post was to let everyone know that the annual epic E3 round up post will be up tomorrow. Also, my blog isn't dead :D

2009-05-26T23:41:00.000-07:00

Hello. Today was a fun day, because about half the course actually wore their school uniform to school. I don't know whose plan it was, but it actually succeeded. We even thanked Mr.Ramesh the secondary school way when lecture was over. "Thaaaank yooou Miissterr Raaamesh"

We had our first council today. We just listened to Ms Teh and one of our seniors talk about some stuff, then we wrote down our names and emails on a piece of paper, paid $5 for the council fund, and volunteered to help with some upcoming speakers event.

One important thing I've learnt today is that we cannot mention anything that can tarnish CMM's reputation. This is applicable especially to the field of blogging, and social websites like Facebook and Twitter.

It may not seem like that big a deal to badmouth an organization on your blog, since it's your private ranting space and all. Think again. There is zero privacy on the Internet. All some one has to do is type the organization's name in a search engine, and you could be finding yourself in a whole lot of trouble.

Due to this, I've decided not to blog in detail about school any longer, neither will I mention my feelings towards any of the lecturers. By staying neutral to CMM in my posts, it'll be guaranteed that I not get myself any unnecessary problems.

I got home just in time to catch the last 15 minutes of Mythbusters. This week, they were trying to prove if a ceiling fan can actually behead someone. This is especially applicable to me, since I am finding my head much closer to the rotating blades than others.

Eventually, the myth was busted, to my relief. It turns out that a standard ceiling fan with wooden blades cannot do any visible damage. An industrial fan with metal blades is able to cut deep into your neck, and it can even dissect your jugular, but not behead you.

Mythbusters, being themselves, had to make their own fan, and of course it was designed to inflict as much pain as possible. They ended up using a lawn mower motor to power their beast, and they added metal blades with sharpened edges.

As you can imagine, this fan made quite a mess out of the dummy head, but it didn't actually managed to sever the head off the neck, so the myth was still busted. Still, you would probably die from that much injuries.

Moral of the story is, don't jump head first into a rotating fan, no matter how tempting it might be. The results will never be good. It's just the varying degrees of bad, depending on the material of the fan blades, the speed of rotation, and the strength of your neck.

It turns out that this is the last episode of Mythbusters on Okto for now. It's some Fight Science show next week. Interesting, but no where near the fun of Mythbusters. **** the fact that I don't have cable to watch the latest series of Mythbusters.

I was playing the Wolverine game for a while just now. It is so awesome. Watching Wolverine in the movies is one thing, but actually playing as him is a whole other thing.

It's just that feeling you get, playing as an unstoppable, raging, one man army. That sure beats just watching Hugh Jackman being an unstoppable, raging, one man army.

Anyways, I finally caught up with Gambit, and I fought him on some giant neon letters, which were part of a sign board on the side of a skyscraper. It was epic. After beating him, I got treated to a sweet CGI cutscene of Team X beating the shit out of an African village:

I was reading some stuff on http://www.joystiq.com/ when I came across this:

It's a bingo sheet of joystiq's predictions for what will be revealed during E3, which kicks off next week. This bingo sheet has been an annual thing on joystiq since E3 2007, and from past experience, at least two of the predictions will be correct.

Before I proceed, for all of you who don't know what E3 is, it stands for Electronic Entertainment Expo, and it has been since the late 1980s. It's basically this huge gaming event that's held in Los Angeles. There are tons of new game reveals, trailers and demos, and there will be booth babes.

Anyways, this predictions bingo sheet works the same as a normal bingo sheet. Once a prediction has been confirmed, you cross out its square, and you be happy. The more squares you cross out, the happier you get.

Alright, so maybe it only makes me happy, but it is quite interesting to see the final outcome of the bingo sheet, since you'll be able to see just how many previsions joystiq managed to nail. If nothing else, it lets you relieve your childhood days; crossing out stuffs :D

Right now I'm trying to get Adobe Creative Suit 4 to work, because I need to practice for our Illustrator skills test on Thursday. The damn thing seems to hate me D:

Anyways, that's about all the newsworthy stuff I did today. I'm going to try and complete the Wolverine game tomorrow, then I'm going to focus on studying for the mid semester tests, which will be on next Tuesday and Friday.

2009-05-25T05:57:00.000-07:00

Hello. Some of you might have noticed this as my msn personal message: "Anyone interested in going to Video Games Live 2009 with me? " For anyone wondering what the heck Video Games Live is, here is all the information you need to know:

Video Games Live™ is an immersive concert event featuring music from the most popular video games of all time. Top orchestras & choirs perform along with exclusive video footage and music arrangements, synchronized lighting, solo performers, electronic percussionists, live action and unique interactive segments to create an explosive entertainment experience!

Video Games Live™ features the best music and exclusive synchronized video clips from the most popular games from the beginning of video gaming to the present:

Mario™
Zelda®
Halo®
Final Fantasy®
Warcraft®
StarCraft® II
Sonic™
Metal Gear Solid®
Kingdom Hearts
Chrono Cross™
Myst®
Tron
Castlevania®
Metroid®
Interactive Frogger
Interactive Space
Invaders
Interactive Guitar Hero™
Diablo® III
Medal of Honor™
God of War™
BioShock™
Civilization IV
Tomb Raider®
Beyond Good & Evil™
Advent Rising
EverQuest® II
Mass Effect™
Crysis®
Monkey Island
Earthworm Jim
Pac-Man
Lair
Conan
Command & Conquer: Red Alert
Headhunter
Splinter Cell®
Ghost Recon™
Rainbow Six®
Jade Empire
Contra
OutRun
Gears of War
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix™

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

Finally, the first ever full trailer of Modern Warfare 2 has just been released. I think the trailer was alright, but I want to see more. Check it out:

2009-05-24T14:41:00.000-07:00

Hello. Oh wow, it's been ages since I've posted. Well, I'm a busy man, now that school has started and all. So what exactly has been happening in my life since I last posted?

I got my laptop. I'm actually using it to type right now. I installed DotA and Grand Theft Auto San Andreas multiplayer on it, and I've been playing a lot of those two games over the past couple of weeks.

I bought myself X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and I got Bionic Commando today. I've played a whole lot of Wolverine, and it is truly the best superhero game I've ever played. It's fast paced, mindless violence, as you literally tear through the relentless onslaught of enemies. This is how Wolverine should be like, not the wimp we all see in the movies.

Speaking of Wolverine, I was supposed to do a review for the movie. I'll get that published ASAP, and I'll do the review of the game as soon as I complete it.

We had quite a few birthday celebrations during the last two weeks. First there was Genevieve's birthday two Mondays ago. During CMM tutorial, which was the first thing we had for the day, we brought in a birthday cake for her. Ms Tan was nice enough to let us cut and eat the cake.

The next Monday, we did the same thing for Amelia. During CMM tutorial again. This time, it was for Amelia. It was super funny, because we tricked her into thinking that we only bought a small chocolate tart for her. Her expression was hilarious. Then we showed her the real cake. Once again, Ms Tan allowed us to eat the cake.

After school on that same Monday, we went to Carl's Jr at Tampines One to have lunch. I saw several funny things there. 1) There is a shop called "Wanko". What the ****. 2) There was a shop called "click!!". Nothing funny about that, but when you apply Gestalt's Law of Closure, the "c" and "l", which are close to each other, becomes a "d". So the shop is called "dick!!"

On Friday, it was Shaun's turn to have his birthday celebration. Some one brought a box of doughnuts to school, so we put a candle onto one of them and sang him birthday song. After CMM lecture, Shaun got tau pok-ed along the corridor outside the lecture theatre. It was epic, with people leaping into the heap, and Melly jumping onto the pile from the top of a table.

I also did and completed quite a few assignments, as the deadline for many of them was last Friday. We had to redesign the logo for our course. After the initial sketches, we had to draw a digital version of our image using Adobe Illustrator, then we had to print the final product on glossy paper for submission. This is how my final design looks like:

We also had to submit our first four entries of our reflective journal for CMM. We were supposed to write each entry to show how well we understood the marketing concepts covered during lecture and tutorials, and we had to use real life examples that applied the concept.

We were only required to do about three pages per entry, but me being me, I did an average of six pages per entry. My longest entry was 10 pages long, with about 2500 words in it if you can believe that. I later added pictures to the journal, further lengthening it. By the time I printed it, it was 36 pages long, and it was too thick for the normal folder, so I had to bind it.

During J1 News tutorial, we got back our first group writing assignment. Two groups within the class got an A grade, and fortunately, we were one of them. We went through the effort to search for the website, to make the phone call, and to make the story interesting, so I think we deserved the score.

We also got our Individual Writing Assignment [IWA] proposals back. My proposal actually got commended on by Mr. Selvan. It's not that mine was good or anything; I suspect it's more like because he's Indian and I'm Indian, so he is being bias. Guys, please report him. Then maybe he'll get replaced by some one more interesting.

And that brings us to what I did ~~today~~ yesterday. Since my proposal has been okay-ed, I have to type out an article that covers my news angle and the 5Ws+1H, and I'll have to submit it this coming Monday.

Of course, what's an article without the interviews. So ~~today~~ yesterday, I conducted my interviews. Since I was already short on time, I decided to do a survey, rather than a one to one interview. The topic I was covering was "The reasons behind the popularity of music games".

It started in the afternoon. I sent out survey questions to my first batch of interviewees. Then I went out to Funan, because I had to interview several game store staff or owners. I printed 5 survey sheets for the interviewees to fill up.

To be honest, I was feeling quite nervous at first, because I didn't expect them to be interested in doing the surveys. But in actual fact, the people whom I gave the surveys to were extremely co-operative. Sure, most of the answers they gave were stupid, but at least they didn't turn me down.

I was done with all five surveys within 20 minutes, and I also decided to buy Bionic Commando. The game is from Capcom, so I was expecting it to cost $90, like all other Capcom games. But to my surprise, it turned out to be $73.

Then I saw it selling for $59 at G3, and I bought it without hesitation. While making the payment, I noticed that inFAMOUS was already out. I'm am super jealous of PS3 owners right now.

If there was one exclusive PS3 game that could be a multi platform, I wouldn't pick God of War, I wouldn't pick Metal Gear Solid, I wouldn't pick Kingdom Hearts, I would pick inFAMOUS. inFAMOUS is the closest representation of how I would like my future game to be like, in terms of environment, graphics and game play. Damn, I want it so badly.

Soon I met up with Andrew, and we went to eat at Pepper Lunch Express. The Beef Pepper Rice was going at a 50% discount, and Andrew could get a further staff discount, so we ended up paying $3.60 for it. But I wasn't too happy, because the amount of beef was a bit too little. I'd rather pay for the full price of the meal, and get the full amount of beef.

After dinner, we went to Esplanade to meet my friends from 1C01. Fiona, Genevieve and Damien was there when we arrived. Syafiqah was supposed to be somewhere around the Esplanade. Fernelli arrived soon after we got there. Later on Syafiqah called to tell us that she was going off.

I slacked there and waited for Fiona to get done with her surveys, then we walked over to Marina Square for dinner [supper?]. We stopped at the underpass, the place where all the bikers and dancers usually are, to get a few more interviews.

Carl's Jr was too crowded on the inside, so we had to sit on the outside. I bought a Super Star, but I couldn't finish it for some reason. I also couldn't finish the fries, so I decided to be charitable, and I gave it away. But I was super proud with my drink mixture. Apparently, Zapple and Coke go well.

After dinner we walked over to Suntec, and Genevieve went off from there. The rest of us walked towards Raffles City. I was supposed to follow Damien and Andrew to SMU to interview a few more people, but it was getting late, so I didn't go.

I took a train back home, and as soon as I got back, I was on my laptop, sending out interview questions to my second batch of interviewees. After that I just played DotA, did some random stuff on my web cam with Andrew, and I chatted with Angie on msn.

Then I realised that the time was 4.30am, and I had to wake up at 6.3oam to go to the temple. Eventually, my dad didn't bother waking me up, and he went to the temple by himself, so I was sleeping until 1pm.

Right now I'm about to my Journalism assignment, and hopefully I can finish it by 4pm, so that I can play basketball.

Before I end off, I was considering whether I should mention this or not, and I've decided to mention it, because I am too awesome.

I have an eyecandy in lecture!! She is damn pretty. But there are two problems, the major one and the minor one. The major one first: She is a quiet person!! Now for the minor problem: She already has a boyfriend.

I nearly had a nose bleed on Friday, because she was sitting too close to me. My head felt super hot and according to Fiona, my face was damn red. I have never felt so shy in the presence of a girl before and I am damn terrified!! To make things worse, she is extra pretty on Fridays, since she puts on some make up. I think it's because she is going to see her bf after school.

But then again, she is just eyecandy, and that doesn't mean anything. Let's all make this clear people, there is a difference between love and lust. Love comes from personality [the inside]. Lust comes from looks [the outside]. Of course, it'll be awesome if I'm able to get the full package, but personality always wins looks for me.

Alright, I think I'm starting to talk senseless again. I'm going to do my assignment now. Thanks to everyone who did the survey for me :D

Thanks for reading. Ending off, see you tomorrow.

2009-05-03T23:15:00.000-07:00

Hello. Today is the summarized post for week number 2. This week, tutorials started, and the assignments came aplenty. This was when I realized that poly life wasn't going to be a walk in the park after all.

Monday

I had the first full poly day in my life today. Tutorials only involve your class and your tutor, much like regular lessons in secondary school. We had CMM and J1 News tutorials today. CMM tutorial was actually pretty fun, thanks to Ms Tan. We formed our groups for our projects.

We had J1 News after that. You know how we all just link common things to one another? Like how one would assume that since J1 News lectures are fun, the tutorials would be the same? Well, it didn't work today. J1 News tutorial is boring, thanks to Mr. T. We also formed our groups.

After school was over, I waited for Say Yin and Andrew to end. That would be a two hour wait. I just ate alone at Mensa [EMO!!], and then I slacked in the library. I made sure that I got a good seat, one which could receive the full blast from the overhead air conditioners, because the weather was hot as ****.

When they eventually got dismissed, I was already waiting for them outside the tutorial rooms. We were going to play basketball. With my basketball. Which I had been carrying along with me throughout the day.

I was kinda excited to play before we actually started playing, but I got increasingly less motivated as time went on. Why? Like I said, the weather was hot as ****. Seriously, never ever play basketball at TP unless 1) there isn't a sun in the sky, or 2) you are in desperate need of a tan.

As Say Yin put it, that was one of the worst basketball games we ever played. The sun is a bastard.

We only played for about an hour or so, then we rushed back to the IT school food court, which was, god bless the designer, air conditioned!! Uber sense of relief!! We sat there and drank several cans of cold, carbonated drinks, then we went opposite TP for dinner.

Tuesday

Freakin long day!! Three lectures, each two hours long, with two one hour breaks in between. Started at 9am. Ended at 5pm. Waited one more hour for Say Yin and Andrew, so that I could have dinner with them.

We had the first Med Soc tutorial today. It seems that everyone who is good at Med Soc is uninteresting. If I had to use a colour to describe Mr. T our lecturer for this subject, it would be grey. Plain, dull, boring grey.

And to describe our tutor, Ms Tan, I would have to mention tens of colours. Not because she is a super colourful person. But because she is a super psychotic, confusing and chaotic swirl of colours that don't match.

She is supposed to be some professional at communicating with other, but to be honest, she freaks me out a little. It's not that she looks terrifying or anything, neither is it the way she talks. It is the stupid little smiles she gives at the end of certain sentences.

These aren't your normal smiles, but those sinister, turn-your-back-on-me-and-I'll-stab-you kind of smiles. And she does them at the worst possible times. "If you don't work hard throughout the term, then you will fail your exams" *smile*

Also, I lost my Ripcurl water bottle today!! The one I bought two years ago at Australia!! ****.

Wednesday

I was kinda pissed to attend school today. It was meant to be a day that I could wake up late, because school was supposed to start at 3pm, but I ended up waking up at my usual 6:10am timing.

Why? Since Friday is Labour Day, there is no school. And that would mean that there would be no CMM lecture this week. Well, that could never happen, so we had to attend the make up lecture today. At 9am.

Rather than making a big fuss out of it, I decided to be cooperative, and go to school. This was a smaller lecture, with only two out of the four classes attending. To brighten things up, our lecturer was Ms Tan. She released us half an hour earlier!!

It was 10:30am when we got released. Next lesson was at 3pm. Still, no time to slack. When had to do some interviews for our J1 News project!! There were three of us within the group. We met up with another group, so there were six of us altogether.

We had some food at the design school cafeteria, then we took a bus from TP to Tampines interchange, and then to some super ulu place. Seriously. You could hardly see any humans, or any forms of life for that matter.

We were supposed to find two distinctly unusual structures there, namely a NEWater plant, and a row of Chinese temples. We were supposed to interview people from either one of these places, and then we would have to present it during the next J1 News tutorial.

At first, we thought it would be easy. Just ask some one a few questions. How hard could it be? Well, as we were soon going to realise, the answer to that would be "pretty damn challenging".

Firstly, the NEWater plant would make a good story, as it is unique to see an above the ground reservoir, but it was difficult to find anyone to actually interview, since the place was virtually a ghost town.

So we went with the temples. We planned to interview one person from everyone of the 11 temples there, if time would permit. The first few reviews were promising, as the interviewees were more than happy to share some of their ample knowledge of the temple with us.

However, as we progressed from one temple to the other, things stopped going so smoothly. Many of the people we interviewed were almost clueless about the temples they worshiped in.

There was even this one lady who replied to almost everyone of our questions with one simple reply: "Ask god." Sure thing, why don't you call god down for me? Then we could finish our interview and get out of your life.

After about an hour of walking from temple to temple, we had a lot of information, but we only had sufficient facts on four temples to write a decent story. However, we were all tired by then, so we left the decision making for another day.

We decided to take a cab back to school, since the next lesson would be starting soon. We got back and got some stuff from Cheers, then we went to look for the classroom in which the next lesson was about to be held.

I'm not sure if it can really be described as a lesson. It is called APEL. Applied Principals for Effective Living. It sounds complicated, but it's basically Civics and Moral Education.

Our lecturer for APEL is Mr. Darryl David. Now, let me say this: I am freakin intimidated by him. He doesn't seem like a nasty person, but he is awfully efficient at nitpicking. The smallest things can cause him to flare up.

Anyways, APEL was kinda slack. Mr. D asked us to tell him our USP, or Unique Selling Point. In layman terms, he wanted us to tell him what we thought was unique about ourselves. He didn't want us to merely mention our hobbies; he wanted something that was really unique.

So everyone started thinking. From the start, I already had the fact that I could speak Chinese in mind, but I wasn't too sure about mentioning it, because I feared getting a "So what if you can speak Chinese? Many others can do that" kind of answer.

Then one of my friends said something, and Mr D said something like, "That's not really a USP. A USP would be like if Shiva told me that he could speak Chinese, then that would be unique."

Of course, people started laughing, and I told him that I did actually speak Chinese. He just smiled, and asked me how that happened. I told him that both my parents are mixed, and then he said, " I just gave you your USP man." I was just slacking for the rest of APEL.

Then we had Med Soc lecture, with the ever so vibrant Mr T. Rather than just dozing off for the entire duration of the lecture, some of us decided to play the penis game. Some of you might be wondering what exactly is that.

Basically, the first person whispers the word "penis", then the next person says it louder, and the volume increases as it goes down the line. This way, the last person would really be shouting out the word.

This was played during lecture, with a lecturer at the front of the lecture theater.

It was super hilarious. I wasn't playing, but most of the people around me were. At some times, the first person would already be shouting the word, so everyone else would have to say it even louder. The first fun Med Soc lecture I had.

Thursday

School only started at 3pm today, but I had to meet up with my J1 News project group at 12pm to complete our presentation, which was due next Monday.

We realised that our interview notes were devoid of any news worthy information, so the dreadful thoughts of having to go back for a second interview session were starting to surface. Luckily, one of the interviewees gave us the name card of the temple and guess what?

They had a website!! New age temple.

From the website, we found out that the temple also offered spiritual healing. So we made a few phone calls, and we got ourselves a whole lot of information. The medium of the temple didn't accept phone calls, so her assistant was interviewed instead.

We found out stuff like how the road was supposedly haunted. And how a lot of other streets are haunted as well. Also, if you are unlucky, you will see spirits. If you are really unlucky, then you get possessed. Then you have to go to that temple to get healed.

After typing all those out, and a bit of editing, we decided that we were happy enough with our work, so we went to eat at Mensa.

Soon, it was time for EssGra tutorial, which was going to be 3 hours long. It was going to be held in the Mac Lab, which was exclusive to CMM students.

I cannot describe how sexily superior the Mac Lab is compared to the normal computer labs. There are only about 30 Macs in the lab, so your individual working space is much more. The Macs all have large, w i d e s c r e e n panels.

Not only are the screens beautiful to look at, they are also large enough for you to hide behind if the tutor is pissed with the class. Which was the case at the start of this tutorial.

Our seniors told us that the compulsory textbook for EssGra was in actual fact not compulsory at all. It turned out that the book was compulsory, and since our whole class didn't have the book, we all got nagged at by Ms Teh.

She even sent us to the bookstore to get the books, but when we got there, there were only three copies remaining, so we went back to class. Since Ms Teh couldn't do much more, she just decided to proceed with the tutorial.

I think I'm going to ace EssGra. Everything Ms Teh thought to us was stuff I already learned years ago. Still, we were using CS4, and I only know CS3 properly, so there were still several things to learn.

After messing around with Illustrator for a few minutes, I more or less got the hang of the program. I can't wait to use Photoshop, because I find it the most user friendly program in the Adobe family.

After tutorial, I met up with Say Yin and Andrew, and we took a bus to Jonathan Mok's house, because Joel's birthday party was being celebrated there.

By the time we got there, it was already about 8pm, and we were the only people there who weren't from CJC. I didn't eat much, because I wasn't too hungry. I just talked with most of the people there, whether I knew them or not.

I also got pushed into the pool twice, and I pulled Andrew in with me once. There was a wide array of drinks, including several alcoholic ones. I drank only a bit of vodka mixed with F&N Orange.

The night was an eventful one. Why? Something epic happened. We got a visit from Sun Wu Kong!! Seriously. Once everyone started leaving, we helped Jonathan carry some stuff up to his house, and we played a bit of Guitar Hero.

Friday

NO SCHOOL TODAY!! Isn't that nice. I also finally got to play Xbox after not playing for more than a week. I just played Guitar Hero Metallica. I am not pleased by standard of playing the Master of Puppets solo, so I'm really working hard on that right now.

Other than that, I didn't go out until at night. I went out of my house happy, I came back home ecstatic.

Saturday

I got woken up at 8am today!! What the ****. I slept at 4am in the morning, thinking that I could wake up at 10am or something. My parents were supposed to go for the "Partners in Education" talk at TP, but my mother couldn't go, so I had to substitute her.

I went with my father, and the talk was in Auditorium 1. It was really boring. Bascially the same thing as the talks we had on the first day of Business Orientation, but way more dull, since there were no performances.

Also, parents ask a lot of questions. Some of which were really dumb. Everyone was given a file, and inside the file, there was a FAQ sheet. If they had read the FAQ, the QnA session would have ended in half the time.

After a torturous 2 hours, we were finally allowed to leave the place. My dad gave me a lift to Tampines Mall, and I met Syafiqah and Fernelli there. We took a bus back to school to meet Damien, then we took a cab to Fiona's house.

Fiona's house is a huge, three story tall terrace. We were meeting up today to discuss and decided on our product for the CMM project. After an hour or so of research, we decided to do F&N. After that, Damien started typing stuff while the rest of us slacked.

At about 4:30pm, we all took a bus back to Tampines Interchange, then we parted ways. I had to take a train all the way back to Tiong Bahru. I actually dozed off in the train. First time I've ever done that.

Sunday

We went to watch X-Men Origins: Wolverine today!! I met Say Yin, Marcus and Yeow Boon at Plaza Singapura at 2:30pm, then we bought tickets and went to eat. For the first time ever, we actually managed to get good seats.

We were soon joined by Sebastian and Osel. After lunch, we continued to walk around. We went to look at some laptops. I was super tempted to buy the Wolverine game, because it only costed $75 at some shop there, as compared to the usual $85 selling price in other shops.

At that point of time, I decided against it, and I am freaking regretting now.

Anyways, we finally met up with Andrew, and we went to watch the movie. I came out of the theatre not knowing whether to be pleased or disappointed by it. Check back tomorrow for the full review, because I am too damn tired to do it now.

So yeah, that's the second week in review. Now, normal posting can resume!!

Ok, I'm done for today. Thanks for reading. Ending off, see you tomorrow.

2009-05-02T23:51:00.000-07:00

Hello. So I haven't exactly been sticking to my "one post a day" rule. I know that it's been a really long time since I last posted. I apologize for that. School has started, and I am busy once again. Still, I would like to post whenever I am free.

I honestly thought that my blog would be dead, but it seems that I thought wrong. Sure, I wasn't posting, but it didn't stop all you loyal readers from constantly returning to this page and urging me to post.

And to thank you for your undying loyalty [a bit drama here], I am going to summarize all the notable stuff that happened in school during these past two weeks. I'll write about week 1 for today, and week 2 for tomorrow.

After that, I promise that I will make an effort to post everyday. I seriously want to return to my topic based posting, that is so much interesting a read, and so much more of a joy for me to write about. Can't wait.

WEEK 1

Monday

Today was a happy day. First of all, we didn't have school, because tutorials only started on week 2, and evidently, Mondays are purely tutorial days for us. So since we were all free, we decided to hold our first ever 1C01 class outing.

We were supposed to meet at Orchard MRT at 12.30pm if I'm not wrong. I screwed up quite a lot while I was trying to get there. Thanks to my obliviousness, I took the bus all the way to Somerset MRT, instead of Orchard. If I had dropped off at Orchard, I would have actually been there early.

Once I realised that I was in the wrong MRT station, instead of conveniently taking a train to Orchard, which was only one stop away, I decided to be thrifty, so I started walking to Orchard.

Big mistake.

Orchard and Somerset may be really close by to each other, but they are still quite a distance apart when you are walking. By the time I got there, I was the last one to arrive, and I was feeling sweaty and tired.

Everyone decided to eat at Fish and Co, which was at Heeren. Of course, I had only passed by the place just moments ago. And now I was walking back. I guess I got my punishment for my lack of punctuality.

Once we got to the restaurant, there wasn't enough place to fit us all, so we had to wait until people vacated the place before we could get in. We joined four tables together, so that we could all chat while we ate.

I should probably mention right now that I have only went to Fish and Co twice prior to this, so I had no idea what the menu was like. The food turned out to be of the expensive sort. The prices were reasonable to me, so I got a solo portion, while others preferred to share.

I ordered the Fish and Chips. I honestly prefer chicken to fish, but the fish turned out to be alright. I've eaten much better in Australia, but I guess the Fish and Chips from Fish and Co is already one of the best there is available locally.

While we were eating, I got to know the people sitting around me a little better. Mostly learned about their interests, and other stuff that I cannot remember now.

Several people in my class had cameras, which are those large, black cameras used by professional photographers in case you don't know. These cameras are recommended for my course, so I'll probably be getting one later this year.This kinda camera:

After lunch, we were trying to decide where to go. A whole lot of places were suggested, but we eventually went to McDonalds at Shaw Centre, where some people got themselves an ice cream, then we took a train to City Hall.

We went to the Esplanade and we just sat at the rooftop for a while and we played games. I have never been to the rooftop before. New experience!! Then I took a bus home, while the others took a train.

Throughout the day, we took numerous photos. I'm uploading some of them, but these do not belong to me. All credit goes to the ones who took them:

1CO1 waiting for foodMajority of 1C01Playing gamesThe girls of 1C01The guys of 1C01

Tuseday

We officially started school today. We had Journalism 1 News [J1 News] lecture with Mr. Ramesh. He is an awesome guy. Really funny, and he actually makes an attempt to engage with the class. Great way to start poly life.

We had a short break, then we had Essential Graphics [Ess Gra] and Graphic Design Fundamental [GDF] lectures. Our teacher for these subjects is Ms Teh Yee Lin.

It's kinda weird to look at her as a lecturer, because her name sounds almost like Tay Yiling, and she looks like Angie from some angles!! Seriously.

We finished at 2pm, because there are no tutorials this week. Since we finished early, we decided to go to E Hub, which was at Pasir Ris. We were going there because today is Tuesday.

Gelare's half priced ice cream and waffles day!!

We went to eat at Burger King when we got there. It was fun slacking there, because it was mostly empty and quiet, and the air con was very strong. After that, the majority of our group went to play pool, while the rest of us went to have our dessert.

Once again, photos were taken. And once again, these do not belong to me. All credit goes to the ones who took them:

Lunch. Gerald telling story

Mohawks!!Porter why you look at me like that hmm?

Everyone is posing, while I'm just stoning.You will only see me this happy when I get cheap but delicious waffles and ice cream.

Wednesday

Nothing much happened today. School started at 3pm, which was awesome. The CCA fair was being held at the Plaza. Really crowded and warm, so I didn't bother looking at the offered activities.

I met up with a group of my classmates in the library. I love the guy who invented the air conditioner. We should all just build a building sized statue of him in the middle of the CBD to acknowledge his Nobel Prize deserving invention.

We had Media and Society [Med Soc] lecture today. I'm sorry, but Med Soc is one boring subject. I cannot understand a single thing the lecturer, Mr. T, is saying, because his lecture is so dry and dull that I just involuntarily start to drift off.

Thursday

No school today, because once again, it was a purely tutorial day. I heard that a group of people from 1C01 went jamming. I could have gone, but I think my guitar skills are too embarrassing. So I just stayed at home and slacked for most of the day.

Friday

We had our first tutorial today. I know, I said that we weren't having tutorials for the first week, but today was an exception, because it was a make up tutorial for next Friday. Since we wouldn't be having school due to Labour Day and all.

Our tutorial for today was for GDF. It is our longest lesson at four hours long. Sounds intimidating, but it is actually super slack. It's basically like art and craft. We all had to bring an A3 Sketch Book, as well as a set of colour pencils and drawing material.

We sat in an air conditioned room, listened to our own music, and we wrote down 15 adjectives that described ourselves. After that, we had to incorporate these 15 words into a poster. We did this for about an hour and a half.

Next, we went our of the classroom to collect design samples from all over TP. Most of us just went to the Design School canteen to eat. After eating, we got our samples, then we headed back to the classroom.

After that each of us did an individual presentation for our poster, and we talked about the design that interested us the most. With all that done, we were dismissed. Amazing how fast four hours can pass by.

Now we had a long three hour break. I followed a group of my classmates to Mensa, which is said to be the cafeteria with the best Western food in TP. I ate chicken chop. I have never tried the Western food in the other cafeterias, so I cannot compare yet.

After that we went to the Student Center, because some of us had to collect their EZ-Link cards. The chairs in there were super comfortable, and the air con felt really good as well, so we just stayed in there for a long time.

I also went to order my laptop, since today is the last day of the mini IT Fair in TP. I'm getting an Acer model, which costs about $1700, and it comes with $500 worth of freebies. I have to pay $500 for this, and my dad is going to pay the rest, because he wants me to have a sense of ownership for it.

For that price, I think I'm getting a really good and powerful laptop. If you are interested in the specifications, here they are. Click to enlarge:

Finally it was time for the last lecture of the week, Communications and Media Marketing [CMM]. The lecturer for this subject is Ms Winnie Tan. At that point of time, it was a little hard to judge her, because she looked like a slacker, but her attitude seemed like that of a loose cannon.

As for the subject itself, it's not exactly an interesting subject, neither is it an easy one, but it is way, way better than Med Soc. CMM is a little like humanities, which I am kinda good at.

The thing is, it's been so long since I last worked my brain, so it's going to take a while for me to get a grasp of those subjects that actually require thinking.

So yeah, there you have it. That's a summarised version of my first week at Temasek Polytechnic. I'll be lying if I said that I'm used to the school already, because we all know that these things take time.

Still, I'm slowly getting used to the school, the people around me, and the massive change the teaching methods. [Note: These are my thoughts at the end of the first week of school. Right now, I'm more or less used to poly life.]

Now I'm done with that. One more post tomorrow, and I'll be up to date.

Ok, I'm done for today. Thanks for reading. Ending off, see you tomorrow.

2009-04-17T23:13:00.000-07:00

Hello. Today was Day 2 of the Business School Orientation. It was also the final orientation day for all first year students at TP. We had our annual Regatta in the evening, and there was some big shot Head of something guy from the government who was coming to watch it.

In my opinion, this day was a much more slack day compared to yesterday. We went gathered in some lecture theater once we got to school, then we listened to Darryl David talk. Yes, the Darryl David. The one who hosted The Pyramid Game. This guy:

Of course, he looks much older now. He seems kinda strict. Really particular about punctuality and all. Also, he made several mean comments about fat people wearing revealing or tight clothes. In my opinion, fat people can wear whatever they want, as long as they are confident wearing it.

After being introduced to the staff and all, we were dismissed and we just had breakfast outside the LT. After that, we headed to some computer lab to meet our Care Person, Mrs Felicia Nah.

Before all that, one thing about the computers in the TP computer labs. Why are the screens so freakin small? If I spread out my palm, it can cover then entire screen.

What gives TP? Not enough funds? You can afford a huge, multi level, air conditioned library with thousands of books and audio visual stuff in it, but you cannot afford decent sized computer screens?

Anyways, we just sat in the computer lab for a while and listened to Mrs Nah talk, then she handed out some important stuff to us, like our matriculation cards, and out student guides. She seems like a nice, un-strict and funny woman. Which is great.

After meeting our CP, we had lunch, which was the same chicken rice as yesterday. It's not bad, but it sucks that I didn't get any cucumbers while everyone else got them. I don't love cucumbers or anything, but at least that way there will be a bit of variety to my meal.

Most of the class was gone by then. Either taking part in one of the three activities I mentioned yesterday, or gone home. The few of us that remained headed down to the sports complex to cheer our school's mass dancers on.

This part of the day was ****ing screwed. Business is a large school, second largest in TP to be exact. So not everyone could fit into the cool shade of the spectator stand. Obviously, we weren't part of that lucky group.

We had to sit under the scorching sun, on the running track, and we had to cheer at the same time. As if I am not already dark enough. Halfway through, I got forced into the making noise with rubbish crew. I just kinda clapped my hands and cheered for a while.

As soon as we started moving off to Bedok Reservoir, I sneaked back to my class. Turns out more people left, and there were only four of us left there.

It was much better once we got into the reservoir. The shade of the trees, as well as the giant tents put up for us, blocked out most of the sun's rays. Definitely a welcomed relief.

A whole bunch of stuff happened at the Regatta. Several dragon boat races, cheer leading competition, best cheer competition, and a performance by Singapore's number one wake boarder.

Eventually Business School won, for the fifth consecutive year. As Andrew put it, we probably won because we were the most enthusiastic school there. Most of the other schools didn't even bother. Engineering school is much stronger than Business in terms of numbers, but they didn't do a thing to try and beat us.

So of course, we did the school song and all, and if I'm not wrong, there were a few encores, but most of the Business School people just left after it was announced that we won.

There was the annual Jam and Hop after that. It's basically just a dance night. Having already gone through that during the FOC, I decided to give it a miss. Hundreds of sweaty people dancing in a stuffy hall after a long day of activities doesn't exactly sound very appealing.

Anyways, I had friends to meet :D

Just slacked at Coffee Bean at Tiong Bahru plaza for a while. Talked a lot of crap, and just laughed a lot in general. Got forced to cam whore with them. Of course, you will never see those photos.

It would be great if it could go on being like that. Unfortunately, fate isn't kind. Still, what's done, or at least what is about to happen, cannot be undone, and we just got to keep moving on with life. We'll hang out like that every holiday when you are back :D

By the time I got home I was really tired. Still, I had enough stamina left for some DotA. Also, the new Naruto and Bleach chapters are out. I'm uploading some pages. Click to enlarge.

This weeks Naruto was kinda boring actually. All talk, and no action. I have a feeling that it's going to be this way for a while. Some pages:

Nagato attacks Naruto.

Instead of dodging the attack, Naruto lets it hit him.

Naruto is kinda pissed.

He charges towards Nagato, with the intention of killing him.

But Naruto stops, and he listens to Nagato's story.

Nagato's parents were accidentally killed by Konoha ninja during the Ninja War.

Overcome by grief, Nagato's Rinnegan awakens.

Bleach, on the other hand, is just getting stupid. We are all familiar with Yammi. He was introduced as Espada 10, and we were all given the impression that he sucked. Most of us just see him as a loser. And now they decide to reveal that he is, in fact, Espada 0, most kick ass of all. Some pages:

I don't get this. It's normal to think of Orihime as you die, but why mention Ichigo?

Even on the verge of death, Ulqiourra is still trying to grope Orihime.

Emo page.

Even more emo page.

Overly emo page.

Rukia, Renji and Chad get ready to take down Yammi.

Yammi unleashes his sword.

The 1 disappears, making Yammi Espada 0, the strongest of all.

Isn't that a little too big?

I'd like to see the three of them get out of this one.

Ok, I'm done for today. Thanks for reading. [KOAS KW!!] Ending off, see you tomorrow.

2009-04-16T23:11:00.000-07:00

Hello. Today was Day 1 of the Business School Orientation!! I went to school not know what to expect, but I came home feeling quite satisfied. I was apprehensive about the whole thing. What if it was going to be as hardcore as the Student Union camp?

When I got into the Convention Center, I went to register. I was in class 1C01. I knew quite a few people who were also in CMM, so I was hoping that at least one of them would be in the same class as me.

When I got into the auditorium, which was kinda massive, I was the first person in my class to be there. I met our student leaders. One of them was a senior from our course. He showed me the class list for 1C01. No one I knew.

Soon, more people came and I introduced myself to as many people as possible. We sat there and watched videos and listened to speeches and watched several performances until it was about 12pm. Then the student leaders started asking for volunteers to take part in inter-school events.

There was the Regatta, which was the dragon boat race. There was the cheer leading competition. And there was the group that had to make lots of noise using trash. Forgot what it's called.

Seeing that almost my entire class volunteered to take part in one of the aforementioned events, I didn't have much of a choice but to volunteer as well. Cheer leading was definitely out, and I had no idea what the hell was the other group supposed to do, so I chose to go for the Regatta.

Eventually I wasn't selected because there was an abundance of volunteers. Alright, it's not that I wasn't picked or anything. I'm sure they would have loved having me on the team, especially because of my size and all. I just sort of stood at the back until there were no vacancies left.

By the time I was told that I could go back to my class, my class was no longer there. They were at the sports complex having lunch. I met up with a few other CMM people, and we followed a student leader back to the sports complex.

After lunch, it was time for mass dance!! Mass dance is awesome fun, I already knew that from the FOC. I already more or less knew the dance steps, so I had fun.

TP mass dance is awesome because it's fun, easy to learn and most importantly, it doesn't put you in awkward positions with your dance partner.

For those interested, this is the TP mass dance:

I love the spinning and running part!! Super fun. Looks alright in the video, because there are only a few people dancing. When the whole school is dancing, it is just chaotic fun.

Just so you know, the TP mass dance is almost always followed the chicky dance, and after that we usually do the TP school song. TP has the awesomest school song ever by the way. So fun to sing it!! Video of the school song:

After dancing for about an hour, everyone was tired, and we were all feeling warm, so we proceeded to an air conditioned lecture theater.We played some battle of the sexes game. The programmers for the games decided to use imeem to search for music.

The games were fun. There was a game that required us to blow balloons and burst them by sitting our assess down on them. There was a game that compared which gender was able to cheer louder. And there was a dancing game.

But it was imeem that really stole the show. The projector was turned on, so everything the programmers saw on the computer screen would be projected onto the big screen as well.

At first we were all more focused on the games. Then they played the music video of one of Lady GaGa's songs. Now, we all know that Lady GaGa doesn't like wearing much clothes. We also know that guys cannot help but look at women who aren't wearing much clothes.

So naturally, the guys got a little distracted. Then came the funniest part of the day. The programmers were scrolling down the page, and then two advertisements appeared on the screen. Ads for some porn site. Super funny. What's more, it was uncensored. I almost FOTCL.

After spending a little more than an hour in the blissfully cold room, we were herded back to the sports complex. We just sat there for a while. We were supposed to be meeting our care persons, but since ours wasn't there, we just chatted with our senior.

There was some tug of war game going on in the background. Freshies vs Staff if I'm not wrong. I was only aware of it after the first round was complete. I think we won two rounds, and the staff won one.

Then we all did one last mass dance on the field. Then we did the chicky dance, and finally, we all formed one gigantic circle, large enough to circumscribe the entire running track, and we sang the TP school song.

Then we were dismissed and I went to meet Say Yin and Andrew for dinner. We ate at the stores opposite TP. The food there was surprisingly cheap, and it tasted quite alright too. After dinner we saw the hilarious sight of a fat cat lying on the floor with its feet up, as if it was dead.

My father came to pick me up and he gave both of them a lift. He dropped Say Yin at his house, and Andrew at some bus stop. When I got home I wanted to watch Ninja Warrior, but it turns out that there wasn't any Ninja Warrior.

After that I just used my computer for a bit, and now I am going to sleep. There is still a whole day of orientation left, and I need my energy.

Ok, I'm done for today. Thanks for reading. [KOAS KW!!] Ending off, see you tomorrow.

2009-04-15T23:13:00.000-07:00

Hello.

Today is my birthday!!!

I went to eat breakfast at East Coast McDonalds, lunch at Cafe Cartel at IMM, and then I went to dye my hair. Supposed to just highlight to cover my ugly white hairs, but it turned out that highlighting won't be able to do that, so I just coloured all my hair.

Now my hair is this colour:

It's called Mahogany Brown. Looks a little reddish to me.

I got a $101 cologne from my dad. I was just counting the amount of dollars he spent on me this year for my birthday, and guess what?

It was a lot of dollars. I'll break it down for you.

-Clothes: $400
-Games: $120
-Watch: $100
-Cakes: $40
-Phone: Free, but about $100 to get the plan.
-Cologne: $100
-Food for party: $300
-Electricity bill for party: Probably $30

TOTAL: $1190

So yeah, my dad spent quite a bit of money on me this year. Now I'm guilty for just spending $30 on his birthday present.

I also have to all those who treated me to dinner and stuff, and thanks once again to everyone who gave me a present.

And now, I'm going to end off this post. Shortest post ever, I know, but I get to do that today because it's my birthday!!

So yeah, I'm done for today. Thanks for reading. [KOAS KW!!] Ending off, see you tomorrow.

2009-04-12T23:31:00.000-07:00

Hello. I just had my birthday party last night. I'm super pleased by the outcome. That was honestly the best party I've been to in my life. Alright, so I don't go to much parties, but I have gone to enough of them to make a comparison.

To be honest, things started out rough. I didn't confirm much things, like the time to meet and the directions to my house, until a few hours before the party. I did not confirm how many people would be coming.

But as the day progressed, things started falling into place. I walked to Tiong Bahru Plaza with my brother at about 12pm, and I met a group of people there. We had lunch at KFC. I was really happy to see them because it has really been a while. They got me some presents, then we left.

We walked to Tiong Bahru Community Center and we played basketball. It's been a few months since I last played, and my accuracy is seriously off. Also, I wasn't wearing sport shoes, so I had to play bare footed on the scorching ground.

Still, I had a lot of fun playing basketball. A lot of super funny denials and some really nice shots. I realised that my brother is actually pretty good at basketball. After playing for a little more than an hour, we walked back to my house.

Most of us took a shower, and while the rest were waiting for the bathroom to become vacant, we started playing Guitar Hero World Tour. It was fun watching some of them play the game for the first time.

It is always hilarious when some one attempts to sing. But we weren't laughing at the singers, we were laughing with them. There is a difference.

My father and I had to make several car trips to Tiong Bahru Plaza to fetch groups of people. Soon the more "high" people came, and the party really got going.

Now I truly understand why Guitar Hero and Rock Band are considered to be the ultimate party games. When there's just a few of you playing, it's fun, but when you are playing while there is a large group watching, it just becomes freakin awesome.

It's really satisfying when you're playing a song, and people actually start to clap or sing along. When we were playing "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" by Jet, many of us were actually singing along to the song. Incredible experience.

We also played a few other games, like Street Fighter IV, and Halo 3. Street Fighter was fun, but it was hard to teach others how to use Super and Ultra Combos. You usually learn that kinda stuff through trail and error. As for Halo 3, two words: Ernest. Own.

We also played quite a bit of Guitar Hero Metallica, which my brother bought for me. It was awesome to be able to play it with others who actually appreciate Metallica like I do. Metallica's songs may be long, and they require a lot of finger stamina to play through, but when playing with three other Metallica fans, the songs just seem to speed past.

I found the food pretty nice. The fried rice was nice, so was the fish and the chicken. I ordered food meant for 30 people. There was about 25 people there, including my family, and we managed to clear the food quite quickly.

Then it was time to cut my cakes. Yes, cakes. I had two cakes. My mother baked both. One was a heart shaped cake, which said "Happy Birthday Shiva" and it had the words "TPCBSU FTW" on it as well.

The other cake was probably the awesomest cake in all history. It was a circular cake, and it had the Slipknot logo on it. Super cool cake. My mother did a really great job with the "S" symbol. As everyone put it, that was a satanic cake.

After eating the cake, we played a bit more Rock Band, then we all walked down to Tiong Bahru Plaza. A few of us went to Mos Burger to slack. I ate supper there. We just sat around and took several photos, then they left.

I walked back home with Andrew and Yeow Boon, because they were staying over. We watched Harold and Kumar: Go To White Castle, then we just used the Internet for a while. We played Hotel 626 to the end, and it is honestly not scary any longer after playing it a few times.

We slept at 2:30am, because we planned to wake up at 8am and go to McDonalds for breakfast. What actually happened was that we woke up at 8am, then all three of us went back to sleep. When we all woke up again, it was already 9.30am. Andrew left first, then Yeow Boon left after breakfast.

By 11am I was alone at home, since my parents brought both my siblings to Toa Payoh for tuition. I made a few phone calls, and I got another great birthday present. Not really an object kind of present, but still an awesome present nonetheless. We should do that again :D

Now I would like to mention my heartfelt words of appreciation to all who came.

Thank you for coming and helping to make it the best party of my life. Tiong Bahru is quite a distance from most of your houses, and it's really nice of you guys to make the trip.

Thank you for considering for those who couldn't make it. Don't worry, there will always be another time :D

Thank you for being understanding about my satanic cake.

Thank you for enduring the fact that there weren't any girls.

Thank you for this basketball.

Thank you for this [black :D] controller.

Thank you for Guitar Hero Metallica.

Thank you for The Godfather II.

Thank you for this notebook.

Thank you for this [freakin cool] Death Note pen.

Thank you for the hearts :D

Thank you for the experience :D [I can't put a photo of this. lol.]

And finally, thank you to everyone who wished me!!

Seriously guys, thank you so much for everything you have done for this party.

I love the stuff you guys gave me. We already used the basketball for a few fun matches. Now I won't have a controller shortage problem when there are visitors. What's more, the new controller is in sexy black!!

We all unleashed our inner metal gods that day while playing Guitar Hero Metallica. I've been having a blast playing The Godfather II. The executions are sexily brutal. I'm planning to combine the Death Note pen and the notebook.

I'm going to dub the note book my Sex Note. It works the same way as a Death Note. The hearts just further supports the fact that everyone loves me :D The experience just blew my mind away. It was that awesome.

But of course, the best gift all of you have given me is your friendship!! Also, your presence there was more than enough to make me happy :D

I really enjoyed myself last night. I'm probably going to hold a gathering again, maybe at the end of the year or so. By then, I would have made quite a few female friends from poly, so it will be a much better party.

Once again, thank you for coming, and thanks for all the presents. Hope to see all of you really soon.

Some photos of the party:

These were taken with my phone camera, so the quality isn't really that good. If you want to see more photos, head to Joseph Ng's facebook account. There are two albums of photos there. Once again, I'll upload videos once blogger sorts out its video uploading system.

Ok, I'm done for today. Thanks for reading. [KOAS KW!!] Ending off, see you tomorrow.