I GOT A DOUBLE!! last week's grading's results came out yesterday n boy was i surprised. teacher gave me a scare by announcing my name last n i seriously tot dat i failed the grading cuz she finished giving out the blue belts, red tips, then red belts n still din call me. then mira was called out n (this is hillarious) ms looi tore off a bit of mira's red 'tip' (which is actually juz red tape wound around the tip of the belt) n put it on a blue belt. guess she ran out of red tips, haha. then FINALLY i was called out to receive my new belt.
i hv this feeling dat i dun relly deserve the belt lah. mebbe ms looi knew i was gonna take study leave liao so she 'helped' me along by giving me a double? cuz i din win a gold in the state tourney (almost everyone who got a double were gold winners. sob..) n i kinda sucked during the grading (refer prev post). but still, its nice to see some new colours on my belt :D
anyway, for those of u interested in wat i had been up to, i recently watched 2 movies (on my comp, that is)....starship troopers 2 n chronicles of riddick. starship troopers 2 sucked, majorly. the story plot was horrible, there were completely no references to the original movie (which stands among my top 5 movies of all time) n there was none of the elements dat made the 1st movie so great in my opinion.
chronicles of riddick was good tho. despite the bad reviews of it floating around the net, i found the story quite interesting n the action was definitely great. its not everyday u see a movie hero killing a bad guy with a teacup. the story may be quite confusing at first tho....there were stuff dat i only understood after reading bout the movie (n related pc game) at wikipedia. still, its not bad at all.
ok, back to the drawing board for me....
Monday, July 25, 2005
Friday, July 22, 2005
may this serve as a warning to the inexperienced....
thats wat u get when u engage in certain activities without consulting an expert like me
Sunday, July 17, 2005
bon odori & grading
saturday: bon odori
not relly interesting, n blew 20 bucks there
picked up caryn n june at around 7, then drove over to the esplanade...it wasnt so jammed but the parking spaces nearby were all full (except for one in a secluded alley which a stupid indian fella was trying to con us to going in to, n i had better sense than dat...poor safety + having to pay for his 'service'? no way!) so in the end we parked somewhere near the bank street...10 minutes' walk away from the festival venue...
after reaching there we met up wif ej n went to look at the japanese dance which was going on. it wasnt relly dat good...the dancers dun seem very familiar wif their moves n werent synchronised. hehe u wud think dat they wud hv worked harder to put up a good show for their last year. but anyway there was a lot of ppl gathered around the circular stage where the dancing was taking place.
following that, we went looking around the stalls for some chow. the stalls were organised into rows like chinese, malay n japanese food. everything was paid for by coupons, n one set of coupons is 20 bucks! but the jap food was so expensive we finished our coupons without relly filling up oso.
there was this one jap bbq something stall that ej queued up for while i went to get the noodles. 5 mins later, i went back to find ej n he hasnt moved an inch in the queue. i went to look for my prefect juniors (got motive lah ;P) n when i came back 15 mins later, ej has made 2 steps' progress. then the fireworks started n went on for about 5 or 10 minutes. after which, we still had to wait another 10 minutes b4 ej finally emerged truimphantly from the queue. then i asked him: "where's mine?" n he sed "i tot u sed u dun wan!" -_-'
anyway, we originally wanted 2 eat at the seaside, but it turned out the whole stretch of the curb there was fully seated. so we scouted around n finally came upon an unoccupied table n settled our food, which did not come close to filling us up. (well, us 2 guys anyway) then we walked around a bit more n it was time to go home.
sunday: grading
man was it a disaster!
as was the norm for tkd events, we waited for a long long time there. i managed to learn all 7 one-step sparring sequences n 10 self defense sequences in that time (having been absent for class last sunday n yesterday morning) so it was lucky we had so much free time after all. but it din help me much, cuz i relly messed up the basics. i already knew it was bad news when i 1st saw the grading syllabus. we had to do the blasted jumping kicks (front, side, turning) AGAIN...i mean, we did that for the green belt grading last year! apparently they shifted it up to blue tip so rugilah kita who already did it last year (dats me, justin n samantha).
in case dan's wondering y i'm making such a fuss about jumping kicks, its becuz in tkd 'jumping kick' means u hv 2 jump n HOLD the kick when u land. holding normal kicks is hard enuf for me n jumping is all but impossible. n it kinda makes no sense to put ur leg out like that but lets not go into that for now.
anyway, when our turn came along i messed nearly everything up. 1stly was patterns, i 'gave it 101%' n messed up my side kicks which i was never good at (the tkd side kick still feels a bit weird after all this time). then when it came to basics, my jumping kicks were like waist high, which defeats the purpose of jumping in the first place. then came one step n self defence which wasnt so bad, then sparring. man, justin's an absolute horror as a sparring partner. he kept kicking below the belt! so i din dare to kick to high cuz we werent wearing groin guards n i dun wan 2 resort to cloning to reproduce in the future. the only thing i cud do was get in close n jam his kicks then try to do a chopping kick. but when dat happens he turns his back to me n squats down n covers his head! so i din get a clear hit on him at all. ok, enuf of technical stuff :P
so in short i can kiss that double promotion bye bye d. i think i'll skip next week's class cuz it'll b real siahsui when samantha n mira get their double n i dun.
not relly interesting, n blew 20 bucks there
picked up caryn n june at around 7, then drove over to the esplanade...it wasnt so jammed but the parking spaces nearby were all full (except for one in a secluded alley which a stupid indian fella was trying to con us to going in to, n i had better sense than dat...poor safety + having to pay for his 'service'? no way!) so in the end we parked somewhere near the bank street...10 minutes' walk away from the festival venue...
after reaching there we met up wif ej n went to look at the japanese dance which was going on. it wasnt relly dat good...the dancers dun seem very familiar wif their moves n werent synchronised. hehe u wud think dat they wud hv worked harder to put up a good show for their last year. but anyway there was a lot of ppl gathered around the circular stage where the dancing was taking place.
following that, we went looking around the stalls for some chow. the stalls were organised into rows like chinese, malay n japanese food. everything was paid for by coupons, n one set of coupons is 20 bucks! but the jap food was so expensive we finished our coupons without relly filling up oso.
there was this one jap bbq something stall that ej queued up for while i went to get the noodles. 5 mins later, i went back to find ej n he hasnt moved an inch in the queue. i went to look for my prefect juniors (got motive lah ;P) n when i came back 15 mins later, ej has made 2 steps' progress. then the fireworks started n went on for about 5 or 10 minutes. after which, we still had to wait another 10 minutes b4 ej finally emerged truimphantly from the queue. then i asked him: "where's mine?" n he sed "i tot u sed u dun wan!" -_-'
anyway, we originally wanted 2 eat at the seaside, but it turned out the whole stretch of the curb there was fully seated. so we scouted around n finally came upon an unoccupied table n settled our food, which did not come close to filling us up. (well, us 2 guys anyway) then we walked around a bit more n it was time to go home.
sunday: grading
man was it a disaster!
as was the norm for tkd events, we waited for a long long time there. i managed to learn all 7 one-step sparring sequences n 10 self defense sequences in that time (having been absent for class last sunday n yesterday morning) so it was lucky we had so much free time after all. but it din help me much, cuz i relly messed up the basics. i already knew it was bad news when i 1st saw the grading syllabus. we had to do the blasted jumping kicks (front, side, turning) AGAIN...i mean, we did that for the green belt grading last year! apparently they shifted it up to blue tip so rugilah kita who already did it last year (dats me, justin n samantha).
in case dan's wondering y i'm making such a fuss about jumping kicks, its becuz in tkd 'jumping kick' means u hv 2 jump n HOLD the kick when u land. holding normal kicks is hard enuf for me n jumping is all but impossible. n it kinda makes no sense to put ur leg out like that but lets not go into that for now.
anyway, when our turn came along i messed nearly everything up. 1stly was patterns, i 'gave it 101%' n messed up my side kicks which i was never good at (the tkd side kick still feels a bit weird after all this time). then when it came to basics, my jumping kicks were like waist high, which defeats the purpose of jumping in the first place. then came one step n self defence which wasnt so bad, then sparring. man, justin's an absolute horror as a sparring partner. he kept kicking below the belt! so i din dare to kick to high cuz we werent wearing groin guards n i dun wan 2 resort to cloning to reproduce in the future. the only thing i cud do was get in close n jam his kicks then try to do a chopping kick. but when dat happens he turns his back to me n squats down n covers his head! so i din get a clear hit on him at all. ok, enuf of technical stuff :P
so in short i can kiss that double promotion bye bye d. i think i'll skip next week's class cuz it'll b real siahsui when samantha n mira get their double n i dun.
Friday, July 15, 2005
last 2 weeks
man, last 2 weeks had been absolutely hectic. sorry, i mean, boring.
i suppose i owe everyone an apology for not updating. but then, it'll b as arrogant as an eldar if i were to assume dat everyone checks my blog for daily updates of my oh-so-uninteresting life :P n since everyone else had been on hiatus lately i think i can be excused for following (or setting?) the trend :D
anyway, in brief, the last 2 weeks saw me completing warhammer 40k: dawn of war (see last post) n LEGO star wars (more on this later), going out a few times (a few times more than i shud :S) cuz someone unexpectedly came back 2 penang to 'haunt my days' hehe...n oh, there was this 'training camp' held by my tkd centre last sat, which i found to be utterly pointless. sorry ms looi, its d truth...
more on LEGO star wars: contrary to my initial opinion, its actually quite an addictive game. i mean, how many games lets u use the force on objects such as cups and tables to make 'coins' pop out of thin air *rolls eyes* but for some reason the ridiculousness of the game fades after swinging the cartoon (LEGO) lightsaber a few times. getting to play almost every character (well, their LEGO versions anyway) in the star wars movies oso helped keep me stuck there. n for concerned parents out there, not one bit of blood is spilled in the game cuz ur enemies r made of LEGO blocks dat juz split apart when u defeat them :P
anyway, dan came back 2 penang for a 2-week (less, actually) stay...ej n rentai 'pulled' me out for a movie despite my adamant (?) objections...then while we were having dinner at nando's b4 the movie, ej accidentally spilled the beans b4 the big guy himself showed up :D but it was a nice surprise all the same. dat was last wed. then we went hiking on sunday (n i skipped tkd :P) n played tennis, the last time we (ej, dan n me) wud b playing together for a long time i think, n got to spar a few rounds wif dan at psc later that day....then on monday we went to rock the world at redbox followed by a few rounds at the cybercafe :P (won 1 round of homeworld 2 n 1 round of starcraft, then ghee got nasty n got everyone to ally against me in sc but i got the highest score anyway even when i lost)
tomolo's bon odori, the last time it'll b held in penang..or so i've heard. want 2 go, but dun hv a date :P ah well, life's like that....
i suppose i owe everyone an apology for not updating. but then, it'll b as arrogant as an eldar if i were to assume dat everyone checks my blog for daily updates of my oh-so-uninteresting life :P n since everyone else had been on hiatus lately i think i can be excused for following (or setting?) the trend :D
anyway, in brief, the last 2 weeks saw me completing warhammer 40k: dawn of war (see last post) n LEGO star wars (more on this later), going out a few times (a few times more than i shud :S) cuz someone unexpectedly came back 2 penang to 'haunt my days' hehe...n oh, there was this 'training camp' held by my tkd centre last sat, which i found to be utterly pointless. sorry ms looi, its d truth...
more on LEGO star wars: contrary to my initial opinion, its actually quite an addictive game. i mean, how many games lets u use the force on objects such as cups and tables to make 'coins' pop out of thin air *rolls eyes* but for some reason the ridiculousness of the game fades after swinging the cartoon (LEGO) lightsaber a few times. getting to play almost every character (well, their LEGO versions anyway) in the star wars movies oso helped keep me stuck there. n for concerned parents out there, not one bit of blood is spilled in the game cuz ur enemies r made of LEGO blocks dat juz split apart when u defeat them :P
anyway, dan came back 2 penang for a 2-week (less, actually) stay...ej n rentai 'pulled' me out for a movie despite my adamant (?) objections...then while we were having dinner at nando's b4 the movie, ej accidentally spilled the beans b4 the big guy himself showed up :D but it was a nice surprise all the same. dat was last wed. then we went hiking on sunday (n i skipped tkd :P) n played tennis, the last time we (ej, dan n me) wud b playing together for a long time i think, n got to spar a few rounds wif dan at psc later that day....then on monday we went to rock the world at redbox followed by a few rounds at the cybercafe :P (won 1 round of homeworld 2 n 1 round of starcraft, then ghee got nasty n got everyone to ally against me in sc but i got the highest score anyway even when i lost)
tomolo's bon odori, the last time it'll b held in penang..or so i've heard. want 2 go, but dun hv a date :P ah well, life's like that....
Saturday, July 09, 2005
For the Imperium!
juz finished playing warhammer 40000: dawn of war last nite. d single-player campaign was rather short, consisting of only 10 (or was it 11?) missions...but i spent bout 1 day on each mission....haih need to polish up my strategy gaming skills...
for those who dunno, dawn of war is a strategy game set in the warhammer 40000 universe created by Games Workshop. originally a boardgame, d warhammer franchise grew n while it never reached d same level of fame or popularity as star wars, star trek etc, it built up its own fan base over d years. i 1st knew bout warhammer 40k back in...primary sch when i got a game called Space Hulk. basically warhammer 40k is about a universe torn by war between various factions, the most notable being the Imperium of Mankind, the 'savage' (in d game they were portrayed as being rather comical) Orks, the enigmatic n 'arrogant' Eldars (imho d true 'good guys' of the game), the bio-terror Tyranid Swarm, n the forces of Chaos aka the Great Enemy. there r numerous other races n factions too but to avoid boring everyone to death i'll leave those interested to find out for themselves :P
the background story's pretty interesting too. in brief, mankind spread to the stars after the invention of the 'warp drive' which allows spaceships to travel in an alternate dimension n traverse great distances (think millions of light years) within a relatively short time. so they colonised d galaxy, met various alien species, n engaged in all out war. at about d same time latent psychic traits began to appear among some of the human population. those ppl, psykers, came to wield great power but since their abilities were drawn from the warp itself, they became gateways for 'fell creatures of the warp', known as daemons, to enter the world. so humanity was almost destroyed as they were fighting wars on two fronts...among the stars wif the aliens, n among themselves as daemons possessed whole populations n waged war on man. to cut a long story short, one guy, a 'psyker of remarkable power', emerged n united humanity as well as banishing the daemons back to the warp. this guy? the Emperor, unsurprisingly. so he established an Imperium stretching across a million worlds n put himself at the top. heheh.
still with me? ok, back to the game itself. as u can find out from any decent game review site, dawn of war lets u play 4 factions in multiplayer: Space Marines (humans), Eldar, Orks n Chaos. however the single-player campaign is only for the Space Marines, which imho left me feeling vaguely unsatisfied cuz we dun get to see the other factions' side of the story. the story starts as Captain Gabriel Angelo, a Space Marine Captain (those guys r rather high-ranking...since space marines were supposedly the elite 'superhuman' troops of the imperium) landed on the planet Tartarus to help the inhabitants fend off a massive Ork invasion. eventually they meet (n fight) the Eldar, n finally the forces of Chaos who turned out to be the real baddies.
ok enuf of this, i'm not being paid to review the game. all i hv to say is, the game rox! d graphics were awesome...everything - units, terrain, vehicles etc, r in full 3D, n u can zoom in to watch the fighting up close, which is paling impressive when vehicles or 'super-units' r killing infantry cuz they hv a bunch of special animations reserved for this purpose. for example when the Eldars' Avatar of Khaine, a 30-foot tall incarnation of their war-god, kills an infantry unit, he impales the unlucky fellow on his huge sword n lets him slide down its length, then flings d corpse away. cool eh?
d game also pays a lot of attention to balance. each weapon is only effective against certain unit types, for example machinegun-type guns against light infantry, plasma weaponry against heavy infantry, n rockets/missiles against vehicles. there's also a unique strategic element: morale. when units r outnumbered in melee (yup, u can let ur infantry engage in melee instead of shooting) or attacked by certain weapons, their morale will drop n the squad will become 'broken', at which point they take more damage while doing very little in return. interesting, relly.
ok, i'm sure by now i hv some of u guys out there salivating d. so if u wan d game, ask from me n i'll burn it for u :P no i'm not a good guy, i juz wan ppl to play multiplayer wif...
finally...got that off my back. now for 2 months of study until d next holidays....
notes:
1. This was actually posted since 5/7 (Tue) but for some reason it showed up on the Pirate's Coven instead of here...
2. We can now add images directly to Blogger instead of having to host it somewhere else? Good riddance to Flickr!
for those who dunno, dawn of war is a strategy game set in the warhammer 40000 universe created by Games Workshop. originally a boardgame, d warhammer franchise grew n while it never reached d same level of fame or popularity as star wars, star trek etc, it built up its own fan base over d years. i 1st knew bout warhammer 40k back in...primary sch when i got a game called Space Hulk. basically warhammer 40k is about a universe torn by war between various factions, the most notable being the Imperium of Mankind, the 'savage' (in d game they were portrayed as being rather comical) Orks, the enigmatic n 'arrogant' Eldars (imho d true 'good guys' of the game), the bio-terror Tyranid Swarm, n the forces of Chaos aka the Great Enemy. there r numerous other races n factions too but to avoid boring everyone to death i'll leave those interested to find out for themselves :P
the background story's pretty interesting too. in brief, mankind spread to the stars after the invention of the 'warp drive' which allows spaceships to travel in an alternate dimension n traverse great distances (think millions of light years) within a relatively short time. so they colonised d galaxy, met various alien species, n engaged in all out war. at about d same time latent psychic traits began to appear among some of the human population. those ppl, psykers, came to wield great power but since their abilities were drawn from the warp itself, they became gateways for 'fell creatures of the warp', known as daemons, to enter the world. so humanity was almost destroyed as they were fighting wars on two fronts...among the stars wif the aliens, n among themselves as daemons possessed whole populations n waged war on man. to cut a long story short, one guy, a 'psyker of remarkable power', emerged n united humanity as well as banishing the daemons back to the warp. this guy? the Emperor, unsurprisingly. so he established an Imperium stretching across a million worlds n put himself at the top. heheh.
still with me? ok, back to the game itself. as u can find out from any decent game review site, dawn of war lets u play 4 factions in multiplayer: Space Marines (humans), Eldar, Orks n Chaos. however the single-player campaign is only for the Space Marines, which imho left me feeling vaguely unsatisfied cuz we dun get to see the other factions' side of the story. the story starts as Captain Gabriel Angelo, a Space Marine Captain (those guys r rather high-ranking...since space marines were supposedly the elite 'superhuman' troops of the imperium) landed on the planet Tartarus to help the inhabitants fend off a massive Ork invasion. eventually they meet (n fight) the Eldar, n finally the forces of Chaos who turned out to be the real baddies.
ok enuf of this, i'm not being paid to review the game. all i hv to say is, the game rox! d graphics were awesome...everything - units, terrain, vehicles etc, r in full 3D, n u can zoom in to watch the fighting up close, which is paling impressive when vehicles or 'super-units' r killing infantry cuz they hv a bunch of special animations reserved for this purpose. for example when the Eldars' Avatar of Khaine, a 30-foot tall incarnation of their war-god, kills an infantry unit, he impales the unlucky fellow on his huge sword n lets him slide down its length, then flings d corpse away. cool eh?
d game also pays a lot of attention to balance. each weapon is only effective against certain unit types, for example machinegun-type guns against light infantry, plasma weaponry against heavy infantry, n rockets/missiles against vehicles. there's also a unique strategic element: morale. when units r outnumbered in melee (yup, u can let ur infantry engage in melee instead of shooting) or attacked by certain weapons, their morale will drop n the squad will become 'broken', at which point they take more damage while doing very little in return. interesting, relly.
ok, i'm sure by now i hv some of u guys out there salivating d. so if u wan d game, ask from me n i'll burn it for u :P no i'm not a good guy, i juz wan ppl to play multiplayer wif...
finally...got that off my back. now for 2 months of study until d next holidays....
notes:
1. This was actually posted since 5/7 (Tue) but for some reason it showed up on the Pirate's Coven instead of here...
2. We can now add images directly to Blogger instead of having to host it somewhere else? Good riddance to Flickr!
Monday, July 04, 2005
heheh...check it out!
btw, 2 things of interest:
1. today i experienced, for the first time, the pleasure of wearing my mp3 player to the toilet :P makes the boredom more....bearable :P:P
2. according to a medical lab test i did recently, my blood is type O, Rhesus positive. so dat means i'm a universal donor. geez, must i be so good?
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