Oops

i think i missed one week. haha. forgive me, it was a busy week. but finally all the submittable ICAs are done. abit late in updating. haha. there's been alot of Team Fortress 2 lately. and now its exam period.

i realize i'm not consistent in TF2. sometimes my aim is true 90% of the time, and i make all the right decisions and become a very valuable member to the team. sometimes i can't hit the enemy at all, and become useless to the team. i think its 60-40. 60% Fail 40% Win. i wonder what makes 60% fail. once i figure that out i think i can bring it down.

Beef Goulash

Made Beef Goulash for dinner tonight. It's supposed to be a soup but i added more tomato to make it chunkier and thicker so i could serve it as a gravy with rice.

apparantly i can't upload pictures because the 'upload pictures' button doesn't do anything. i wonder what's wrong. haha i took a whole bunch of pictures, but it seems i can't share it. if and when the blogger image uploader comes back, i'll share it.

it was fun to cook. here's a link to a picture online of someone else's beef goulash. its done right, without the tomato paste, so you can see the soupyness.

Beefy Goulash Goodness

error

my post editor seems to be screwing up. i don't get to format or add images etc. ah well

anyway, we went jamming today. marion, keith, kenneth and I. was okay. wasted alot of time until kenneth arrived late. jammed like 1 and a half song and we had to leave. haha.

BEGIN SARCASM
34 dollars well spent.
END SARCASM

though after that we went to the nearby subway for dinner. was fun. keith kenneth and marion seem to click really well. i think they were talking something about pigs or something. i was zoning out. worrying about work haha. though things are coming together nicely. apart from multicam being really really rushed, everything else seems to be coming together okay.

wanted to post about something else here but i completely forgot what. i hate it when that happens. anyway. its night time for me and i'm headed to bed. haveat.

WORK WORK WORK

WORK. WORK. WORK. WORK. WORK. WORK. WORK. WORK. WORK. WORK. WORK. WORK. WORK. WORK. WORK. WORK. WORK. WORK. WORK. WORK. WORK. WORK. WORK. WORK. WORK. WORK. WORK.



yeah that about sums up our time for the rest of the month. since school started its been ICA after ICA. not that its not interesting or we don't learn anything, its just really tiring. i've learned alot about doing surveys by writing my fail MMR report. so i may get a poor grade for this but at least i now know how to avoid that, haha. its just that i've been working at school work since my weekend started. haha how fun is that.

awesomeface helps alot though. haha. she keeps me sane and without her, i would probably have given up on some projects long ago. thanks for that, baby. (:

so me and shahrum are just putting the last touches on today's part of the MMR report. tomorrow i'll work on the executive summary and conclusion/recommendation. ATM i just can't really think much so haha.

on a side note, its nice to know that my readership is starting back up again. i promise you, at least a post a week from now on. keep reading, awesome people.

14 Days

These 2 weeks, this and the next, srsly needs to loosen up.

JW ICA3 is really tough, there's a language barrier for me, i need to interview a senior citizen who has not had the good fortune to retire. he or she is still working to make ends meet. unfortunately i've exhausted all my contacts and they all seem to be quite well off. then there's the fact that most of them speak only chinese dialects. and the fact that my chinese = fail, not to mention cantonese/hokkien/etc. anyway i'm heading off. GOOD DAY SIR.

P.S. my eye aches in a way eyes should never ache.

P.P.S. I SAID GOOD DAY.

WCG/Back to the 70s

Yesterday was a pretty interesting day. it started out with meeting baby at city hall for WCG.

someone got my hopes up in that there would be a halo 3 open category but there wasn't. but it was still awesome anyway. we met darren there and kenneth came later. finally got to see rainbow road in RL. me and marion thought he'd look like my brother, what with being the same age and everything but no, he doesn't look half as gay. hahaha.

i think we all had quite abit of fun, haha. its not so much the event but who you spend it with, really.

so WCG was interesting, spent most of the time sampling games, watching games, and laughing at fail cosplayers. was fun. haha

after that i went home and left for event no.2, Dominic's Birthday Party, themed as 'Disco Divas', everyone there was dressed as some cliche from the 70s.

Pictures probably on my mom's blog haha. so everyone had fun, but my cousins and i had to leave early: they had church tomorrow and we carpooled. but my mom stayed behind.

I'm Back!

Back in the New York Groove;

Hey look, i updated this dusty old thing. Though i doubt websites can actually get dusty.

If you're looking for an explanation for the 4 months of nothingness, you won't find one here. I'm probably going to be updating this quite frequently again. No promises, but have a little faith. don't think I'll bother with the reviews and such, maybe once in a while. they were horrible biased anyway. ha ha.

I hate the red underline when you're lazy to capitalize your 'I's when you type 'I'll', and i hate that 'ha[no space]ha' isn't in the English dictionary.

Anyway. today we celebrated Samuel 's birthday. [apparently Samuel[Aposthrophe(wtf i spelt{wtf 'spelt' is the past tense of 'spell'} that correctly)]'s' is not allowed either. I give up.

So today we celebrated Samuel's Eighteenth Birthday at Cha Cha Cha in Holland Village. More red lines. Mexican cuisine is awesome. All round we had Burritos, Fajitas, Tacos, and Margaritas; all perfectly acceptable words according to spell check. I had a ground beef burrito, personally i taste that its better than the hard shell ground beef tacos. A lot less messy too. I'm not sure what was had on the other end of the table [Kenneth Ang, Kenneth Kan, Javin and Keith], on our end we had Long, Yu Sheng, Samuel and Me. Huiwen and Tzuling kinda came together and were seated near center.

er. Picture 4 square tables together in a 2-Dimensional Column, then seats at every exposed face. Starting from the top, which is toward the street, away from the kitchen, and going clockwise, we have:

1. Kenneth Ang Ken Ji
   
2. Javin Soh Jing Ye
   
3. Kenneth Kan
4. Long Jun Hong
5. Tay Yu Sheng
6. Samuel Tay Kai Wen
7. Bezner Lim
8. See Huiwen
9. Lim Tzu Ling
10. Keith Heng Sheng Yuan

Note, the conversations at the table were had in two separate halves. the top two table chatted amongst themselves and the bottom two tables chatted amongst themselves. this lasts until after dinner.

So. after that incredibly detailed explanation of the seating arrangement, which really isn't important to the post at all, i guess we'll move on to the drinks. We had 4 jugs of margarita to go around, 2 at a time. 1 jug wasn't enough for 10 decent glasses all round apparently. so 2 jugs with enough for 5 people to refill once.

first round was 2 jugs of lime margaritas; my half of the table got refills. second round was 1 jug of lime margarita and another jug of strawberry flavored margarita. Some people got refills.

So here's the interesting thing. Interesting observation of the placebo effect in play today. [placebo pronounced play-see-bow]

First a short definition/explanation of what placebo effect is:

the tendency of any medication or treatment, even an inert or ineffective one, to exhibit results simply because the recipient believes that it will work

Watch this for a quick and fun example [HD is awesomer]:


so what happened was, i think after the first round of drinks, the barkeep decided that we weren't quite ready to be drinking so much, and the second round of margaritas were really weak. it was like a $40 pitcher of slurpee.

surprisingly though, it seems that a lot of them still got drunk. They were doing weird and crazy stuff under no influence of alcohol. ha ha. its all in the mind.

i think long, yu sheng and sam were like falling around and being all crazy, i didn't really see javin at all the whole night ha ha. and keith could only talk about jamming. it was so weird. 7 kids who thought they were drunk. at least we had fun, haha.




okay. so after that, we decided to walk to town. we kinda walked about 2 bus stops then took 165. everyone went off at thompson for some LAN gaming, they're not going home tonight; but kenneth and me went to hougang to head home, where i took a bus to get home and kenneth walked.

planning to go to WCG tomorrow but i gotta wake up at 8. So yeah. first of many posts. hopefully. haha. enjoy the video and the visualization.

Halo once more.

HALO WARS

had a taste of the Halo Wars demo for the xbox360. i know i'm a wee bit behind schedule, but budget's been tight, so games aren't a priority right now. however, i must say, halo wars is looking like a good game.

This is a covenant base. the graphics are pretty clean.

videos on youtube and demo gameplay really make me want to get the game, though i think i foresee that the game will have quite a low replayability. lots of scripted events in campaign mode means that playing levels again will result in the exact same game play and outcome.

Notice the Tauren Chieftain and the Brute Chopper

anyway, playing halo wars, with all its references to the original halo series [halo wars is not made by bungie], really makes me want to play halo again. like. i just played through a good half of the halo 3 campaign again on heroic.

and now its like a halo frenzy. i really want to do like a halo marathon [haha, 'marathon']. like halo 1, halo 2, halo 3. see how long it takes. or maybe invite some guys over to co-op. though... i don't have a working copy of halo 1 for the xbox anymore. if anyone has it i'm willing to pay a bit.

tastes

its been awhile. so whats new: nothing. i have not been doing anything much. i just finished harry potter's books 6 and 7, after re-reading books 1-5. its a great series, can't wait for the movie.

Marion's 18 too, and now she's in Spain on holiday. that means i won't be seeing much of her until the 26th, maybe plan something nice on the 27th. haha

i've found a recent gravitation towards blues rock in my musical endeavours, nice 12 bar blues improvisation. with some of my own variations. pretty fun. good stuff.

thats about it for now, till i can think of something special. haha.

p.s there's going to be more posts like this to come.

p.p.s what's xoxo?

How I Met Your Mother

Recently been on a How I Met Your Mother Spree. its an awesome show. go check it out





----------------
Now playing on iTunes: Jason Steele - Put a Banana In Your Ear
via FoxyTunes
----------------

Its Clobbering Time.

so its only a few more days to the end of the week. tomorrow is a free day before the last exam on friday. i already have it all planned out.

waste time till thursday night, study till midnight, go for test on friday, partay. woo. haha

so yeah. okay. to complete this post i now need to add some form of media. hang on.

guess where this place is!

Yummy, Yummy.

Forgive Me. haha

Saint Vee's Day

So. today was Saint Valentines on a budget. Its really horrible how this festival is over commercialized. you have to pay a premium on everything just because its the 14th. well i've managed to avoid all that so far, spent the day at the barrage by the marina, [marina barrage sounds queer] picnicked on the green roof.


comments about the establishment.. i think the concept, and photos are much nicer than actually being there. the cafe and the restaurant are tourist traps, you pay almost double what you pay outside, its all really pretty and nice on saint vee's, but otherwise. its a large patch of grass. its windy though, so kites fly. but yeah. in hindsight its abit overrated. fuck i can't decide if its pretty or not. haha.

well its a nice building, but its very very plain. the building shape is really really cool, the curvy thing and the rooftop garden, in theory, its really nice and cool, but when you visit, its all really plain. its not carpet grass like it looks like in the picture. [i really wanted carpet grass] its some muddier version of savannah grass. but even so, since its so near the ocean, there's this eternal breeze of sorts. the barrage itself is a kind of bridge with pavilions:


so its cool to hang out abit. another thing to note, the views of the city are really really nice, with the inherent problem being that cranes kinda block the view everywhere. they're hard at work on the IR. haha.

So yeah. it was a great day, haha. [I find it rather difficult to refrain from placing that smiley all over the post]

I'll Take That One

It Finally Happened.





There are no words.

Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway

Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway

What is it:
Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway is the third entry in the Brothers in Arms series of video games which follows the men of the 101st Airborne Division (502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment [PIR]).

He looks fat in this screenie.

In this uh. entry. You follow Staff Sergeant Matt Baker [As in the first game] through the events of Operation Market Garden: The largest airborne operation of all time. it also happened to fail quite badly. The game sticks to history really closely, so you might think spoilers aren't an issue. we'll get to that later.

You, and characters from the previous game are reassigned to the unit before the drop into the Holland. The game follows the 101st's assault and securing of Eindhoven, and the subsequent defense of the surrounding area from German counterattacks, which in turn leads to the countless deaths of your squad, since you know the plan to end the war by christmas didn't go so well.

Why Its Great:
Okay i want to point out this thing. Many people think most WW2 shooters don't have much of a narrative because its a retelling. thats not true. this is especially the case in this game. BIA:HH is awesome on account of an excellent narrative. It maintains a very good balance of historical detail and character development.

The main characters are fictional, though you take orders from a few notable historical figures, including Lieutenant General Robert Sink.

The game tells a very very good narrative. with some drawbacks i'll mention later.

Point 2: The game is really fun. the formula is no different from its predecessors: you have a gun, you can shoot nazis. you also have 1-3 squads of 2-3 soldiers who also have guns. you can tell them to shoot nazis. some squads have bazookas to blow nazis to bits, and some squads have Machine Guns to shred nazis to bits.

Some Squads have Bazookas to blow nazis to bits.

Point 3: New squad types, i cannot stress the awesomeness — bazooka and MG teams — both ratchet up the carnage and make things feel more realistic. After all, the war was not won with the M1 Garand alone, especially when the Allies had tanks and bunkers to eliminate. The new destructible-cover system also makes these battles more authentic, as you can mow down Nazis behind wooden cover…or get dropped yourself if you tuck into the wrong spot.

You can cut these fences [and the nazis behind it] with a M1919A4 L.M.G like a hot knife cuts through butter.

The A.I. enemies seem more evolved, too, repositioning in response to your actions and generally not sitting around like target-practice dummies. The AI has been improved. it glitches though sometimes.

Why It Sucks:
Glitches. Bugs. Checkpoint Save Shenanigans. So many times i had to have my playing interrupted because some of my team mates decided to fall through the floor and get stuck. this level written in stone also had a checkpoint saves a checkpoint before you reach it, making it unreachable. its hard to explain. it only happens sometimes. but yeah.

sometimes the AI glitches. i dropped quite some motionless Germans who might as well have been holding up a “Shoot Here” sign. But even worse were the times your bazooka squad fired anywhere but where you told them.

I couldn't find a motionless german. here's a not so motionless american. =p

what else... oh right the story. its really confusing at the beginning, and if you never played the previous few, you will have no idea at all wtf is going on. until really late into the game. i think. well it depends on how retarded the player is. you won't get alot of the flashback scenes that reference the previous games but you'll get the gist of the story. and its a good story.

last thing. replayability. this is a big factor for me, because i don't like finishing a game in like 2 days then leaving it to rot somewhere until the sequel is released. after i finished the campaign, there was just nothing left to do. nada. zilch. okay well there's multiplayer. lets face it. the new BIA multiplayer is horrible. its okay. i don't know. i never tried it.

This isn't exciting a second time. or third. or fourth.

Either way, they took out the much loved 'skirmish' mode, a single player or cooperative mission whereby you tackle an objective not necessarily related to the main story. it could be capturing a bunker and holding it, or etc. really good fun in Earned in Blood, [i never played hill 30], completely non-existent in Hell's Highway. the main story isn't much fun to replay either. the game dynamic means that the same nazis appear at the same time in the same place. so its boring a second, maybe third playthrough.

Should You Get It:
hmm. Depends. I wouldn't recomment buying it, but borrowing it from someone who has it, or renting it, if you're outside my country of residence. i don't know a game rental service in singapore. Its just not worth 70 bucks. or 60. i can't remember how much i paid. but yeah. you have to try it at least. blowing up nazis is fun.

Oh so fun, especially in a TANK.

My Rating:

Thats it. 2.5. its fun to play. once. it really disappoints me that after 3 years there are so many bugs in it, i appreciate the work done on the destructible cover and new squads, but the removal of skirmish is just sad. and co-op!

There are pretty good graphics, though thats kinda standard in this day and age of gaming.

Where You Can Get It:
Any Video Game Store. not the internet. stay legal. lol. I'm leaving you with this image. click to enlarge goodness.

Just Tag Yourselves.

Rules:
It's harder than it looks! Copy to your own note, erase my answers, enter yours, and tag ten people.

Use the first letter of your name to answer each of the following questions. They have to be real...nothing made up! If the person before you had the same first initial, you must use different answers. You cannot use any word twice and you can't use your name for the boy/girl name question.

[For Extra Fun, I decided to google images and put the first one i found. if the first doesn't work, the second, and so on...]

1. What is your name : Bezner

2. A four Letter Word : Barn


3. A boy's Name : Ben


4. A girl's Name : Becky


5. An occupation : Baker


6. A color : Beige


7. Something you'll wear : Belt


9. A food : Baked Ribs


10. Something found in the bathroom: Bathtub [that was easy lol]


11. A place : Berlin


12. A reason for being late : Bus ran me over. =p


13. Something you'd shout : Banned! [not really]


14. A movie title : Babe? [can't think of anything else ATM]


15. Something you drink : Berry Juice [lol]


16. A musical group : Black Sabbath


17. An animal : Boar


18. A street name : Bugis Street [don't really like that place though]


19. A type of car : Beetle


20. The title of a song : Back in Black - AC/DC

The Edge of that Reflective Surface

Just got Mirror's Edge for 'mah PC.
Seems to be pretty nice. jumping around, albeit repetitive, is still really fun.

for those who don't know, in mirror's edge, you play faith, and you're a parkour artist. a free runner.
there's some background and narrative, but i won't go into it. anyway. whats unique is that the whole thing is done from a first person perspective, making you feel like the one doing the running and jumping and vaulting etc.
so yeah. i'm going to go ahead and complete it first. see ya'll soon.

...just thought you should know.

SOTFL[R]

There's this one golden rule they put on escalators all over Singapore. STAND LEFT, WALK RIGHT. For Retards that don't know what the fuck that means, let me clear it up for you.

IF YOU DON'T WANT TO FUCKING WALK. STAND ON THE FUCKING LEFT.

It really annoys the shit out of me when i miss my train because some FUCKING RETARD decides to stand on the RIGHT HAND SIDE OF THE ESCALATOR, and BLOCK THE FUCKING WAY.

When its the goddamn rush hour, most people want to go places FAST. There are some who don't. Most of them are retards. WE HATE RETARDS. The retards are the ones who DON'T FUCKING THINK. they will go to the narrow escalator, notice everyone crowding around on the left side, and realize THEY'RE ALL MAKING WAY FOR THEM SO THEY CAN STAND ON THE FUCKING RIGHT. then this BIGASS crowd of Annoyed Commuters builds up behind them, AND THEY DON'T FUCKING NOTICE.

SOTFL[R]. STAND ON THE FUCKING LEFT. [or right, if you're reading this in some other part of the world]



okay. i'm happier now. (:

what's eating you, is eating me

I Still owe a post about italy. hm. give me a few more days. Patience is a virtue. haha. anyway, you should check out this band, by the name of Airbourne; if you think you share the same taste in music as me, you'll like em. very much like AC/DC.

Go look around, then buy the CD. review up when i get my paws on their CD.

----------------
Now playing on iTunes: Airbourne - Blackjack
via FoxyTunes

Whole lotta heart

It started so well
you had it laid out.
you've got what you wanted
right there

You stayed by her side,
through the best times you've had
you thought you had made it
back there

Then something stupid found its way to your head
too late now, but now you know:

All it takes
Is just a minute of your time
A small change in the wind
To make the biggest mistake, you'll know.

All it takes
Is just a whole lotta heart
cuz you'll lose so much
To face the pain of your choice, alone.

You took what you wanted
You took what you could
You gave nothing back
in return

You said it was over.
You gave it away.
You cast her aside and
you threw her away

You felt triumphant, it got to your head
too late now, but now you know:

All it takes
Is just a minute of your time
A small change in the wind
To make the biggest mistake, you'll know.

All it takes
Is just a whole lotta heart
cuz you'll lose so much
To face the pain of your choice, alone.

TBC

New Year Post

Was catching up on things that happen on blogs and i stumbled upon this, so i decided, what the hell. so here you go, 2009 Post. More to come.

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?
I experienced a romantic relationship

2. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
Well. 'That I lacked in 2008'. 2008 was crammed full of stuff. Hm. I guess I still haven't gotten that new guitar yet.


3. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
O Level Result Collection Date, Poly in General, and the 27th of June and September

4. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
This is where I smile and say: 'O Levels and a GPA of 3.5 for Semester 1'

5. What was your biggest failure?
Prefer not to answer

6. What was the best thing someone bought you?
Trip to Italy, Courtesy of Mom.

7. Where did most of your money go?
Starbucks, Guitar Fund and Food. In that order.


8. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Prefer not to answer.

9. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? Exactly Now, Not as Happy
b) fatter or skinner? I've no idea.
c) richer or poorer? Definitely poorer.

10. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Holding Back

11. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Everything I guess. 2008 was too fast paced. What's that song…

Too Much, Too Young, Too Fast

12. How do you plan to spend Christmas?
This year? Definitely not like 2008. we had Christmas in the air. How's that. I think most likely Christmas Morning would be spent half dead and wasted with some of my closest friends all over the living room. Good times. haha

13. What was your favorite TV program?
Not much of that this year, hm. Well. I guess if you count Most Watched, it would be Mythbusters. But I barely watch TV anyway.


14. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
I'm sure there's someone, but I just can't seem to remember any names.

15. What was the best book you read?
I quote huiwen: 'Nothing particularly stood out.'

16. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Guns and Roses, Motley Crue, Velvet Revolver. In that order. A bit of explanation on discovering GnR in 2008: I never really listened to them so much prior to 2008, but I had like welcome to the jungle and sweet child in my playlists, for some reason in 2008, something happened and my playlist became the Appetite for Destruction album, for 6 months straight.


17. What did you want need and get?
Life Experiences.

18. What did you want and not get?
Prefer not to answer

19. What was your favorite film of this year?
The Dark Knight I guess.

20. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
On my Birthday, I had a bunch of friends over, and we ate soil from a pot. It was delicious. Haha. I was pretending I was 18.

21. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
As huiwen said: 'More time with my friends. And more cash. Haha.'

22. What kept you sane?
Whoever said I'm sane?

23. Who do you miss?
No one must know.


24. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008?
Be careful what you wish for.

Pasted, then edited, from http://swirlsandtwirls.blogspot.com/