Decembering and Christmasing

Merry Christmas! A final post before the new year.

It's been a long time since I've had to work through the Christmas holiday. The last time was also in the retail business. Surprise surprise. :( Although I haven't had a lot of personal leisure time, December didn't disappoint with all sorts of stuff happening out of the norm.

There was another PZAG gathering mid-December where we hot potted indoors but for some reason had the front door open. I found out that Jicky also applied for JET this year and if we both get accepted, we're going to raid the host bars and spend all our money on seiyuu events. I very much like that idea so I hope it really does happen. ;>

The following weekend was Tofu's bday which involved eating, Tron, and ogling at maids. Crazy optimistic entrepreneuring discussing also happened. The Sunday was supposed to be dedicated to a shopping-filled day in the states but my bro finds out that his passport expired over half a year ago the night before. GJ.

Family celebrated Chinese Winter Thanksgiving at Fleuri in the Sutton Place hotel (yep, very Chinese I know). They had no bison and no chocolate buffet but the food was still excellent as usual. Later that night, I picked up my new baby - the SH-01C:


Merry Christmas to me!
The red is dead gorgeous in real life. Most of the awesomely extra features are tied with the service provider so I'm sadly locked out of them (e.g. i-mode, gps, i-concierge). The biggest upset is probably the change of ringtone format from mmf to mld. As there's no real good software support for the mld, my music customization's going to be limited. If only au KDDI phones were importable. Oh and I actually already dropped it once - fuck me.

Continuing on with the Christmas week... Christmas eve was spent at Sty's place where we had ham and this monstrosity:


Actual Christmas Day was dedicated to sleeping in and dinner at my aunt's place where we had giant turkey and experimental candied mashed yam. The experiment was a delicious success btw. As an added Christmas bonus, I got a tour around the Relic Entertainment office downtown after dinner. I would've stole some pictures if I could. Especially of the giant space marine out at the front. P:

Boxing Day: I'm glad I didn't work that day. They would've have paid me anyway. Later that night, our company dinner (+ boss' relatives) was held at the Chinese restaurant on the 2nd floor of Continental Centre where we hogged up 5 big tables to ourselves. Many beers were passed around and deliciously expensive shark's fin was served. The Caucasians stayed far away from the delicious delicacy which meant more for us! :V

I agreed to work the following stat holiday day just to relieve the load off the web-related stuff piled up on the weekend. The boss treated us to a nice and long dim sum lunch for those few of us who showed up. Yay to long breaks and free food.

The last of the major events was Mina's ahem, secret, civil wedding held at Gudrun. I took half the day off to attend the private event where we ate homemade food and had the papers lady come in to do the ceremony and documentation. Clearly just the food wasn't enough as we went out for bubble tea and snacks right after.

To top off the week, NYE tomorrow... er today. Stuff will happen.

It's depressing knowing that I haven't had the chance to vegetate this winter break. It's even more depressing realizing that I don't see a chance in the near future to take a break anytime either.

Anyway, cheers to 2011. Bring it on!

Play! A Video Game Symphony: In Vancouver

The other lesser known video game concert. After finally experiencing it firsthand, I think I can see why.

I arrived downtown about an hour before the start of the show and wandered about the stores on Granville while waiting for the rest of the people. On our way into the Orpheum, we were (illegally) handed flyers advertising VGL's return next year (again??). I must say, it's a pretty dirty but smart strategy though...

It started not too long after we got warmed up to our seats. 8pm rolled around and the conductor, Andy Brick, came out to play the first piece prior to his intro shpeel. PLAY! Fanfare was a piece specially composed by Uematsu for their concert, which sadly wasn't that amazing... but if anything, it definitely does make their event the more special and different from the others.

Of course, a video game concert isn't complete without a Mario medley which was the first video game to start. Good momentum yes? Bam! Came the WTF: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Really? REALLY? Award for best video game musical score or not, I don't think it's quite the right series to bring with you. I can understand that you want to dedicate a track to the composer in the audience, but really, how many of us have played the DS game? Even as HP fans, I'm not here to listen to HP thank you very much. Besides, there's plenty of other better known games to choose from his resume? Rant aside, I won't deny that it is a good piece by itself.

Back on track was Silent Hill, Theme of Laura was awesome with an orchestra and the old man ripping it on the guitar. Followed was Civ 5! I haven't even played it yet but it sounded good. The piece was a mashup of a variety of tracks and one part was clearly the theme for East Asia as the CG lady on the screen was some sort of Japanese/Chinese. The composers were also in the audience.

Hello, Kingdom Hearts! Interestingly enough, they actually had Kingdom Hearts CG playing on the screen (versus VGL only had Disney clips). I personally loved their rendition with both Hikari and Passion. Following with the awesome was an excellent arrange of Legend of Zelda.

The build up was interrupted by an intermission and the 2nd half started with, what... Sim City 4?! Really? REALLY? I don't mind Sim City at all but choose something just a tad more popular. Just saying you'd probably get more reaction from the audience that way.

The concert continues with Guild Wars. Seriously, enough music for the attending composers and more for the audience you're supposed to be catering to. I won't deny that it was still enjoyable for what it was.

The highlight of the concert was supposed to be the Chrono Cross/Trigger arrange BUT being the picky fangirl that I am, they didn't perform up to my expectations. The solo flute player and the solo first violinist failed to be on beat and not loud enough, respectively (for Time's Scar). Rantrantrantrant, but hey, I loved the Chrono Trigger ending theme!

And then we had Halo. This version didn't sound as epic as VGLs. The choir definitely wasn't loud enough. The next nice surprise was Sonic the Hedgehog. I remember the Green Hill Zone and it was played wonderfully!

Play!'s version of Castlevania was pretty mellow and definitely gave off the orchestrated symphony feel compared to VGL's all-out rock (which yeah, isn't very orchestraded now is it?).

Finally, to finish off, there was World of Warcraft. I'd probably be all over this piece if I were a WoWer. But I'm not so I wasn't.

Surprise, surprise there was an encore. And guess what it was? Fucking One Winged Angel. Been to three video game concerts ever, all with the same encore.

So in retrospect, I had a lot of complaints. Overall it was decent but the flaws were obvious. I hate to have to compare it with VGL since Play! clearly presents music completely differently than VGL does but I would definitely still question the choice of some tracks (mainly HP and Sim City really). Perhaps because VGL was able to squeeze that many more songs into their program (medleys featuring multiple series etc), it felt a lot more satisfying.

Seeing that this was a more traditional orchestrated concert, it was hard to cheer and make noises like Andy Brick said we could've; it was all the more awkward, really.

The videos that played on the screen wasn't as synced to the music as one would've wanted them to be. The visuals that were shown also got duplicated quite a bit in the same score and it didn't seem as well edited. It also didn't help that I sat beside a fangirl who was very vocal with her experience with the games featured. I've played this, I've played that. I remember this, I remember that. Good for you girl. It was also a bit funny that she wore a VGL t-shirt. It's like going to a True Blood meetup with a Twilight fan shirt on. Yeah.

I definitely give props for providing a thorough tribute to each game as multiple tracks were incorporated into one piece instead of just the theme songs. Seeing their score collection though, I would've wanted to hear Lost Odyssey, Actraiser, Shadow of the Colossus, Shenmue or Stella Deus... just the games that were a bit out of the norm. I did have high hopes on the selection, mainly something aside from the mainstream market but alas, I was disappointed. Although they did try with uhh... Harry Potter? I guess. :| I would've definitely liked to see them differentiate themselves from VGL, perhaps, with the niche market or lesser known but just as popular games route.

My friend brought up a good suggestion - Katamari Damacy. Imagine that with choir and orchestra. Just imagine... wow.

All 'n all, good try but they definitely need to differentiate themselves better from VGL rather than being the other "not so good as VGL" concert. They clearly want to offer a different experience but they don't seem to be doing it right somehow. They have potential and they should totally try and find some sort of exploit they can use to their advantage. If not, they'll always be seen as the second rate concert second to VGL forever.

T'was a good run, 902sh.

5 years and 6 months later, my Sharp 902sh has finally croaked. I've been meaning to get a new phone for the past *cough* year anyway and didn't get more serious about it until the past few months when the Nokia N8 was looking like an excellent candidate. Sadly my phone couldn't last a month or two more for me before I'm able to finalize my decision. Then again, I probably would've just held it off as long as I could.


Clearly the one that's looks like a phone is my phone.
Now I'm scrambling to get a new phone. I'm not particularly a fan of touchscreens but the features on the N8 were really delicious so I was already ready to try something new. I was almost dead set on it until I got word that it's being released here with Rogers. It's definitely great news that Canada's finally catching up with the latest mobile phones though. But as for me... I think my heart's still with my Japanese phones.

I think I've narrowed down my choices but it seems like the mobiles nowadays lean on the hypersim unlock rather than the software. I've been so used to software unlocking that I don't know what to feel about this whole hypersim thing and how it's going to be like. But! I'm all up and ready for an adventure so why not.

My mom lent me her old Sony Ericsson for the time being though. Every time I felt like getting it set up, I turn it on to be reminded that my mom's old data's still in there and then I don't feel like it anymore. Doesn't help that my phone data isn't compatible with my ancient sim card and it's been backed up into a file that the SE can't read. I might just have to get over that soon though since I won't be getting my new phone immediately. I so do prefer starting fresh. :(

*Rant: iPhone/iPod Touch shitty tap games have consumed my mom. :(

Busy November.

First snowfall this week. I tried so hard to delay (and even avoid) the purchase of winter tires but I gave in hearing all the snowfall warnings. I'm glad I did get a set though seeing it really DID fall and there's still plenty of crazy drivers out there... crazy as in still driving at insane speeds regardless of road conditions. Funny enough, the roads were a lot emptier once the snow stuck. The drive home was quite pleasant 'cept very cold. The snow did come and go now that the weather's slightly warmer, the rain's been pouring like mad. I imagine we'll be seeing more snow later next month though.

I've finally submitted my JET Application earlier this week. I decided against sending it too close to the application deadline date (Nov 30) just in-case of unforeseen problems. I went through about 4 draft overhauls, more than I've ever done on any academic paper. I definitely wouldn't of gotten to my final version without the support of my English proficient friends (yeah you know who you guys are). Now that it's over and done with, I can get on with my next task - my portfolio. I'll have to try and not think about it for another 2 months before the next dreadful hurdle called the interview. :|

Amazon.com is the evilest POS (hint: not point-of-sale). They had a vid game promo for a buy 2 get 1 free and I somehow splurged. A week later some those games go on sale for even cheaper. UGH. On its way up the border, customs got a hold of it and literally attacked my special Record of Agarest War limited edition. No, sorry to disappoint but there's no bombs in the shape of oppai mousepads in there.




My porn has been spoiled. :(
Work's been a bit hectic. We recently (two weeks ago) opened a new location in Coquitlam and then followed to get robbed the next day. We also got a new POS (point-of-sale) system which we launched in the same month as all these happenings which is also a great POS (not point-of-sale). Outdated, unintuitive, slow, unfriendly, unreliable (crashes)... everything you'd want in an efficient software of the 21st century.

And so November comes to a close in a few days.

PS: Monsters is such a shitty movie. Don't watch it, even if's free!

Mass Effect: The Second

Overdue half a year.


Aloha, beaver teeth!
STORY 4.5/5
The "continuation" of ME1... The Normandy gets attacked by an unknown ship on the way to finish off the geth leftovers. The crew are forced to evacuate but Shepard gets blown out of the ship and falls into a nearby atmosphere. Supposedly dead, Shepard wakes up back in one piece in a Cerberus lab under attack two years later and is told to join them in facing a new threat. You gather a fresh group of teammates, old and new, and get a new ship. Although this time around, ME2's ending prepares the setting for ME3.

The story this time around was definitely more character development driven as all the members of your crew had some significance in the main save-the-universe storyline.

CHARACTERS 4.5/5
Where to start? I think I liked everyone. It felt like the characters were definitely more alive in their fluid movements, facial expressions and just had more personality in general.

Miranda's front two beaver teeth drove me up the wall though (much like Sookie's front two teeth gap).. until I eventually got used to it. Jacob was cool, but I somehow kept unintentionally triggering the flirt dialogue lines. Grunt, the Wrex replacement, was cute but not as cool as Wrex. Loved Thane's story. Was indifferent with Jack but apparently she's a popular choice for romance. Samara - Justicars are cool. Mordin! They made him so awesomely hilarious. I would've totally tried to date him if the choice was there. ;)

[Partial spoiler?] Tali'Zorah returns. Meh. :b As for romance I was actually able to choose Garrus this time! The whole romancing thing with him was a bit of a disappointment, but hey, he's not exactly human so I let it slide. My wish from ME1 came true though. :D As for Alenko, WELL, I'm glad we broke up![/spoiler]

SOUND 4/5
The delicious epic music and voice acting has lived on in ME2.

GRAPHICS 4/5
Great improvements since the first game. I'm sure that I couldn't stop staring at Thane whenever I had a conversation with him. The details on his FACE were stare-worthy. The loading of textures and details were not noticeable like ME1 where objects would load by layers.

GAMEPLAY 4/5
There's no more weapon swapping, just only between the different types. e.g. sniper rife or bazooka. Ammo is no longer unlimited. The Mako's been changed into a planet probing mini game and it's even more time consuming than before. I must admit, I grinned when I probed Uranus though.

The morality feature had been revamped into a simple Paragon/Renegade system which is opened up by dialog/actions you take throughout the game. Certain Paragon/Renegade actions became available during dialog/cut scenes to alter the story a bit. I felt less worried picking a few Renegade choices here and there this time around. (ahem, beating a guy three times to get him to talk)

Traveling the universe now requires gas. SERIOUSLY. Thanks for reminding us that gas is indeed expensive, ME2. I was always poor because of fuel costs.

OVERALL 4.5/5
It was neat how my PC Dragon Age bonus armor for Mass Effect 2 was able to transfer over but it sucked how my helmet was always on. I didn't really get to see my actual face much until I finally gave up on wearing my awesome blood armor. :(

Having played the first one, ME2 definitely stood out with returning characters and the development of a universe I'm already well aware of. Even the little Cerberus news update that changes every day was a nice touch to the game. If you login every day, some stories actually related which was neat. :D

Again just like the first, you get to decide the fate of something universe changing at the end... which will be transferred elegantly into the 3rd game! More cameos, returning characters and then a bunch of new ones all over again! I'm ready for some more ass whoopin'!