Monday, April 16, 2007

SUPA ROBO WAR (W) !!

This is actually one whole week late at the time I am posting this, but here it is: I gotta' my Super Robot Taisen W..!!

For the noobs out there who don't know what that is, it is basically a long-running game series pitting various anime mecha shows together to combat against their foes. The premise is simply just that, but that is WHAT makes such game so appealing to the typical mecha otaku.

This W version is for the NDS, and as an old-time SRW fan, I just had to get my copy of it.

And so I finally purchased one (woot!) :

...SRWW + top3 favourite manga all at once!

Unexpectedly, Chuangyi decided to give me a 'surprise' by releasing new volumes for my three current-favourite manga series: Air Gear, Hayate no Gotoku, & Magister Negi Magi!

Happy I was, but my wallet did cry when I made those purchases. A hefty $95 disappeared after a single trip to Century Square..

But the joy I bought with it was, of course: Priceless.

Behold! My boliao-ness struck again!

I was actually pretty busy for the whole last week - so tied up with 'work' that I didn't even touch my goodies until yesterday. And whoa!, the manga volumes were frickin' sweet read in comparision to previous volumes. SRWW was even much better that I mad-rushed through the missions till scenario21.

note to myself: don't photograph something under glaring spotlights

Oh yea, the pic above has Tessa from FMP! preparing a missile strike onto the enemy. I tried taking that shot with the NDS running while under my table lamp. As you can see, the end-result is fugly due to unnecessary light reflection.

Anyway, enough of this backdated post. I am off to work on my personal project again.
What is it, you ask?
I shall leave that as a secret for now... teheh.

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Sunday, April 15, 2007

Spring is a Busy (anime) Season

Aah Spring; the season of renewal. When I think of it, I think of Spring-cleaning & Spring-fever. >_>

As a guy living in tropical Singapura, the typical everyday is like Summer. However generally as of now, regions located at the northern hemisphere is in their little-spring mode. That applies to Japan as well, and when it comes to Japan's spring it also means: ANIME SPRING SEASON is here!!

Spring is the season to watch anime... till you cry >_<

So it is that time of the year - Japan never fails to churn out anime like crazy, and this season we got at least 40 new series! I am not a hardcore viewer, so as of current I have only watched 10 series of that total lot:

Hayate no Gotoku! : comedy (romance?)
Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS : magical girl action
Idolmaster Xenoglossia : sci-fi mecha (fanservicey)
Nagasarete Airantou : comedy romance (harem)
Heroic Age : sci-fi mecha
Tengan Toppa Gurren Lagann : mecha (LoL-fun)
Lucky Star : slice-of-life comedy
Darker than BLACK : sci-fi mystery
Hitohira : slice-of-life comedy ('drama' heh)
Shining Tears X Wind : fantasy (game-based)

Although I have only watched the first episode for 90% of the titles above, I enjoyed them all. The bold titles are my personal favourite, solely based on my first impression of the episode.

Lucky Star has slice-of-life bolded; that's because it takes that genre to new heights. Imagine having a conversation regarding food and only that for 10 mins. <-- that was what happened in just the first episode.

Anyway, its OP totally makes up for whatever shortcomings it has. Watch it, nao!


Moe?!

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Monday, April 2, 2007

Happy Birthday, Reggie!

Today marks a special day to my dear friend, who I will always will remember him for...

=P Anyway, today is my old-secondary classmate-friend; Reggie's birthday. Actually, with courtesy from Friendster.com, I noted that this very same day is also shared by the birthday of yet another secondary-classmate of mine; RuiLin. And no, that isn't April's Fool.

[Speaking of April's Fool, I had enough pranks done on me already. And those came from the internet. E.g. Titles replaced with random silly words on a music site, all avatars and nicks changed to a common one in a forum, prank news/site online.
However, the one that really went over the line for me was the recently released episode of Code Geass. I was eagerly waiting to watch the latest episode, and the @#$% subber decided to pull a lame Joke that involves using an old episode, dubbed them with funny english and release it as a genuine-like episode. It was amusing, but so yet annoying.
Fortunately, I had not fallen victim to any physical joke on April's Fools day. Afterall, I only spent limited time outside yesterday. Thank goodness.]


Back on topic, old friend Reggie invited me his 'birthday party' last friday evening. I say it is more of an actual friend gathering with a birthday cake thrown in for reasoning. I was honestly expecting to see more of my old seconday sch friends at the party, but it turned out me and Melvin were the only dudes that stretched back to secondary times - the 15+ others that turned up were Reggie's polytechnic and church pals.

So I ended up doing multiple self-introduction and exchanged handshakes.

The venue was a BBQ pit at ground floor of a condo estate Makena. I think that's the name. It is pretty near Parkway Parade and Katong. One of Reggie's friends apparently lives there, though I ain't sure who it was exactly. >_>

omgwtfBBQ(?!)

I reached the place with a few others. The usual food stuff (fishball, beehoon, sausage) were already being bbq'ed by the people who came before us. Not long after I entered the vicinity that I was invited to play a strange game with others. Something like a mix of matching/old maid and heartattack style. The Heartattack similarity really troubled me. I have a queer phobia in relation to that game.

It was no surprise that I came in last in the game of five. =_=

Citadels; medieval 'rpg' shrunk to the size of a family card game

Silently sworing that I would not touch that game again for tonight, I settled down with a cup of orange. Then came the highlight of my night; one guy introduced this game called Citadels, which he labelled as a 'computer rpg but on cards'. He wasn't completely right on that, but this charming piece of game was defintely loaded with fun.

2 building cards on my 'pink plastic bag' side, not counting the one that got demolished by my opponent

Including me and him, we called around another dude and two gals. Five in total - perfect. It is notable that Citadels is generally a two-player game, but the rules can be twisted to accomodate additional players.

The goal of the game is to control a 'hero' and build eight 'estate' cards. It is that simple, but due to the game being somewhat detailed and complex in nature, it is expected to be no less than an hour game. It didn't help that most of us were newbies too.

Having our meals while playing; notice the plates lying around?

I practically spent the whole night there just indulging in that mock rpg of ours. Deception and strategizing were the key points of the game. By the end of two hours, we finally had our first winner (Kimberly?). I was closest to second place (21pts!), but the presence of a light drizzle had us prematurely stopped the game. =(

Though long and tiring, all five of us enjoyed that round of game. It was suggested that we could always meet up some time at Settler's Cafe for other good games. Nothing confirmed, but I will welcome that kind of invitation. Maybe I can gather my poly-mates to go play some board games too for a change from the usual LAN gaming?

The above is no easy feat as the user has to blow all candles out at once, and not leaving saliva abound

The main highlight of the night was none other than the birthday cake ceremony. Along with Reggie's, we also celebrated James's (I recalled) birthday together.

Manderin + English version of birthday songs were sung. Then followed by a cheesy presentation of the cake cutting.

Dudes, you forgot to blow candles before cutting cake?!

At this point of time, we were actually still in the midst of the Citadel game, so the five of us quietly left the cake scene. While of course stealing a slice of the cake before leaving.

Apparently, lame things happened while we were away. Whatever they were, it all eventually ended up with the tossing of Reggie into the nearby swimming pool. James was spared, on the account that he was reportedly 'not-feeling-well'.

A wet Reggie is not exactly a happy Reggie ^

The poor Reggie didn't have any spare clothes (who would at a time like this anyway?), but the party-animals still dunked him wet. In the name of FUN, I suppose. Being completely soaked, what Reggie could do was go around bear-hugging people. And that was what he did, to those who threw him =D.

Time was past 10, and the bbq pit was mainly cleaned up. And so the crew departed, with me heading back for home. I disliked party gatherings, and still do. However, if they are such warm and fun like this particular one, then I definitely won't mind attending another~

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