Movie Review: Avatar (2009), Tycoons: A Business Simulation Facebook Application

Merry Christmas to all my blog readers out there. I didn't really celebrate this year's Christmas because I wasn't in any mood to do so in any elaborate manner.

It seems the predominant mood amongst most of my circle of friends. Perhaps New Year Eve will be different. Meanwhile, I am just slacking away at home, gaming, napping and treating my parents to a small dinner. Hope all of you are spending the time the best way you deem appropriate. ^__^

Movie Review: Avatar (2009)





This is indeed the one movie you should be watching because the graphics are superbly done and the storyline is riveting, particularly so because of its theme of materialistic greed versus the genuine connection of humanity to nature.

The story revolves around how a US Marine soldier, Jack Sully, who was crippled from waist downwards took over a special assignment from his deceased brother - to enter a new world of Pandora using a state-of-the-art avatar (a genetically modified being created from both the genes of his brother and a native species of Pandora). Although the soldier made a double pact with both the scientific faction as well as the military faction of the entire Pandora expeditionary team, he began to realize how the native species, Na'vi, were incredulously human-like, but with a much deeper appreciation and connection to the natural world of Pandora.

Pulled in so many different directions, and with the time ticking on an all-out battle between the bow-wielding Na'vi and the machine-gun-toting ex-Marines mercenaries from the expeditionary team, Jack must choose his side and be prepared to lay his life down to determine the future of Pandora.

As the viewer, be prepared to be awed by the bewildering variety of flora and fauna on Pandora and be shell-shocked by the stunning battle scenes as both groups clashed fiercely and heroically over the fate of the entire planet. I would not hesitate to give this movie a 5 stars out of a possible 5 because it's been so long since so much effort is being put into weaving graphics, action, acting together and pace them into a heart-pounding and yet heart-rending movie. Don't miss it.

Tycoons: A Business Simulation Facebook Application

I am spending quite some time online playing a new facebook application game called Tycoons. It's another of those business simulation games but I thought it has been able to capture my attention for quite a few days so far because there is actually a good deal of realism within the game. It's highly recommended for any blog reader who is hoping for a feel of what business trading is all about and how business people plan for their investments and returns over commodities such as power, aluminium, oil, clothings, cars, housing and many more.

I am only a few days into the game and am still struggling with trying to hit the level necessary for the building for a national bank and a nuclear power plant. The learning curve is high but with careful use of the game reward points, I think it will be providing a nice platform for some learning on financial management for those trying to develop some business acumen.

Movie Review: Storm Warriors (2009)

Well, the main actors still look so handsome and charismatic but I really hated the storyline of this movie - too much was left unsaid and it could leave viewers pretty confused about why such and such happened. There was too little acting and too much display of computer enhanced graphics that I was a little disappointed because in the original comic book series, the battle between Wind and Cloud was a lot better and much more emotional than the movie could depict.

The story revolves around how Godless, a Japanese warlord, who "somehow" captured the Chinese Emperor and was trying to force the latter to reveal the location of the Dragon Tomb (where the first Emperor of China was buried) to find a relic (which was actually a spine) to gain invincible hold over the entire of China. Wind and Cloud, despite their initial efforts, could not defeat Godless and had to escape while many Chinese pugilists sacrificed their lives to cover their retreat.

Nameless, a supposedly great master, was so seriously injured that he decided to teach Cloud more skills to help to defeat Godless, which eventually laid the foundations of Cloud's mighty swordplay "Ba". On the other hand, Wind decided to take a shortcut by learning the Demonic skills from another great master. This had a terrible price though as Wind could end up as a demon so the former forced Cloud to promise to kill him if he could not recover from his demon state before he entered the training.

Upon accomplishing their skills, both Wind and Cloud went to the Dragon Tomb and managed to defeat Godless in a spectacular display of combat prowess but Wind became more maniacal and actually took the relic and headed off on his own. The Chinese Emperor pleaded with Cloud to recover the relic as Cloud was the only one capable of stopping Wind.

The final scene was how Wind and Cloud slugged it out and eventually, Cloud managed to slice Wind on the source of his demonic madness (an opening on his forehead) and as both of them, along with Dream (Wind's longtime penpal and lover-to-be), plunged from an extremely high mountain cliff, Cloud pushed the other two up while he plummeted even faster into the abyss. The movie ended abruptly there and I thought the ending could have been much better.

All in all, if you are watching for a storyline that made sense, don't watch this movie. If you are already a fan of the comic book series and are looking for the improvements made in making the kungfu display, go ahead and indulge in the fighting scenes, especially the one where Cloud intelligently used his new swordplay to trap the overly-arrogant Godless at the Dragon Tomb.

I would give the movie a mere 2.5 out of 5 as after so much trouble in getting the two main leads to act together again, I would expect a better story development. The fight scenes were over-emphasized at a huge cost to plot layout. I hope Bodyguards and Assassins and Avatar will be much better movies.

Game Review: Dragon Age Origins (2009)



After one week of playing, I finally completed the game and I must say it really provided quite some entertainment in role-playing and satisfaction in making good decisions which led to good outcomes. Of course, I made some bad decisions too which resulted in lost companions, incomplete quests and missing out on items which could have made my gameplay life a little bit better.

Oh well, at least I had fun watching how my Human Noble Warrior fared as he ventured through so many different quest areas to explore, solve quests, move the main storyline and tried his best at shopping for the ideal items to send gifts to his companions. The right gifts would even open up personal quests, which would affect the approval ratings of the companions about the main character one is role-playing in. For myself, I used Alistair (a Templar Warrior), Leliana (a Bardic Rogue), and Morrigan (a Shapeshifter Mage).

The other thing I loved about this game is that the very dialogue options you choose can really determine how the game turns out to be. Answer curtly and you may well have a huge fight ahead of you immediately. Answer intelligently and you may be able to pick the characters and vendors for more information that could lead to better rewards and even new areas of explorations.

It also pays well to read up on those scraps of paper, books and scrolls that the main character and his party of three other companions pick up during their travels. Some will open up new quests, some will provide history on the background of the game universe (which will also earn valuable experience points), while others may provide clues to unhidden quests and procedures in the game. This is one game which will surely penalize those players who only know how to kill anything that moves without doing their reading up on those books and scrolls (all conveniently located inside the journal that the main character carries).

My recommendations for those who intend to start up on this 5-star role-playing game are:

1) Buy the PC version - it allows one to pause in the middle of the chaotic battles to issue specific commands to individual companions, especially when to drink health poultices.

2) Complete the tombstones quest to get the full set of Juggernaut armor, which gives high resistances to various elemental attacks. This set of armor prevented my main warrior character from dying a single time throughout the entire game.

3) Develop a love for cold spells because almost everything in the game has a lower resistance to cold and freezing the enemy monsters give valuable time to reorganize your adventuring party, especially when they are caught out in the open.

4) Be nice to your companions - buy them appropriate gifts and don't be stingy in giving them out to develop their approval ratings for your main character. The personal quests that can be unlocked out of each of the companions are worth the trouble and some major plot developments hinge on whether they will actually comply with your decisions or walk right out from your party - forever.

5) Save your game often - sometimes, you may accidentally click on something that you will regret, be it a dialogue option, a vial of glass, or a door, especially when your adventuring party are not ready to face the consequences.

That's all for the blog post now. Sorry to keep my readers waiting. I wish I could update more about music and artistes for those enthusiastic about news as such, but there simply isn't much happening right now to garner a blog post. I will try my best to look for these meanwhile.

Have a good weekend ahead! ^__^

Afternoon Tea with The Modest Insomniac Facebook Application - Dungeon & Dragons: Tiny Adventures

Afternoon Tea with The Modest Insomniac:

I met up with one of my Facebook friends for the first time for an afternoon tea whom I shall henceforth name as The Modest Insomnia because she is suffering from some sleep problems but has been modest about how she describes herself and her life.

We met at an undisclosed Coffee Bean outlet to order some hot caramel tea and double chocolate ice-blended on a Saturday afternoon and settled down chit-chatting about online auctions, foreign immigrants in Singapore, books and work for about an hour before hopping over to one of the community libraries to try and find some essayist from Taiwan whose works she highly recommended to me. Unfortunately, those books were on loan and we have to find them some other time.

We walked around and found an ice-cream parlor and decided to try out some of the flavors offered - Rum and Raisins and another flavor which I had given up trying to spell (P....something) and a second hour was spent there eating and talking about countries with cold weather, shopping, Facebooking and other small talk.

The afternoon tea concluded and we went about our own ways as the Modest Insomniac was trying to look for some stylish winter clothes for her overseas work assignment at the end of the year. Compared to some of the really demanding people I have met up with, the Modest Insomniac is a nice enough person who can joke around with and I suppose she will be a definite candidate when the next opportunity for a leisure afternoon out comes along.


Facebook Application - Dungeons & Dragons: Tiny Adventures

I am currently playing a game using a Facebook application called Dungeons and Dragons: Tiny Adventures and it brings back fond memories of how the original board game was played during my younger school days. Dungeons and Dragons are considered by many experienced role-playing gamers as one of the first organized formats where the genre itself was created from.

Though this application is a mere simplified version of the original, the player still gets his/her share of fun deciding which class of character to play and by going on quests and adventures, gain experience and more importantly, valuable and powerful equipment to use until the character retires at level 11. The application uses a method where one can transfer one piece of equipment or weapon from a previous-generation character to the next-generation character.

My current character is a 3rd-generation Human Druid called Earthmaius who did quite badly for his earlier character levels but slowly gained strength and stability. The two characters which I used were an Eladrin Female Paladin and a Male Dragonborn Warrior. Earthmaius now packs quite a punch at his late stage development and is ready to retire and pass on one of the game's most valuable item called the Mithral Shirt of Corellon.

Personally, I would recommend this game to my blog readers who have an interest in understanding how Dungeon and Dragons works in a simplified and easy-to-understand application to try out the game, which does not really require much maintenance and attention since whenever the character is out on adventure, there is almost nothing much to do except wait for the adventure's encounters are over, occasionally switching equipment only if one prefers to micro-manage one's character.

Overall, it provides some good entertainment because whenever the character succeeds or fails an encounter in an adventure, there will be paragraphs describing the characters' intelligent or foolhardy actions, which makes for some reading fun. Here's an example:

Encounter 3: Castle (Constructs)

While searching one of the impossibly many rooms of the wizards tower, Earthmaius found a seven foot tall, half-sculpted clay statue of a dragonborn warrior. The lower portion of its left arm and the left side of its chest and head were still unsculpted. However, its unfinished state did not stop it from lurching to life and attacking Earthmaius.

Earthmaius made an Attack Bonus check with a difficulty of 28 . . . and rolled 30

The golem slammed its fist into Earthmaius's chest, knocking him against the wall. For his reply, Earthmaius plagued it in its head. The creature's half-formed head smacked against the ground and the battle was won. Earthmaius continued his search, content that he was now truly alone in the room.

Earthmaius took 6 damage.

Earthmaius received 153 XP and 33 gold.

Earthmaius received a Dynamic Belt.

Tribute To Michael Jackson and Random Photos from attendances of various events and outings for past week

Tribute To Michael Jackson:

Although I am not a great fan of Michael Jackson, I thought he did really work very hard to bridge those really important gaps in music then - racial barriers and economic barriers by showing the world that talent + hard work + pure determination can make a legend out of those worthy of them. Black or White is my favorite and most memorable song I have of Michael Jackson because it encouraged strength, equality and brotherhood without discrimination.
Michael Jackson was the person who invented the moon-walking dance moves, which are still considered by the dancing circles of the world as one of the most unique and refreshing ways to dance. Moon-walking is also still considered as one of the hardest genre of dancing to pull off convincingly.
Michael Jackson was also one of the most hardworking artistes around since the 1980s where he was renowned for cramming grueling rehearsals for his performances and gave assurance that he would pour in every drop of sweat and blood whenever he was onstage. Although he was also infamous for his lack of punctuality, nobody remembered that flaw so much once he immortalized his performances onstage with his legendary moves and world-moving songs.
Yes, most of the photos online showed Michael Jackson with his nearly caved-in jawlines and nose due to his multiple facial surgeries but I decided to put a nicer and much more handsome cover image of him as my personal tribute to this legendary pop icon who truly transformed the music world and shaped much of what we have been listening and watching for nearly 40 years since he started out his career at the age of 6.

Goodbye Michael Jackson! You have done what you could for music. Let the rest learn and grow from there then!

Random Photos from attendances of various events and outings for the past week:



Rib-eye steak with mushroom sauce by Ashton near Ghim Moh food centre.
Kenny Rogers' Quarter meal with cheese and mac and steam vegetables as sides when I was having dinner with the VIPs before going for a night screening of Transformers 2 movie.
Thank-you BBQ organized by World Vision Singapore for all the volunteers who helped out at the Famine Camp 2009. The amount of catered BBQ food was amazing - on the grill now are satay sticks, chicken wings and sambal stingrays in aluminium foil.
The turnout was about 30+ people but there was alot of food around including pineapple rice, noodles, longan fruits with sea coconut, fishballs, chicken sausages.
Thankfully, there were competent BBQ experts around who kept the fires burning hot and the food deliciously-made so I had a very enjoyable time at the Thank-you BBQ. Thank you World Vision Singapore! ^__^
Ending the blog post on a lighter note with a funny endgame picture of Three Kingdoms Story 2 Game where I finally defeated Liu Bei's troops with Cao Cao as my lead character and as you can see, Liu Bei tried to end his life hesitatingly while his two brothers tried to stop him. Of course, in the game, no character died and all they did was to wear some wooden boards around their necks showing them as the vanquished and the defeated with tomatoes thrown at them. Haha.

Fallout 3 - The Long Awaited Game For Me

I think I am long overdue for a blog post because I have been recently indulging in a computer game which I have waited for nearly 10 years - Fallout 3.

The game is so interesting and involving for me because it is a sandbox type of game, which means the character gets to do anything he/she pleases, making countless decisions about how to impress the non-playing characters to release quests or to deal with tactical combat situations with serious considerations to factor in stealth, lighting, terrain, weaponry and even the character's alignment (good, neutral or evil).

To show my blog readers who have been faithfully checking my blog for updates all these while, I will try and list down the more interesting things I have done in the game to show why I love the game so much. Over the past couple of weeks, my character (who is competent in the skills of small guns, energy weapons, lock-picking, science and speech) has done the following things:

• Disarmed an atomic bomb in the middle of a small town
• Deliberately crippled my character's leg by blowing up on a mine for medical studies
• Put an animal observatory sensor device in the middle of a nest of monsters
• Infiltrated a library for the sake of continuing humanity's pursuit of knowledge
• Installed a satellite dish to extend the broadcast range of a radio station
• Fought alongside non-playing characters (NPCs) against a gigantic monster
• Saved some children from captivity against some slavers' encampment
• Negotiated a mutually beneficial deal between a small settlement and a group of vampires
• Stolen the weapon from a sniper in a tall building in the middle of a mine-strewn town
• Drowned more than five times attempting to swim underwater to an aircraft carrier
• Activated some complex mechanical device to try and help jump-start a science experiment
• Defeated a sinister enemy by discovering a secret way to escape from virtual reality world
• Lead my character to break out from a massive enemy fortress full of robots and soldiers
• Rescued a group of mercenaries besieged and trapped at the rooftop of a hotel
• Helped to contribute to the maintenance of a water processing plant by collecting parts
• Sold some drug components to a drug dealer for the much needed bottle caps (money)
• Neutralized some mutated ant nest due to a miscalculation by a biologist
• Allowed an escaped android to live his new lease of life by lying to his pursuer-cum-creator
• Battled some Super-Mutant fortresses and saved some hostages from the wasteland
• Collected pre-war books and sold them to a scholar for the much needed bottle caps
• Trying to find out the industrial formula for Nuka-cola (a drink in the wasteland)
• Trying to find out what the satellite towers in the wasteland does
• Trying to retrieve a 200-year-old violin for an old lady who broadcasts her music on the radio

Sounds fun? I have not even discovered more than twenty other locations on the wasteland map so there could be other crazy things that I might have to find my character doing. Here are some screenshots taken during the game. I will upload more of them to share with you readers in the near future.

Sometimes, while waiting for the shops to open for business so that my character can buy and sell things, my character would enjoy the beautiful sunrises in the game. This one was taken outside Craterside Supply Store in the earlier starting towns of Megaton.
This was taken in the night time at the front porch of Washington Building after my character took out a group of Enclave soldiers, an Enclave officer and a deadly beast known as a Deathclaw. The weapon my character was holding was a Plasma Rifle and the craft in front of my character was some sort of flying craft - I wished my character could pilot it but my character could not do so. Maybe next time?
This was taken in the evening time when my character was exiting from an important city called Rivet City (which was actually a half-broken-off aircraft carrier). My character was facing the ruins of Washington DC and it was a scary trip because the enemies could be around the very next piece of debris, raking my character with a rocket or machine-gun fire.
This was my character dressed in a Reinforced 101 Vault suit with a motorcycle helmet talking to a person called Tenpenny. Tenpenny is a rich man with a richly-lavished tower and my character was trying to negotiate to see if he could allow another group to live in his tower. I have not made a decision to this quest yet - should my character kill Tenpenny and the existing residents so that the new group could move in or should I just kill off the new group and collect Tenpenny's reward instead?
This was the view taken from Tenpenny's tower and yes, my character was literally walking over all those rock outcroppings, ruined buildings and sand-dunes before my character could reach the tower, carefully fighting and avoiding terrible beasts and raiders who would not hesitate to tear my character to shreds.

Well, that is most active activity I am currently engaging in right now. I will update again on this game as well as any other interesting happenings to me as soon as I can. Time for dinner - an Italian BMT sandwich from Subway. Yummy~~~ ^__^

Slideshow on Construction and Completion Tour of Veronaville Estate in The Sims 2

Architect's Notes on Designing of The Veronaville Estate:
When the person (whom I shall henceforth called as Client P) expressed interest in the design of the Veronaville Estate, a number of construction requirements were ironed out:

1) There will be no use of pink colours (Client P does not appreciate pink)
2) The house should be ergonomic in design (no showy corners or layout)
3) There must be gardens with willow trees included.
4) There should be an area to include the career rewards for the Sims 2 characters.
5) The bedroom area must be located on the second storey.
6) There must be accessible computer access.

So I spend the first four days thinking about how to fit all those abovementioned construction requirements and continue to manage to build a house fused with asthetic and creative elements.

The front porch was designed to meet Sims 2 friends and hence should be large enough to accomodate Sims 2 characters standing and talking with one another. I included a lot of lighting because such visits may happen at night and I want the characters to be able to converse under good ambient lighting. The surrounding pool is made to connect all the way to the front porch and I added statues to increase the environment value of the front porch as well.

The living room is split into two because I want one to have the theme of music appreciation and the other to be the conventional TV-Stereo one. This one shows the piano as the main piece with a grandfather's clock to add the classic feel to this section of the house. Personally, I would love to play the piano myself but after years of toil, gym, my fingers are so crooked that playing the piano would be an incredibly uphill task but still, the piano is a beautiful addition to the house.

This is the conventional TV-Stereo living room to entertain Sims 2 friends who are less musically-interested. Obviously, I added the best plasma TV and stereo set for this section of the house. I also love the add greenery into the rooms to provide a splash of colour and nature to tone down the sharpness of the colours
This pool room is created after consultation with Client P who loves an occasional good game of pool. The room is too small to add sitting area but I can manipulate more drawings on the walls and some plants on the ceiling. Notice that I did not cram the walls with expensive environment-adding paintings because it will exponentially increase the cost of the house, making it much more difficult for Sims 2 characters to earn the simoleons to move into the house.
The private lounge area is designed as a rest area away from the hussle and bustling of the normal living room areas. I choose a long N-shaped sofa lounge to provide continuity and unity to the room and added an expresso machine as well as a music amplifier there to provide a smoother living room-cum-lounge experience. If this is a real house, I would choose the private lounge to laze around with friends and just talk about anything under the sun.
There are a total of four toilets in the design of the Veronaville Estate and all four of them have the same layout although I have varied the designs of the wallpaper, flooring, colours used for the bathroom items as well as the carpeting. Toilets are meant to be super-ergonomic but I made sure that they are spacious enough to provide a better asthetic feel.

The second storey corridors are bland because I did not add those expensive paintings. I think I will leave it to Client P to add those additions since the estate was created on Client P's behalf anyway. Simple and private, I continued using the red carpet to provide a sense of class and continuance to the first storey. I would have made the corridors wider but that would have meant even more space used on the main building and less space for the outdoor gardens.

The master bedroom is made to have TV and computers because Client P is an avid computer user and I think it's a suitable addition to the room for convenience. The wall-mounted plasma television is imagined to be connected to the computers and thus a wider-screen experience can be obtained if Client P chooses to laze on the bed and use the computer from there instead.
The study room is created because Client P has a collection of interesting books and will probaby need a proper place to store those books. Luxuriant sofas were added so that reading can be done in a comfortable and undisturbed place, except for the wall-mounted telephone, which is located in almost every room in the house for convenience of communication's sake.
The gym room is meant to keep Client P healthy and fit. A companion beside the treadmill and a nice beautiful painting will be a better indoor exercise experience. A sofa for any exhausted occupants of this room and I kept the room in a more serious tone with stone walls and a diamond-white floor so that the room's ambience is kept in syn with the rigours of exercise of the body.
There are a total of two guest rooms in the Veronaville Estate so that Client P can invite any friend for a stayover. The guest rooms are smaller so I tried to fit in as much without making them look crammed. Whilst the master bedroom has a view overlooking the back porch and gardens, the guest rooms have views overlooking the front porch.

The dining area is kept neat and tidy with a long table to entertain Sims 2 characters who are coming over for a visit and a meal together. I kept the dining area well-lit with plenty of windows overlooking the back gardens and made sure there is plenty of food around by providing two refridgerators instead of the conventional one. Two stoves also provide easier and more efficient cooking if there are a lot of mouths to feed.
Notes to be continued.

Finally, after more than three weeks, spending time in between lessons and sleep, I completed the Veronaville Estate and am ready to share the slideshow with the readers of my blog. The slideshow will take some time to finish so you can sip your favourite drink whilst you are at it.

It's nearly midnight now so the specific write-up will have to wait till I come home tonight. Hope all of you will enjoy the designing and the tour of the house! Goodnight!

Some quick thoughts on the road

I am typing this inside a dimly-lit internet shop in an undisclosed location so a quick post about some random stuff before I have to go for my dinner and my evening lesson later on.

On my other tabs are two other websites - One is the browser-based strategy war-game called Imperial Ages, where I am waiting for my online armies to return back from their raiding trips before I send them out again (I don't believe in idleness for my troops in that game so I make them work very hard for me since I am paying alot of gold for their hourly upkeep. Hahaha). The other is Facebook where I play some other mini-games to keep myself entertained late night when I finally reach home.

My eyes are a little droopy because I slept very late last night, trying to design a nice house in The Sims 2 game. It's a promise made to a VIP friend and I intend to keep it so I dedicated three solid hours into the general framework of the house as well as the decoration of a couple of rooms. I will try to gather all the screenshots I have made and post them up here so that the readers can see how I go about designing a house. Hopefully my architectural taste will appeal to that VIP friend as well when the screenshots are up in public.

Yesterday, I had a very interesting lesson with a new student whom I have just taken up. Apparently, she had a terrible accident recently and nearly lost her life. Although she survived, she now suffered from some post-trauma stress and has developed illusions about shadows and darkness. Looks like I have to be very careful with my lessons because I don't want to bring back anything related to the accident which may trigger her stress levels to spike. This will be a challenging assignment to take on indeed because I have a special tightrope to walk on. I hope the poor girl recovers from it in time. After all, to be psychologically scarred even one survives is not a good way to move on in life either. Hope she will let the episode go in her mind eventually.

Recently, I have just watched the movie "Hancock". Although the action scenes were way over the top and made quite some blurring to my senses, I loved the characterization of Hancock in the earlier part of the movie where he struggled to find his superhero identity amidst the loneliness of what he thought he was the only kind on this planet. The later part of the movie with another female superhero and the whole thing about angels in pairs must separate or die was a little bit too bizzare but I suppose the director/scriptwriter of the movie wanted to convey the idea that "with great power comes great responsibility" in another way - whereby one must sacrifice some of the things he/she wants in order to fulfill one's destiny. On my movie-to-watch list are also Hellboy 2, Batman: Dark Knight, and Red Cliff. Big hole in my pocket again. Hahaha.

It's getting really noisy in the internet shop now because there is a group of boys playing Counterstrike and they keep screaming atop of the gunshots sounds blasting from their speakers. I guess I have to stop now because I am getting hungry - what shall I get for my dinner? Hmm...

Anyway, have a good weekend ahead everyone! =)

Music Dreamer Singer/Instrumentalist Auditions, Movie Review: Get Smart (2008), Gaming Update: Imperial Ages

Music Dreamer Singer/Instrumentalist Auditions:

The Pouting Apple wants to join the auditions and so I accompanied her to visit music dreamer cafe last Monday night to have a first-hand feel of what it is like to sing live onstage with music accompaniment by instrumentalists. It was Audience' Night so I gave The Pouting Apple as many chances as possible to sing and gain more onstage experience since she had very little opportunities to do so as she is currently working full-time as well.

She was a fast learner and managed to settle down fairly quickly onstage, fielding as many as three songs before we had to head home. The rest of the audience singers came from a wide variety of backgrounds and did reasonably well too. I was amused by the nervousness of a young lad who was accompanied by his aunt and colleagues to try onstage for the first time and he was so nervous that he was holding onto the microphone so tightly. I was also very impressed by a lady who came solo and she was actually English-educated but she loved Mandarin songs so much that she practised hard and sang really well. The regulars at Audience Night were more adventurous, fielding very difficult songs but not really measuring up but those were really fun attempts nevertheless.

An enjoyable night was spent listening and learning. According to what I know, the auditions already has as many as 60 candidates signing up and the organizers are opening up a third day for the latecomers. Looks like it will be an interesting competition to be a singer at Music Dreamer. Maybe I should go take a look the auditions and see what sort of blogging I can do on them.

Movie Review: Get Smart (2008)

The Busy Bee and I met up for dinner and the Get Smart movie last Saturday and found it to be really funny. The movie is about how a desk-bound agent was reluctantly promoted to a field agent after a successful breach of information by an enemy secret organization. Agent 86 (Steve Carell) was paired up with the legendary Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) to try and stop the evil mastermind. You see all the sparks flying as they quarrelled, fumbled, fought and competed to complete their seemingly-impossible mission.

I absolutely loved the part where both of them were trying to outdo each other on the dance-floor and also the part where Agent 86 tried to use his newly-acquired gadget - the mini-crossbow inside the toilet of an aeroplane with ridiculously hilarious results.

Strongly recommended this movie as a way to laugh away all the work and the stress - just leave your sanity and rationality at home and I am sure you will love the movie as I did.

Gaming Update: Imperial Ages

A few blog posts ago, I was writing about this so here's the update - the game was more exciting than I expected because there was a recent full-scale war between two of the largest alliances of which I was involved in as well. The war lasted an intense 72 hours and was fought fiercely between players hour by hour and I was really hyped up because the opposing alliance did boost a number of really strong and capable players. The result was a victory for my outnumbered alliance and the total dissolution of the other alliance.

I was glad to be of use in that particularly short yet violent military conflict, sending troop reinforcements to friendly villages being sieged by the opposing alliance players, as well as launching full-scale attacks on enemy villages. Below is a screenshot of my capital village - highly-evolved with a seriously strong economy as the backbone for my elite-trained infantrymen and heavy calvary.

As the war has just concluded, there was a consensus of a period of post-war peace amongst the international players and I am currently using this period of time to strengthen my military as well as grow my other smaller-sized villages. It's a war game and you can safely bet the next war will not be far off.

Time for lunch and work. See you folks around! =)

Nice Game Music Videos From Kingdom Hearts and Coldplay Latest Song "Violet Hill"

I received these videos from a friend on Facebook and thought they are quite nice so I put them up to share with the readers of my blog.

Kingdom Hearts - Viva la Vida

Kingdom Hearts looks like quite a nice game but I already have Sims 2 and Imperial Ages which are keeping my hands full during my gaming time but for those interested, you can go ahead and try the game. It's quite challenging and yet fun to play.

Coldplay - Violet Hill - FULL OFFICIAL VIDEO

I am not a English music lover but the song sounds quite well-made and an occasional English song does broaden one's music horizon. Any reader out there with more exposure to Coldplay and go ahead and tag what you know about this song.

My apologies for not updating my blog as often as I would like to. I promise to update as much as possible in June because I think I scheduled too much work this month and ended up neither resting properly nor blogging regularly.

I went for a badminton session with a few of my friends and because of the resulting fatigue, ended up with a calf cramp after two hours of badminton. It's really hilarious because I usually don't have cramps so I think it's a sign for to rest more. I think I will sleep earlier before midnight tonight.

I haven't bought my USB cable replacement so there are many photos which are not uploaded yet but I will promise to do that as soon as I can.

Take care everyone and stay tuned. I will push for another post as soon as time allows. Don't worry, I will be ablet to blog more once I survive this two weeks. Jia you~~~

Games: Replaying Fallout Tactics, Starting Imperial Ages, Movie Review: Forbidden Kingdom Spagghetti Dinner at The Married Soldier's Place

Games: Replaying Fallout Tactics, Starting Imperial Ages:
I was a little bored playing Facebook on last Friday night so I went to surf some of my own games websites and lo and behold, I found the revived link to a Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel editor and I was so happy. Why? Because the editor will allow me to reinstall the excellent squad-based tactical game and replay the game as many times as I wanted to. I did and within hours, I had my squad inside the final mission - The Calculator inside Vault 0.

What you see above is my Fallout Tactics team standing at attention. From the left onwards, Sean (team designation: Commander), Farsight (team designation: Ranger), Torn (team designation: Sniper), Brian (team designation: Gunner), Jo (team designation: Engineer) and finally Stitch (team designation: Medic). This Special Operations team pushed through the various missions of the game and with their carefully chosen skills, made it through to the final mission. Hmm...perhaps I will write a blog post about this team and what made them so successful to keep me entertained throughout the game sometime in the future. =)

The above screenshot is taken from a new game which I am also currently entertaining myself with whenever I am at home not tutoring. It's called Imperial Ages and it is a browser-based game which requires only a free account and Internet connection. On the surface, it lacked the graphics and intense plotline of many strategic city-building games and one cannot really personally commandeer the battles should his/her village is under direct raids or attacks.

However, the game has its own merits to keep me playing - it has no blood and gory scenes and it requires a considerable level of skill in management and foresight because one will have to balance limited resources of wood, stone, iron and gold against priorities of building and developing the village, defense and recruiment of troops, as well as trade and diplomacy with other Imperial Ages players from all over the world. I will write more about my young village in a later post once I figured out more about the gameplay itself.

Besides gaming, I have also found a interesting book in the National Library about cultures and civilizations of the Middle East and have been spending the past week reading through the complex but very interesting tidbits about Assyrians, Summerians, Romans, Parthians and many others. It looks like the Middle East has one of the riches mix of cultures and histories in the whole world, interlocking one another with trade, war and construction of strange monuments and cities of various functions. I like reading about different cultures.
During the movie-cum-dinner gathering at Great World City, the four of us walked into this art gallery because The Married Soldier's wife wanted to buy some paintings for their house.
It turns out that the art gallery has quite a good collection of paintings, notably using 3-dimensional techniques to bring out the textures of certain things, such as the above painting where the orange leaves of those trees came to life. Unfortunately, the prices of these paintings also came to life - a stunning $950 which is way off her budget for paintings. Still, it would nice to hang some of these in the house. Perhaps they will come back with a bigger budget for it.

Movie Review: Forbidden Kingdom (2008)
The Changed Man, The Married Soldier and his wife and I went to GV Grand at Great World City to watch this movie by the very familiar Jackie Chan and Jet Li on last Saturday. The Changed Man said he did not like the movie but I find it very interesting and entertaining because the fighting scenes were nicely done (especially the one between Jackie Chan and Jet Li in an abandoned temple) and even the newcomer was humourous and fits into the character of the reluctant savior of The Monkey King in Chinese mythology.

I also liked the part where they explained some of the interesting and even educational concepts about kungfu too - the part where they said something like "...it flows around like water, which is so gentle and yet can cut through rocks...learn the path but find your own path" So zen...I like.

The final scene where the showdown between The Monkey God and The Jade Warlord, as well as all the other adventurers against the Jade Army at the Five Elements Mountain (where the Monkey God was tricked and imprisoned by The Jade Warlord) was quite well-flimed too. There was also a part where the female adventurer The Golden Sparrow, was so adamant about revenge for her family that she was eventually defeated and killed by the obviously more powerful Jade Warlord and there was no way to bring her back to life because as what The Jade Emperor (The boss of The Jade Warlord who was in some retreat for 500 years) said "Her destiny was chosen by her own path".

I would give this movie a 3.5 out of 5 for entertainment value and even a 4.0 for its carefully placed explanations of Chinese martial arts concepts and even philosophical values. Go watch it if you like fighting flicks with a dash of humour and sometimes pain (well-exemplified by the young protagonist).

Spagghetti Dinner at The Married Soldier's Place:

After the movie, we went grocery shopping at Great World City and beef spagghetti and salad was on the menu. The Married Soldier's wife cooked up the abovementioned whilst the three guys slacked in front of the television, watching Hildago until dinner was ready at 8.30pm. The Changed Man and I did the dishes after movie and all of us spend some time watching one another's Facebook profiles and friends until we call it a day.

Well, that is all over the last weekend. I will blog more if I can find more time in the afternoon today. Breakfast calls. Tata~~ =D