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Life is a game.
Those who play...
Play against the entire world.
There are no saves.
There are no walkthroughs.
There is only one chance.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Update

Alright. Let's go through what happened to me these past 10 days. It's long, but it felt as if a longer time has passed.

****

So week 2 ensues. This week, Monday went on as usual, but we found out about our task at the World Cyber Games this year as volunteers.

On Tuesday we received instructions. We got our teams for shifting, and I switched out of A to B because A has 2 morning shifts, and my friends are all at B. So then we also got instructions that we have to go for a briefing at 8 that evening at Snutec, which mae us freak out because lessons after lunch were cancelled. So we went for, what else, some DotA at Raiders AMK. I forgot who pwned what but I'm pretty sure I pwned a game. So then we had dinner at S11 before setting off to City Hall.

I swear that place is the most confusing place ever for a first timer. And the roofs are so freaking high you can barely notice the signs. We managed to find our and not be late, and got there on time.

It was a short thing, and I went in to the PR team. Me, Gerald, Dom and BK. Wacky. We went around looking, a short tour, got our T-shirts and volunteer tags and went home.

We were supposed to be back there by 12.30 the next day, for rehearsals of the opening ceremony. We were assigned countries to hold placards for them. I got Austria, and I took an opportunity to show off, which incidentally had the only female finalist in the entire tournament.

So we were instructed on how to walk and how to hold the placards, and then the flagbearers came. The Austrian one told me he was only here as a team leader but not a gamer after I was like "What do you play?" and he gave me a "wtf" look.

Then evening came, and the VIPs came in and we had the opening ceremony. So we went up and back, and everything was sweet and nice.

The rest of the days had Gerald and Dom sticking at the Dead or Alive: Ultimate section and then the XBox section after it ended. There were Razer Copperheads everywhere and they kept disappearing at the Press Centre and we were all very tempted to ninja some home (good thing we didn't).

We spent the nights at the arcade after dinner. And for the first time I completed Virtual Cop 2 with 1 credit. Yay! I spent entire days at Suntec, with the exception of Saturday, where I watched Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire before going for my third shift.

The movie was quite ok, but I would say total crap for hardcore Harry Potter fans. Voldemort looked like an alien. Which is... Stupid. He really looks like a Protoss, if you have played StarCraft before. The overall movie for entertainment is about 6.5/10, but for story value is around 4.5/10.

And days of nothing much came the last day. Singapore has a silver at DOA:U, and was out of all the other games.

So the winners (1st, 2nd, 3rd) are as follows:
  • Counter-Strike: Source - USA, Kazakhstan, Canada
  • Warcraft III: Frozen Throne - China, USA, Netherlands
  • Starcraft: Broodwar - Korea, Russia, Australia
  • FIFA 2005 - Germany, Russia, Spain
  • Need For Speed: Underground 2 - Brazil, Brazil, Russia
  • Warhammer 40'000: Dawn Of War - Korea, Brazil, Germany
  • Halo 2 - USA, Canada, France
  • Dead Or Alive: Ultimate - Japan, Singapore, Korea
We went to the farewell party expecting food, but it was nothing but alcohol. We left for food at a line of roadside hawker stalls (expensive ones) and had dinner while we joked a lot about what if our lecturers were at the party and drank too much and went to school tomorrow with a hangover.

******

So on Sunday, we human teenagers feasted like orcs while behaving like night elves and went to school Monday morning like the Undead.

That is, until Mr. Lim got a phone call. That we might be getting rewarded.

This made everyone wake up. We had a meeting with the director that afternoon, and talked to us about our course before announcing our gifts: a Razer Copperhead mouse, a Razer eXactMat, EverGlide keyboard and headset. The default equipment for competitors at the WCG.

So we went to collect our equipment after the meeting, and went home.

******

Being a Copperhead user now, I naturally had to go around boasting about it (Give me a week, it will go). Went for Judo for the first time in two weeks, and felt something strange. The training was very technical... Instead of the physical ones I've heard about the past two weeks.

We had Mac for dinner after that... And went home. I played some DotA and chatted a little, and slept.

******

No school today. Not bad. That's why I have the time to write so much and upload photos (if you don't know what I'm talking about, search for hidden links in the text).

Another time.

Ciao.

Sunday, November 13, 2005

The long awaited update...

I named this entry so because... Well, it is that.

In any case.

Long time no update. My bad.

So school started. And great first day of school I must say. On my journey with my friends through AMK I sprain my stupid ankle. And a bad one.

Needless to say things just screw up by themselves for the rest of the week.

DotA has gotten into my blood. Too much of it. Even worse than, I would say the time when I got addicted to CS at Primary 6. But not that bad.

Well, things occasionally get better during the weekends. My foot pretty much healed up (after a session with the... Oh man I don't know what it is in English) and I had some spare time today, so I went to watch a movie.

No, correct that, two movies. Yeap, that's right, two. Sky High and Doom.

*****

Sky High was basically your family outing kind of movie. Predictable, warmy and well, kinda plain. Not boring though, the fights look ok. Just plain. I couldn't laugh at any of the funny stuff they tried to put out. Just no material there.

3 stars for trying to be funny. 1 for being not.

3 stars for the sidekick powers. 5 for making them useful in a desperate situation.

*****

Doom can be summarised into three words: Gross, Dark and Confusing.
  • Gross: You see blood, body parts, internal organs, external organs, mutation. The usual.
  • Dark: The whole story is cast in a science facility where the lights went out. Creepy.
  • Confusing: I cannot explain, because if I could I wouldn't call it confusing.
Other than that, I would tell you that The Rock is not the main character. I think they bypassed the process of even choosing one when they wrote the story. Then they realised that oh, this guy's the main, but never announces it until the end.

4 stars for the FPS scene at the end. 2 for the ending.

4 stars for the BFG (Bio Force Gun a.k.a. Big F**king Gun). 2 for the user.

*****

So then that was not a summary of my life these days I failed to update, but the summaries of the two moveis I just watched.

Have fun! You were punk'd!