(This is an entry for this).

First thing I did with my first few months of salary was to finally buy myself a gaming PC so you’d probably know, I love games :). And not your average junkie too: I really love them, have played many many games, and find it puzzling why people can spend Ks on a gaming rig, or a car, or handphones, but find the concept of actually buying an original game - prices have dropped a little because of the weak dollar - completely alien.

That’s a discussion for another day though, since I’m writing this to share my favourite game of all time. You’d think it’d be a recent whizzbang shooter like Call of Duty 4, Bioshock, or maybe Half Life 2 - all fantastic games in their own right. After all graphics have improved to such realistic levels titles even a few years back can sometimes look positively outdated.

But yet I feel the best game of all time is Baldur’s Gate 2 (and its expansion Throne of Bhaal ), released a full 8 years ago in 2000 by the now-defunct Black Isle studios.

Granted I’ve always leaned towards RPGs rather than FPS. The former tends to be more story-centric and involving, rather than a twitchfest - although the lines are beginning to blur nowadays. But I think BG2 was one of the few games to have a perfect combination of action, gameplay, story, setting, and even decent multiplayer.

The freedoms given in the game, set in the Dungeons and Dragons Forgotten Realms setting, still puts many later wannabes to shame. After an intriguing introduction where you fight your way out of a dungeon and watch as a childhood friend is kidnapped, you are free to explore Amn and its surroundings as you please, though the game reminds you about your main quest every now and then. And no mere Fed-ex side quests these; the game throws at you pirates, vampires, werewolves, djinni, liches, and even dragons! Indeed, it’s been observed that the second chapter of BG2 is practically as fleshed out as the entirety of some other games.

And when you finish with that, you find out that it’s just the beginning as you travel over the seas and into the Underdark.What completely separated BG2 from other games though was its gameplay - due mostly in part to its Infinity Engine. I still haven’t seen an engine, 3D or otherwise, that has been as able to capture epic, spellslinging battles as Baldur’s Gate did. And these battles were hard too, even on your second or third time through, which gave you all the more satisfaction as you finally downed that dragon or mind flayer.

It was also one of the few games - then and since - which had interesting companions, all of whom would change your party’s playstyle, and how you experienced the game. All had their own storylines and subquests and there were more enough combinations for multiple playthroughs.

In 2001 came the expansion Throne of Bhaal, and it brought the game to dizzying heights of epicness - up to that point most studios had never done a DnD game with characters levelled so high. And somehow it all still worked, timestops, comets, devas, fire giants and all, and it still captured the adventuring spirit of the series.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve played through BG2 (4? 5?) and I find that as I write this I’m tempted to pick it up and try a new character and party build :P. I’m not alone either: there’s still a thriving mod community centered around the game. If you like RPGs and have never played this, you aren’t a true RPG fan :).

That’s it for my favourite game of all time!

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Apparently it should be called Anagrams :(. I still think Grabble is a better name!

I miss those days…

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When I was reminiscing in an earlier post about the Enid Blyton books I read when I was a kid, I mentioned that I’d heard some names had been changed in modern editions to be politically correct. I wasn’t sure about it at the time, only having read about it on Wikipedia.

But today I was in the bookstore and remembered to check - and it’s true! No more Dicks and Fannies.

Below are pictures from two different editions of The Folk of the Faraway Tree (click to view large versions):

Original Names intact:

Modern/politically correct versions (2005 edition):

Forgot to take a pic of “cousin Dick” becoming “cousin Rick”. Oh well.

And what is it with the lame-ass illustrations in the modern version?

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“Once a Free, always a Free”

Any of my ex-PFS mates who read that would be rolling their eyes at the oh-so-creative slogan we used to hear back then. And we always agree that our alma mater is going downhill - then again, maybe the generations before us thought the same thing…

But in some people the school spirit is still running strong! ntsocialism has a great post on how he discovered a car (or rather, a pickup truck) with the magic registration number PFS 1816. 1816 is the year Penang Free School was founded, making it the oldest school in SE Asia.

Mr. Lim Yew Meng, the owner of the registration number, is a modest and cheerful chemist who owns a pharmacy in Balik Pulau, Penang. Born and bred in Penang, he underwent his formal high school education in Penang Free School and completed his final year in school in 1983 under the guidance and leadership of the then headmaster, Mr. G. Krishna Iyer.
…
Amusingly enough, his three weeks old car has already been hit twice by unknown drivers - to which I responded, “Hmm! Must be them Xavierans!!”

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Found this in today’s Sun, p21:

After a decade of bringing blockbuster movies to people staying on the south west side of the island, Cathay Cineplex in Bukit Jambul Complex will be closed from 5pm next Monday. The closure is in line with the company’s plans to consolidate all its services under one roof at Prangin Mall in George Town. The company’s upgrading work for the cineplex in Prangin Mall is scheduled to be completed in May.

Well… not unexpected (note to self: If you ever open a shopping mall, don’t put shops selling pirated CDs on the 4th floor and the cinema on the 5th). I’ll miss all those times I indignantly say “We could just watch it in BJ!! GSC/Island Plaza is so far away!” when asked to watch movies.

Mega Pavillion - sorry, Cathay Cineplex - used to give out those cards where you get one stamp for every movie ticket and after about 15 or so stamps you get a “free” movie - that is, after no one wants to watch the movie any more, they put it on the free list and you can use your card. Oddly enough, I went to the cinema regularly but can remember getting only one such freebie. The only show on the free list was Love on a Diet starring Sammi Cheng. I sat down in the cinema; there were fewer than 10 people there. I was early because I like to watch cinema advertisements. But nadda. They didn’t even dim the lights. 10 minutes after the show was supposed to have started, the usher came in and told us to choose another show instead - in my case, Jurassic Park 3. Which wasn’t on the free list. Yay.

Is the GSC juggernaut destined to overwhelm all the other players with their caramel popcorn? At least they opened one practically opposite my house…

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While waiting to take a mid-term test this week, I happened to peer into one of the neighbouring lecture halls and noticed the students dressed up and the lecturers watching. It was that time of year…

About the only time I’ve ever had geniune interest in a subject in my years in MMU was during my foundation year, in English III. Every group has to select from a pool of classic short stories, and produce a 20-minute sketch. Other than contributing towards our final grade, the best sketches would also be narrowed down and IIRC a final ten would be invited to present in the Main Hall.

In our case, the story was “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl - no, he didn’t write only children’s books, he produced quite a few short stories for adults that were appreciated for their dark humour.

For the uninitiated, the story revolves around Mary Maloney, whose husband confesses to an affair. In a fit of rage, she seizes the nearest object at hand - a frozen leg of lamb - and buffets him over the head with it, causing his death. After regaining her composure, she calmly goes to the grocer for peas and potatoes, returns, prepares a supper of roast lamb, and calls the police. Upon their arrival, she feigns grief, the grocer provides her alibi, and the story ends with the police joining her for a supper of roast lamb.

First thing was to replace the “leg of lamb” with a whole chicken from TESCO. Lambs are expensive in Malaysia…
I thought it would be interesting if the whole script rhymed. That took up a lot of effort! But we liked the result.

Read rest of post…

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Spiderman, X-Men, Dardevil, Catwoman, Batman, Punisher, Fantastic Four, Hulk - superhero movies are a dime a dozen nowadays. Which is certainly not a bad thing, since with advances in filming techniques, CG effects, and passable plots (for some of them at least), filmmakers and directors can now do justice to the comics.

But there was a time when superhero movies were invariably campy, with cheap effects and corny scripts featuring actors running around in tights they didn’t fit in. In 1978 Superman: The Movie changed all that. Christopher Reeve gave an amazing performance , not only looking good as Superman, but playing his “mild-mannered” alter ego Clark Kent perfectly. Add in a majestic soundtrack by John Williams, a faithful adaptation of Metropolis, - and of course, the flying! - and you had a movie that redefined the genre.

Nearly three decades later we now have Superman Returns, directed by Bryan Singer of X-Men . Meant to be a sequel to Superman: The Movie and Superman II (III and IV were so bad they were effectively disowned by Reeve himself), the movie was preceded by the requisite mountain of hype: leaked plot details, pictures, interviews, and rumours of Brandon Routh’s lunchbox .

AP compares Superman with Jesus. The Star saw a personification of American culture and ambition. Well, I just saw another Superman movie.

I knew it from the first scene. The familiar “Superman March” plays as Krypton explodes and a tiny capsule escapes, the opening credits fly across the screen, and we “travel” across the planets before finally arriving on Earth in an impeccable tribute to the first film, where the credits took place in reverse, finishing at Krypton for Marlon Brando’s introduction.

Who Needs A Plot?

Superman arrives on Earth after a five-year disappearance, discovering that Lois has moved on and is engaged, has a child, and won a Pulitzer for an article titled “Why The World Doesn’t Need Superman”. And Lex Luthor, who escaped a double life sentence after Superman didn’t show for his trial, has a new diabolical plan.

How does it all play out? To cut to the chase, Brandon Routh is no Mr. Reeve, although they sure look alike and he does a decent job. His Superman portrayal is decent, but he looked too pretty to be a convincing Clark Kent and relied a lot on stutters to depict “mild-mannered”.

Kevin Spacey plays Luthor well, charming but still has no qualms killing billions of people. Kate Bosworth is the only major cast member who doesn’t look like her counterpart in the original movies. Which is actually a good thing - Bosworth pulls off the “pushy-and-outgoing, but hot” Lois act well, much better than Margot Kidder’s whiny, irritating version.

The plot is uncannily similar to the first two movies (read: bad). Without giving it away, I’ll just say Lex Luthor is pretty consistent about what he wants throughout the films, still has problems picking evil accomplices who don’t suffer reverse-Stockholm syndrome, and Superman never fails to come up with an out-of-this-world solution to the problem at hand.

Still Super

Returns shines however at the exact same thing as its predecessors: its setting. Seeing Superman swoop down to stop everyday crimes is still a guilty pleasure, as is watching people react to him, as well as the workings of the “Daily Planet”. Bryan Singer lost no opportunities to insert funny moments as well. There are also philosophical references about responsibility, godhood, heroism, etc but hey, when was the last time you got your philosophies from a superhero film?

Where Returns starts to deviate is also where it gets shaky. Come on, children complicate things! The last scenes, which draw a little from the Death of Superman comic storyline, are also really cheesy.

Effects-wise, Superman Returns has the falling objects, heat-vision, and freeze-breath down pat, and you’ll still “believe a man can fly”. What it lacks in however is action. In a time when we have flicks like Spiderman, X-Men, or The Matrix, Superman fights look really boring - the fights are either one-sided in favour of Supes, or he’s whimpering after being hit with Kryptonite. I don’t think I’d want to know what Kryptonian Kung-Fu would look like though…

If you’re new to the whole Superman thing you probably won’t be more impressed with Superman Returns than with any other comic book adaptation. But if you’re a fan of the old series, you won’t want to miss this tribute. Watch out for the sequel in 2009!

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One of my most memorable expriences was being mugged in Pudu bus station in KL in my first year in university. I was there in the wee hours of the morning on the way to an interview for a scholarship.

I was groggy from the journey but still distractedly going over what to say in the interview when two Chinese men sat down next to me and started murmuring something - in Mandarin.

That’s right, I was being mugged but unaware of it!

After getting fed up with my blank stares one of them pointed a small knife at me and patted my wallet. Light dawned.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared stiff, but after the initial shock some measure of rationality came back to me - although no one seemed to notice, I was still in a fairly public place. I remember asking them to leave me with ten dollars - in Hokkien - so I could still take the taxi to the interview. They asked for my handphone, I pretended to turn out my pockets to show them I didn’t have one (I did).

Before leaving they took a close look at my watch and decided it wasn’t worth stealing…oh well.

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This has been a very busy week for me. Night of Celebration IV was held yesterday in the MMU Main Hall. As with every year it was packed with some people standing at the back or sitting on the floor the whole show - due in part because the play had free admission, but also because of the reputation the show has received over the years.

The consensus of the audience was that the play was good, but not on par with previous years. I expected this really - we had to shift from a Christmas theme to a “normal” play due to MMU’s shuffle of the academic timetable. The script was also a little weak. All appreciated the amount of work put into the play though.

The start of the play was hilarious: the VIP was late as usual, but Mark Choo the resident photography/video expert had things all planned. We had a Powerpoint telling the audience to clap and cheer to warm up for the show, then we replayed some trailers and adverts done by him. The audience who were unaware that we were trying to kill time probably thought we were very full of ourselves…

Every year after doing the Flash for the play I tell myself “Damn I’m good!!”.

The following year I look back at what I did the previous year and I say to myself… “My goodness I really sucked.”

Well this year all I have to say is -

Damn, I’m good!

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Today our planet completes another revolution around the Sun. What have we humans done in the meantime? Six billion beings on the planet, all living their lives, all interacting with one another. That’s gotta make for some pretty interesting incidents. Here are some events that caught my eye in the past year:

January

The world still reels from the Asian tsunami of December 2004. Malaysian deaths number about 70; Thailand, 5,000; Sri Lanka, 30,000; Indonesia reported that it stopped counting bodies. Losses are incalculable, but countries all around the world unite to provide aid.

1st - Freedom of Information Act comes into effect in Britain. It makes public bodies accountable to citizens. “The public will gain a legally enforceable right to know if a public body holds information - and the right to ask for it… replies must be made in 20 working days or less.”

12th - US intelligence officially gives up the search for WMD in Iraq.

20th - George W. Bush sworn in for his second term as US President.

30th - Iraq holds first free election for the first time in 50 years.

February

13th Shi’ite United Iraqi Alliance wins the first Iraqi elections, capturing half of the vote. Voter turnout was 58%.

16th - The Kyoto Protocol, an environmental resolution aimed at reducing air pollution, takes effect. Notable detractors are the US and Australia.

16th - China replacing US as world’s biggest consumer entity.

27th - Million Dollar Baby, the story of an aspiring female boxer, wins Academy Award for Best Picture.

March

1st - Malaysia launches effort to deport illegal immigrants following the expiration of its amnesty policy.

2nd - Bill Gates receives honourary knighthood for his business skills and work fighting poverty.

8th - The United Nations passes declaration prohibiting human cloning, with a vote of 84-34 and 37 absentees, “.. as they are incompatible with human dignity and the protection of human life”

24th - Soft tissue apparently extracted from remains of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

31st - Terry Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman at the center of euthanasia controversy, dies.

31st - Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi speaks on Islam Hadhari at Victoria University, New Zealand.

April

2nd - Pope John Paul II passes away at the age of 84. The first non-Italian pope since the 16th century, he covered more of the world than any of his predecessors and is credited as a riving force behind the failure of Soviet communism.

8th - Jeremy Jaynes sentenced to 9 years of prison for illegal email spamming.

9th - Prince Charles marries Camilla Parker Bowles at Windsor.

19th - Jospeh Ratzinger becomes Benedict XVI, the 265th Pope.

May

4th - Petrol and diesel prices in Malaysia increase for the third time in a year as part of a move to wean consumers off Government subsidies.

8th - Disneyland marks 50th anniversary in Disneyland, Anaheim.

16th - Release of the Report of the Royal Commission to Enhance the Operation and Management of the Royal Malaysia Police. 125 recommendations are made to improve the police force.

17th - Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith debuts at the Cannes Festival, ending the Star Wars sexlogy.

June

14th - Michael Jackson acquitted of child molestation charges

23rd - Nobel Prize winner Jack Kilby, inventor of the integrated circuit (and the handheld calculator), dies at 81. His work pioneered microchips and personal computers.

24th - UMNO vice-president and Minister for Federal Territory Mohd. Isa Abdul Samad is suspended from UMNO after being found guilty of money politics.

July

7th - London wins right to host 2012 Olympics.

7th - London hit by series of terrorist bomb attacks, leaving about 40 dead and 700 injured.

7th - International Trade and Industry Minister Rafidah Aziz told to answer Tun Mahathir’s queries over the Approved Permits (AP) issue.

8th - The G8 summit is held in Gleneagles. The countries involved pledges an increase of 48 billion USD in international aid, and cancellelation of the debt of 18 nations to the IMF and the World Bank. However the summit is criticized for not paying enough attention to trade and environment needs.

9th - Hidden sex scene in controversial video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas sparks outrage.

16th - The sixth Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, is launched worldwide.

17th - Former Iraq President Saddam Hussein formally charged with genocide.

August

4th - South Korean scientists successfully clone a dog. Snuppy, an Afghan hound, was cloned from DNA extracted from the ear of his “parent”.

11th - State of emergency declared in Port Klang and Kuala Selangor after haze-induced air pollution exceeded 500 on the Air Pollution Index.

23rd - 31st - Category 5 storm Hurricane Katrina ravages America, the most destructive natural disaster there in recent history. The city of New Orleans is completely devastated. Economic losses are estimated at 100-200 billion USD, deaths at more than 1,000. Its social impact is large, with thousands of families displaced and many reports of anarchy in its aftermath. The US Government is widely criticized for being slow to respond to the crisis.

September

11th - Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi receives overwhelming mandate to privatise Japan’s postal system with a landslide victory in Japan’s general elections.

24th - Daniel Lee Chee Hun is crowned Malaysian Idol 2005, garnering 68% of the popular vote, beating Norhanita Bt. Hamzah (Nita).

25th - Full IRA weapons decommissioning confirmed, following its July declaration that it was ending armed conflict in Ireland.

October

14th - Daniel Craig replaces Pierce Brosnan as British spy James Bond, the first blond actor in the role.

15th - Malawian President Bingu wa Mutharika appeals for food aid, saying all 28 districts of Malawi are suffering food shortages, calling it a “national disaster”.

17th - The Human Security Centre, supported by five governments, says armed conflict worldwide has dropped 40% since 1992 with the exception of terrorist attacks. This is attributed to the rise of international activism for peace.

20th - Endon Mahmood, wife of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, passes away.

November

4th - New bird flu crisis reported in Asia following outbreaks in China and Vietnam.

4th - The Vatican endorses Darwinian evolution, citing the church’s denunciation of Galileo as a “permanent lesson”.

5th - The release of THES’ World University Rankings sparks debate about the perceived decline of Malaysian public universities.

22nd - Xbox 360 is released in North America.

24th - Seputeh MP Teresa Kok highlights alleged police abuse of a woman in custody in Parliament, sparking a “Squatgate” scandal that raised human rights issues and possibly strained relations with China.

December

1st - First face transplant performed on French woman.

2nd - Convicted Australian drug trafficker Van Nguyen executed in Singapore despite repeated diplomatic appeals from Australian government.

4th - Nicol Ann David defeats Australian Rachael Grinham to become the new world number one in squash.

14th - George W. Bush takes responsibility for faulty intelligence in the Iraq War. He insists removing Saddam Hussein had still been necessary.

14th - Science journal Nature reports that the freely editable online encyclopedia Wikipedia is close to the traditional printed Britannica in the accuracy of its science entries.

15th - Iraq successfully holds its first parliamentary elections.

20th - A US federal judge rules that “intelligent design” should not be taught in Pennsylvania public schools alongside evolution theory, criticizing its proponents for disguising religion as science.

29th - Kofi Annan reports to the UN that armed attacks, rape, and pillage continue in Darfur, Sudan after three years despite international efforts to resolve the ethnic conflict.

Who knows what the next year holds for us?

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