Sunday, January 22, 2006

Short Hiatus

I'm flying off to Singapore for the next 3 weeks so probably no updates till after 12th Feb 2006. Have a great Lunar New Year.

Friday, January 20, 2006

Funniest Commercial I've ever seen

Internet is for P*rn


Despite the title this is a really cute and funny video that some people with too much time on their hands made. Watch the video, you'll be laughing non-stop. The fact that its a musical number and the use of WOW graphics is just hilarious!

WOW Celebrates Lunar New Year

Lunar New Year in Azeroth
I'm overjoyed that this is happening! I can't wait to see my characters in a "Chong-Sum". I'm also a little peeved cos I'll be in S'pore during this time so I'll miss most of the celebrations.

Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled to be going back to S'pore and celebrating CNY with Friends and Family, but I'm an addict. A WOW addict and I need to play WOW!!!



Other features include:
A variety of rockets and fireworks
Festival Dumplings
Costumes that depict festive Lunar holiday dresses and suits in a variety of colors besides red
Recipes that will allow players to create red Lunar holiday clothing
A special red lockbox with a surprise inside (Inspired by the “Hong Bao” that is given during Chinese New Year)

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Want to sound smart?

Well, nothing leaves more of an impression then the signatures at the end of posts or emails.

This site gives a rather comprehensive listing of latin proverbs and quotes. Just choose one and use it in your signature.

Here are a few choice ones:
Vacca, vacca, vacca - Cow, cow, cow
Veni, Vidi, Visa - I Came, I Saw, I Shopped
In aere aedificare - Build (castles) in the air. (St. Augustine)
Vir prudens non contra ventum mingit - A wise man does not urinate against the wind

And here's the one I'll put in my signatures:
Volo anaticulam cumminosam meam! - I want my rubber ducky!

Keyboards Are Disgusting

from the my-spacebar-has-spawned-sentient-beings dept.
fredr1k writes " A test carried out by Pegasus Lab on account for Swedish magazine PC För alla showed that a normal PC keyboard was infected by more bacteria than a normal toilet seat. More specific it contained 33000 bacteria per square centimeter, compared to 130 on a ordinary toilet seat. The tests also showed occurrence of up to 3100 fungi per square centimeter." Also note that unless you read Swedish, you still have plausible deniability when asked to windex yours.
Link to story
This is probably true. If you've had a keyboard for over a year, lift it up tothe light and see if you cna spot the chunks of dirt between the keys. Just about every keyboard I've seen corroborates this article.

Monday, January 16, 2006

Movie Review - Brokeback Mountain


I finally went to watch this show. Partly beacuse of the hype, partly because its a gay love story. Here's what you won't find in the movie, lots of gay over tones or huge chunks of nudity. This movie is a love story, plain and simple. If you enjoy romantic sappy movies then this is the show for you.

That said what did I think of it? I loved it. The acting was exceptional and the main characters Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal are both likable and give a great performance. But more than that, the direction and plot was very simply but very well done. Heck, I teared up at the end when **** *** *** NO SPOILERS!

Simply put, if you can get over the fact that the main love story is about 2 guys, watch this movie. Gays should watch it because its one of the best gay films made to date. Women who enjoy romantic movies should watch it because its an exceptional love story. Guys should watch it because its an awesome date movie.

I give this movie a 9/10

Blog of the Month

Have you had a bad day? Not getting enough sugar in your diet?
Well come on down and visit cuteoverload !!!

Hehehe, this is now officially my favorite blog.

Weekly Release

Quite the uneventful week unless you like Monkeys or Samurai. Of course, 25 to Life does come out, whether it's any good or not is yet to be seen. DVDs look quite stale this week, but Underworld: Evolution hits theaters on Friday.

Monday
MX vs. ATV Unleashed (PC)

Tuesday
25 to Life (XBOX, PS2, PC)
Ape Escape 3 (PS2)
Ape Escape Academy (PSP)
Samurai Shodown V (XBOX)

Wednesday
MVP 06 NCAA Baseball (XBOX, PS2)

DVD
Lord of War
Two for the Money
Mr Show: Complete Collection

Theater
Transamerica
Underworld: Evolution
The New World (listed again on IMDB?)


Bah, aside from Underworld: Evolution there's nothing interesting out this week.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

My Obsession with WOW

Since my family left, I'm been playing World of Warcraft ALOT to the exclusion of almost everything except work. Here's some screenshots.

Blizzard gave us some fun things to do for Christmas. This is me on a reindeer and me as a christmas elf.


On New Years, there was a huge Kegger barty in Stormwind, the human city. Ale flowed freely and there was even fireworks every hour. You'll notice the pic on the right is fuzzy. That's cos I drank too much. That's right, even in computer games, there a penality to getting smashed.


And here's one of those epic battles we all play computer games for, killing the big uber dragon. In WOW one of these dragons is called Oxynia and she typically takes about 30-40 people to kill her. This can be done every 5 days. Why kill her? Because she drops some very nice loot, and bragging rights of course.


I finally got my 2nd character to lvl 40 and bought Isale his mount.

Hunk of the Week

Aarón Díaz

Name: Aaron Diaz Spencer
Date of Birth: March 7, 1982
City: Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco
Country: Mexico
Marital status: single
Favorite sports: soccer and swimming
Favorite singer: Carlos Santana
Height: 183 cm
Occupation: actor, singer

Online Worlds Blow my mind

I just read an interesting article about online gaming worlds.

The jist of it for all you non-techie folks is basically that online gaming is very very complex. Even more so that I had first expected. The article explans how Sony created a world server for Everquest (a very popular online game 2-3 years ago). It took about 20 servers all working and connected together to create this virtual world which could hold about 2500 persons.

The current juggernaut of the online gaming world is "World of Warcraft", which is much more sophisticated than Everquest, has no loading zones, and has about 5 million subscribers worldwide. Its estimated that each world server in WOW requires some 50-70 servers and can support only 3000-3500 persons. Given that North America alone has 90 world servers, this means that worldwide including China, Korea, Europe, Asia, Blizzard has over 20,000 servers running their online game.

All I can say is that ... boy am I glad I don't work for Blizzard's IT department. Every single day must be high alert and every patch day must feel like doomsday.

Find the 4 leaf clover


Click on the picture and start finding the 4 leaf clover. This game will either keep you very occupied or have you pulling your hair out.

Monday, January 09, 2006

More Companies Ending Promises for Retirement

This article talks about how more and more companies are freezing pension plans and going to a 401K retirement plan instead. I found this interesting because for my generation, I believe that 401K's are the retirement plan of choice. Pensions while sounding good leave you at the mercy of the companies. I don't think that many who started work in the past 10 years ever expected to receive anything from Social security or pensions. Our retirement is our responsibility, and as such I also believe that the only loyality that they (the companies) should expect from their workers is ... we'll stay and do our best but only until we get a better offer.

I work with payroll and benefits. And I've seen all too often when companies change their medical plans/coverage, the retirees are affected in some way, and almost always to their detrement. Companies don't care, CEO's especially don't give a damn about anything aside from the bottomline.

Some of you who work for "caring" companies might disagree but let me warn you, I used to work for a "caring" company too. And as soon as the CEO is replaced or times get bad, the people getting the pay/benefit cuts are not the upper management.

Weekly Release

Tuesday
Castlevania Double Pack (GBA)
Mega Man X Collection (GCN, PS2)
Nicktoons Unite! (DS)
PQ: Practical Intelligence Quotient (PSP)
Samurai Shodown V (XBOX)
Wild Arms 4 (PS2)
Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Duel Academy (GBA)

DVD
RedEye
Hustle and Flow
Transporter 2
The Constant Gardner
The Magnificent 7

Movies
The New World
Glory Road
Tristan and Isolde
Last Holiday
Hoodwinked

Source: Evilavatar


Transporter 2 is the DVD of the week for me. I very much enjoyed the first one. Also, Last Holiday starring Queen Latifa looks good too.

Friday, January 06, 2006

Manholes

Don't think dirty thoughts! I mean the manholes you find on the streets. Pretty boring you think? Well not in Japan, it seems they decorate their manholes there.
Here are actual pictures of manholes in Japan.

To see even more manhole art Click this link . I've love to visit Japan one of these days and so far my time in Japan has been limited to stopovers in Narita Airport.

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Hunk of the Week

Michael Crowe
If you enjoy looking and muscular men in their Birthday suits I'm sure you've seen Michael before. He's been on many magazine covers from Playgirl to ... just about everything. Check out his web site, its chock full of pics and videos for a fee.
born and raised in atlanta, georgia, michael crowe is a good ol' southern boy. he got his start as a model when a buddy of his sent a picture of him in a hot tub to a photographer and the photographer called him up within days to fly him to the west coast for a shoot.

crowe's face is as recognizable as his body! he has been published in all types of magazines most notably playgirl, men's workout, advocate men, men's fitness, mandate and workout for men only. he has also been the spokesmodel for a variety of products for fitness and pleasure and has appeared in several films.

crowe currently lives in the san francisco bay area and in addition to being a full time model, works as a personal trainer and is getting a b.s. degree in engineering.

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

A Future For Futurama?

News Link

Talks have begun at 20th Century Fox TV to revive the animated TV show Futurama, much in the same way Family Guy found new life after cancellation.

OH PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!! If you've never watched Futurama and you like shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy, then don't even think, just go get the first 4 seasons of Futurama. I love this series, its pure genius. Its also one of those shows that I cna watch again and again and again and ...

Fake Narnia News Dupes Sites

Several legitimate news sites picked up a hoax press release saying that representatives of the fictional land of Narnia had walked out of the recent World Trade Organization's talks in Hong Kong, Australia's The Age newspaper reported.

The news release from "the independent state of Narnia" was picked up by the financial news agency AFX and found its way onto top business news Web sites, including Forbes.com.

The news release said that Narnia had walked out of the World Trade Organization talks in Hong Kong because it was fed up with being bullied by the United States and Europe. Narnia, of course, is the fictional realm from C.S. Lewis' fantasy book series The Chronicles of Narnia, which was recently adapted into the movie The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

The news release quoted Narnia spokeswoman Susan Aslan; Aslan is the name of the Christ-like lion featured in the books.

The agencies who picked up the phony news have since removed the reports, The Age reported.
Link

Which proves that reporters don't read what they print anymore. "the independent state of Narnia" LOL

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Weekly Release 3rd Jan 2006

It's another game free week this week, but there are some DVDs worth mentioning. Dr. Uwe Boll's next masterpiece, BloodRayne, opens this week at the theaters as well.

DVD
Wedding Crashers
Dumb and Dumber Unrated
The Cave

Theater
Hostel
Grandma's Boy
BloodRayne

Source:Evilavatar


Pretty dull week. I'm currently playing Civilization 4 whcih I got for Christmas and WOW. Gonna rent The Cave as well. The trailler looked pretty interesting, but not quite enough to spring $8 for. If you've not seen Wedding Crashers I would highly recommend tht film. I laughed so hard when I saw it.

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Happy New Year!!



Yeah, only 3 pics mostly because its really hard to find pictures about New Year's parties on 1st Jan. Ah well, its the time for resolutions, a little soul searching and getting over your hangovers from the night before.

Happy New Year and best wishes for 2006.