Musings of a Virgin

There are so many new shows this season and most of them start this week. Here's the ones I watched:


Chuck New Show
This dramedy centers around a computer geek named Chuck Bartowski who becomes the CIA's most important agent when he accidentally opens a top-secret email full of government secrets, which somehow downloads into his brain. Can the CIA protect him from terrorists before they can access the tremendous amount of government knowledge from Chuck's brain?

Impressions: I liked this show. A LOT, which surprised me because I didn't expect to. Its funny, Chuck is a geek but he also comes across as sincere and very likable. Can't wait for the next episode.

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Journeyman New Show
This mystery-drama revolves around a newspaper reporter named Dan Vasser who suddenly begins to travel through time to change the lives of those around him. When his travels reunite him with his long-lost fiancée Livia, life with his present-day wife get very interesting.

Impressions: Less than impressed. The writing is ok, but they have got to ramp up the explainations of how and why this guy is going through time in the next 2-3 episodes or I'm gone. If they try to drag out the explainations across the whole 1st season then forget about it. Look at Lost, 3 Season in and does anyone know anything more about the damn Island or why/how they got marooned there? The days of stringing the viewer along is past.

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Gossip Girl New Show
From the brilliant minds that brought us The O.C. comes a fun drama about wealthy teens living in New York City. They may live privileged lives, but someone amongst their group is always busy blogging about their dirty little secrets - the problem is they don't know who has been betraying them.

Impressions: I'm almost ashamed to admit this but this show reeled me in pretty darn fast. Its got a young fresh cast, pretty solid writing and that X factor that makes this a guilty pleasure. It gets 2 thumbs up from me, I jsut hope it doesn't become yet another tedious teenaged drama.

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Private Practice New Show
This is a spin off from Grey's Anatomy and stars its more doctor dramady. I really like the cast for this show but I'm not so sure if it will make it. The premiere episode has its moments but is it enough to last the whole season? Only time will tell.

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Reaper New Show
A twenty-something slacker works as a bounty hunter for the devil.

Impressions: Let me make my first cancelled prediction. The show's premise sounds funny but the actual show is strange. It's not a full comedy or a drama and actually comes across as a dark comedy. In any other year where the Sci-fi Fantasy quotient is fairly low, this show might make it, but this year we've got so many better options like Chuck and Pushing Dasies, I don't see Reaper making a full season.

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House Returning Show
Ahhh.. House is back and he's got no ducklings. In fact, he's weeding through 40 fresh applicants for new ducklings and is still as hard to get along with as always. Even better news is that the 3 old ducklings will be coming back at various times this season. I'm glad, I've grown so attached to Foreman, Cameron, and Chase. PS. House and Wilson have a hilarious blackmail thing going on, I laughed and laughed so hard.

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Ugly Betty Returning Show
Last season ended with a number of cliffhangers and I'm happy to say that almost all of them are answered/ended in season 2's first episode. Ugly Betty is still my pick for best comedy!!! LOVE IT!

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Grey's Anatomy Returning Show
I was actually hesitant about Grey's new season. Grey's Anatomy started out as more of a comedy with some serious moments, but last season ended with SUCH a DOWNER. Nobody had a happy ending, everyone was basically depressed. Regardless, it's still excellent writing and likable characters and this year we have a whole bunch of new green interns and the current crop of character are now the experienced doctors. Love it.

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Heroes Returning Show
Season 2 of Heroes is just as griping as ever, and as we all knew, the 2 main characters from last season's fanale are not dead. Both are back although not quite whole. And as always, Heroes is doing things right. No season ending cliffhangers, they fully intend to complete all story arcs in by season's end and not leave viewers hanging in case they get cancelled. WOOT! Someone in TV land actually get's things right.
This is a picture of new heroes that we will be meeting up with!



PS. I know, I know, I watch wayyyy too much TV.

Posted by emyln at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments

Those reading this blog will know that computer gaming has long been in my blood and is a life long hobby. And more recently MMORPG's are my new passion. That said I will be skipping Tabula Rasa when it comes out on 19th Oct.

I am currently in the Tabula Rasa beta and I have to say that I'm not all that impressed. I won't bother with doing an actual review of the game. For that you can read these reviews:

Tobold's preview
Keen and Graev Review

For myself, the graphics on High are gorgeous The gameply of aiming and shooting mobs like in an FPS is unique and different. Its also fun... for the forst few hours. Then it gets very very old real quick. They have quests for you to kill 400 of a mob. I'm sorry but that's worse than anything World of Warcraft ever came up with.

But the biggest transgression for me was the classes. In any MMORPG or RPG game, a player should be excieted to level up. Tabula Rasa fails on this point. The names and descriptions of their classes are mandane and ordinary. Enduring over 30 levels in this game, you can look forward to becoming a Spy, Sniper, Engineers, Medic and several more classes I won't bother to mention. Uhhhhh... Medic? What genius thought that Medic as a high level class description was a good idea?

To top all this off, I have some beef with Richard Garriott. If you read the blogsphere, many people seem to think of him as some visionary and such junk. What many many many of them forget or don't know is that he was the idolt that was responsible for Ultima IX: Ascension. A game so broken that on launch day, less than 50% of people could play it on their systems and those that did were faced with game breaking bugs.

I was one of those dumbasses who paid over $70 for the Dragon Edition of the game and it was at that point that I vowed that Richard Garriott went from the hero who invented the Ultima series to an untrust worthy ass and who's future games would need significant success before I ever paid another dollar for.

That said I see Tabula Rasa as a game that might rival LoTRO in fame initially, but will need to improve their end game significantly before it will be worth my dollars.

Labels: Computer Games, Gaming

Posted by emyln at 7:55 PM | Permalink | Comments

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival Everyone. There are 2 fun things about this day if you're a kid, eating MoonCakes and playing with the Lanterns. For Adults, it narrows down to eating mooncakes. This is one of those festivals that I wish I was back in Singapore. Why? Mooncakes. LOVE THEM.

Don't get me wrong, I can and did buy some moon cakes for myself this year and the quality was passable. But back in Singapore, things have evolved. Its no longer just a question of buying Mooncakes with 1 yoke or 4 yokes. These days there are countless kinds of mooncakes for the daring and adventurerous. (Thanks to yochana's cake delight for the pics)


Oh and as a sidenote about lanterns, I absolute hate the lanterns they sell nowadays. Battery operated lanterns suck all the fun out of playing with lanterns. The candle was a huge part of the fun. And what's with all these paper lanterns? Where have all the red cellophine lanterns gone? Sure they were not as pretty but they somehow enhanced the candles in them.

According to my sister (Since I've missed playing with lanterns for the past decade), the red cheezy lanterns of my childhood are now a thing of the past. Everything these days are paper or worse yet, battery operated.

Sigh... after reading the previous 2 paragraphs, I suddenly notice how much like an old man I sound. Always lamenting of past glories.

Posted by emyln at 1:38 PM | Permalink | Comments

So here's what I did today, I bought a new graphics card for my computer. There are a bunch of great new games that will be releasing in the next 3-6 months and sadly my old card just was not up to it.

I had been considering building a new system, but everything priced out to be about 2.4k and I just didn't feel like spending the cash. I built my current system in Oct 2004, and sadly that was about the time the industry moved from AGP to PCI-Express and after a few months Duo-Core processors were released. For non-tech people that means my PC suddenly became yesterday's news overnight.

With this little upgrade, I think I can play almost all the games coming out and hold off building a new PC for about another year. WOOT!


PS. For those interested, my current system is as follows:

* ATI ALL-IN-WONDER 9800 PRO 128MB DDR AGP 4X/8X Video Card
* ASUS A8V DELUXE Socket 939 VIA K8T800 Pro ATX AMD Motherboard
* AMD Athlon 64 3500+ Newcastle
* CORSAIR XMS 2GB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200)
* Seagate Barracuda 120GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive
* Windows XP Pro

Posted by emyln at 11:53 PM | Permalink | Comments

If you've been reading my blog, you know that I'm big into podcasts right now. Anyway, a very funny show is called Ask a Ninja.

He's been around for a while and if you've never seen an episode, you really should. Its so funny! Ask a Ninja is about a ninja who answers questions sent to him. Its soooo funny.

Ask a Ninja Special Delivery 16: Global Warming


Ask A Ninja Question 18 "Minjas"


Ask A Ninja: Question 19 "Physics"


Ask a Ninja - Pirates of the Caribbean

Posted by emyln at 6:57 PM | Permalink | Comments

Isale levels to 67. Only 3 more levels to go.

Astir finally gets 5000g and get's her Artisan Flying Skill

And immediately after she get's her new swift mount.

Ahhhh 375 Fishing.

Labels: WOW

Posted by emyln at 5:48 AM | Permalink | Comments

I just finished one of the best and most original TV series that I've seen in the past few years. Its called Dexter. This show is almost definately not going to be on any prime time channel, its too dark and there's a lot of blood. Here's the synopsis:

During the day, Dexter Morgan is a jovial employee in the Miami Metropolitan Police Department's crime lab, but his meticulously crafted life masks his true nature. In reality Dexter is a disciplined and murderous psychopath (a self-admitted "monster"), and he slakes his blood lust at night by carefully killing the serial killers he tracks down during the day.

Now I know that many will get turned off by this synopsis, but Dexter Morgan became a psychopath because of an event in his childhood. when he was only 4 years old. However, he was adopted by a policeman who taught him to channel his killer tendencies towards the greater good. So now Dexter only kills people who deserve it, essentially a vigilante. The interesting thing is how likable Dexter Morgan is and seeing him try to lead a normal life while still doing what he does.

The season 1 DVD is out right now and I highly recommend it. But be warned this series is not for the squeamish, there is a lot of blood and in the end, its a story about a psychopath no matter how likable.

Posted by emyln at 7:32 AM | Permalink | Comments

The best parody I'm seen in a long while.

Posted by emyln at 5:46 AM | Permalink | Comments