Friday, July 16, 2004
White Chicks and Tales of Symphonia
Hmm... they seem to have changed the blogger update thing... gotta get used to it again... but so far, I don't like it. Well, that's just based on first impression, when I copied text from notepad into this window, and all the break-lines were gone. So I had to copy the notepad into MSWord first, then copy into here.
EWWW. ENTER makes double line-break thingies. Alright, now I hate this piece of crap. unless I find it soon, can someone tell me how to change it back? This is pretty damn crappy. I guess it's good or okay for someone who can't do anything with computers, but for me, this is pretty damn crappy.
Anyway, I guess it's enough of a rant of this new blogger thing for now, I'll rant more things as I type more stuff up, as I find them. Anyway, so this update will be an update of all sorts. A few reviews, a few random points, and a bit on the boring things that I've been doing.
(Alright, it seems that changing colour of text is easier now... but still... I'd rather do it my way)
------------------- L O T S O F G A M I N G D O N E L A T E L Y ----------
As I said in the previous entry, I downloaded a bunch of SSBM-videos and other videogame and other videos, including a few world records for F-Zero X. I watched one, and I was amazed - well, not really amazed, but I learned that you can drift in F-Zero X. And it looks like a very pretty drift too, so I just had to practice.
So, yesterday, I spent around 4:30 hr playing F-Zero X, just using cars with E grip, on Big Hand, because that level has really nice turns for drifting. I even recorded some races on tape, since I thought it looked really pretty.
Today, Ambrose came over around 3, left around 7, so we played Smash and Smash melee during those 4 hours. 'Twas fun, but I would've liked a bit more variety... I didn't get to use many new skills I learned from watching videos, but I'll practice them later on.
We also got Tales of Symphonia (argh! I keep wanting to call it Tales of Phantasia) ... today or yesterday. Well, my mom got it from zellers I think, and we found it today in the Laundry room, so at 8:45 we played it for about 90 minutes. Review so far comes later in this update.
-------------- 5 - D R I V E - I N T H E A T R E ---------------
I mentioned the 5-drive-in theatre in the previous update, and mentioned how we can't go on Tuesdays or Thursdays because we have a trainer session the next day. Well, I broke the rule, and went on Thursday. Tuesdays is like $5 per person, Thursdays is $15 per carload, and any other day is $11 per person. So we (mom, dad, uncle, and myself) went on Thursday. Our main choices were either Spiderman2/WhiteChicks or KingArthur/ATWin80Days. After some discussion, and some people copping out and stuff, we decided to see S2/WhiteChicks. I've seen S2 already, but that's okay.
So... what to say... the night was pretty good. It rained for a few minutes around 11:40, and again for a bit around 1:40. But other than that, it was okay. Drive-in theatre... sound was pretty good. Whenever there was a lot of bass, the van would shake a bit. Visuals were nice. I think the drive-in theatres went the way of the GBA SP - backlit, or front lit, whatever you want to call it. The colour of the sky didn't matter, it looked good.
It was interesting going to the drive-in after such a long time. There's a certain... culture that goes with drive-in movies. We go there, and we see people look as if they go there every week... they have their lawn chairs ready, etc... we, we're in a van, and it's kinda hard to see the screen if you're not in the front seat. So that was a pretty big flaw we had... and we had to sit in weird uncomfortable positions.
Anyway, I already posted a review of S2, and watching it the 2nd time around is still good. My parents and uncle liked it too. A review of White Chicks will be later in the update as well.
----------- R A N D O M S T U F F -----------
Smash Page - here's that smash page that I put together - See brose's tip of the day comments for details. So far, there's nothing up there except for most of Ambrose's tips of the day. If anyone has something to contribute, feel free to do so. Pictures are fine, no other media just yet though. And contribute some questions to answer too...
My sister made crepes the other day. Yum yum good. Well, I also made some, and after making the batter, they're pretty easy to make. Maybe I should learn how to make the batter/crepe, and then preparing them is really easy. Just get a pan, medium-low heat, a minute on each side, and that's done for a crepe. I can do that in waterloo for sure. No need to go to Mel's and pay $8.00 for crepes...
So... the Martha Stewart case is still going on... or if I heard the news correctly, it just ended, or whatever. So I just thought of a random point - so as a regular person, I can buy and sell shares as I please. But all of a sudden, one day, I hear something from an employee about how the share price might drop. So now, if I sell, it'll be seen as insider trading. If I don't sell, I'll lose a lot of money.
So... technically, first you have the option to sell whenever, until you get insider information - at which point, your option to sell is no longer there. So... is there a way to avoid that? Like, if you accidentally stumble on insider information... what do you do? Anyway, whatever.
Anyway, a small message to David - my mom doesn't want you to use the oven anymore. So, let's say for the next 100 days, you're banned from bringing food into the house and then using the oven with them. Yes yes.. .that sounds good. So only bring microwavish stuff.
And Ambrose - you're banned from using the microwave. Just kidding :P
--------------- R E V I E W S: W H I T E C H I C K S & T A L E S O F S Y M P H O N I A --------
Okay, so starting with a review of White Chicks, starring the Wayan Brothers, seen in many other comedies such as... well, Scary Movie (Shawn, I think), and... some other movies. Toronto Star would give it 1 or 2 stars, so it's not an oscar winner or anything. I would most likely classify under 'stupid comedy'. It's not stupid, but it's not smart.
My parents laughed more than I did :P Well, we laughed about equal # of times, but I didn't keep count or anything. Anyway, the basic premise without spoilers is that... two cops (the wayans) have to 'babysit' two white rich blonde girls, like the Hiltons. The problem is that the Hiltons getting into an accident and thus can't go to the 'event', so the two undercover cops decide to dress up and use make-up and masks and everything and become the two white girls. Something like that, it's not a complicated plot, and it doesn't really matter.
So, the movie is another role reversal movie, or 'awkward situation' movie. Caveman in the city, Wild alien needs to be tamed on earth... that type of movie. Freaky Friday also was this type of movie, where the mother had to become the daughter and vice versa. So, in this movie, man becomes woman, black becomes white, and cop lifestyle becomes the lifestyle of the rich and famous.
Anyway... the movie is okay. It's not great, it's not tooo bad. It's meant to be funny, and it is, and throughout there's stuff about morals and love and forgiveness and stuff. Not sure why that's there, it's as if it needs a disney fairytale ending. But that's okay. I guess it makes the movie less stupid.
As for acting... well, while it's not horrible, there's nothing special at all. The movie pokes fun at 'stupid hot blondes', that care only about how they look, and fashion and shopping and things. Like in Freaky Friday, Lindsay Lohan had to act like a mature adult, and Jamie Lee Curtis had to act as a teenager, which seems like a pretty interesting task, and they did it pretty nicely. In this movie, mostly everyone had to act like a stupid ditzy girl.
That's something everyone can do.. it's done in grade school, and now it's done here. It's not hard to act like a ditzy blonde, so acting shouldn't be a focus of the movie.
There are girls in this movie! Girls are cool. But not as many girls as in some other movies, so that's hardly a reason for seeing this movie. Jamie King is in this movie, she's kinda pretty (she was the girl in Bulletproof Monk), but she's not thaat pretty :P
Ben Stiller will always be Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell will always be Will Ferrell, and the Wayan Brothers will always be the Wayan Brothers, doing what they do best - silly comedies.
Anyway... the movie wasn't bad. Not worth $8, and only rent it if you and a bunch of buddies really want to see it. Oh, and the wayan brothers as two white chicks isn't as scary as it sounds. You get used to it pretty early on, so it's not sick and scary then.
The jokes are pretty pg-13-rated for the most part, so it's all good.
----------- S Y M P H O N I A ---------------
Tales of Symphonia, Duy's most anticipated game this season, or so I think. Sequel to ... that other game that Isaque has... Tales of Destiny or something. RPG, with multiplayer battles. So, here starts my mini-review.
Non-gameplay elements... graphics are nice. The background stuff is 3d rendered things, similar to PSX RPGs, just nicer looking with better framerate of course. The characters are 3d, textured in an anime style. It's cool, when the characters talk, they even have anime emoticons over their heads sometimes.
During a few cutscenes, they have voices so you can hear them talk. You can't change names, unfortunately, as they're used in the cutscenes. There are also other types of cutscenes, where it's just your group having a conversation... it's just a nice addition.
Onto gameplay elements... walking around is fun... you can control how fast your guy walks, it just looks funny. Moving on. Battles are where the multiplayer is at... it's interesting. If you played the previous game, you know what I'm talking about. It's like a 3d sidescrolling battle, you move around, use different physical attacks and magic attacks...
I guess you just have to see it to understand. Or not. but I don't feel like typing too much more. Anyway, as for difficulty... it's not too difficult to kill the enemies, but sometimes they hit you for a lot. At the start of the game, you have the hero and 2 characters, the mages I guess, and they're pretty weak, so it was hard at the beginning. A little bit in a strong character joins you, so it was much more fun for me. I wasn't dying anymore. It's as if Sephiroth joined the group... he's invincible. But not.
Story's okay for now. Puzzles are... okay, I suppose. Umm... sometimes the menu is a bit confusing, there's a lot of stuff to do... umm... oh yeah, you can cook in this game. Make food, eat it, heal, stuff like that.. ummm... Oh yeah, enemies. They're not random battles, but they appear on the map. They appear as blobs or weird monsters, and sometimes even cats or sunflowers, so far. I think on the world map, they just appear as weird blobs.
Overall, the game's interesting. Would be nice to have more people come and join us.
---------------- E N D O F U P D A T E --------------
Well, that pretty much ends the update. Not much else to say right now... I'll probably update again Sunday evening. Have a nice weekend :)
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Hmm... they seem to have changed the blogger update thing... gotta get used to it again... but so far, I don't like it. Well, that's just based on first impression, when I copied text from notepad into this window, and all the break-lines were gone. So I had to copy the notepad into MSWord first, then copy into here.
EWWW. ENTER makes double line-break thingies. Alright, now I hate this piece of crap. unless I find it soon, can someone tell me how to change it back? This is pretty damn crappy. I guess it's good or okay for someone who can't do anything with computers, but for me, this is pretty damn crappy.
Anyway, I guess it's enough of a rant of this new blogger thing for now, I'll rant more things as I type more stuff up, as I find them. Anyway, so this update will be an update of all sorts. A few reviews, a few random points, and a bit on the boring things that I've been doing.
(Alright, it seems that changing colour of text is easier now... but still... I'd rather do it my way)
------------------- L O T S O F G A M I N G D O N E L A T E L Y ----------
As I said in the previous entry, I downloaded a bunch of SSBM-videos and other videogame and other videos, including a few world records for F-Zero X. I watched one, and I was amazed - well, not really amazed, but I learned that you can drift in F-Zero X. And it looks like a very pretty drift too, so I just had to practice.
So, yesterday, I spent around 4:30 hr playing F-Zero X, just using cars with E grip, on Big Hand, because that level has really nice turns for drifting. I even recorded some races on tape, since I thought it looked really pretty.
Today, Ambrose came over around 3, left around 7, so we played Smash and Smash melee during those 4 hours. 'Twas fun, but I would've liked a bit more variety... I didn't get to use many new skills I learned from watching videos, but I'll practice them later on.
We also got Tales of Symphonia (argh! I keep wanting to call it Tales of Phantasia) ... today or yesterday. Well, my mom got it from zellers I think, and we found it today in the Laundry room, so at 8:45 we played it for about 90 minutes. Review so far comes later in this update.
-------------- 5 - D R I V E - I N T H E A T R E ---------------
I mentioned the 5-drive-in theatre in the previous update, and mentioned how we can't go on Tuesdays or Thursdays because we have a trainer session the next day. Well, I broke the rule, and went on Thursday. Tuesdays is like $5 per person, Thursdays is $15 per carload, and any other day is $11 per person. So we (mom, dad, uncle, and myself) went on Thursday. Our main choices were either Spiderman2/WhiteChicks or KingArthur/ATWin80Days. After some discussion, and some people copping out and stuff, we decided to see S2/WhiteChicks. I've seen S2 already, but that's okay.
So... what to say... the night was pretty good. It rained for a few minutes around 11:40, and again for a bit around 1:40. But other than that, it was okay. Drive-in theatre... sound was pretty good. Whenever there was a lot of bass, the van would shake a bit. Visuals were nice. I think the drive-in theatres went the way of the GBA SP - backlit, or front lit, whatever you want to call it. The colour of the sky didn't matter, it looked good.
It was interesting going to the drive-in after such a long time. There's a certain... culture that goes with drive-in movies. We go there, and we see people look as if they go there every week... they have their lawn chairs ready, etc... we, we're in a van, and it's kinda hard to see the screen if you're not in the front seat. So that was a pretty big flaw we had... and we had to sit in weird uncomfortable positions.
Anyway, I already posted a review of S2, and watching it the 2nd time around is still good. My parents and uncle liked it too. A review of White Chicks will be later in the update as well.
----------- R A N D O M S T U F F -----------
Smash Page - here's that smash page that I put together - See brose's tip of the day comments for details. So far, there's nothing up there except for most of Ambrose's tips of the day. If anyone has something to contribute, feel free to do so. Pictures are fine, no other media just yet though. And contribute some questions to answer too...
My sister made crepes the other day. Yum yum good. Well, I also made some, and after making the batter, they're pretty easy to make. Maybe I should learn how to make the batter/crepe, and then preparing them is really easy. Just get a pan, medium-low heat, a minute on each side, and that's done for a crepe. I can do that in waterloo for sure. No need to go to Mel's and pay $8.00 for crepes...
So... the Martha Stewart case is still going on... or if I heard the news correctly, it just ended, or whatever. So I just thought of a random point - so as a regular person, I can buy and sell shares as I please. But all of a sudden, one day, I hear something from an employee about how the share price might drop. So now, if I sell, it'll be seen as insider trading. If I don't sell, I'll lose a lot of money.
So... technically, first you have the option to sell whenever, until you get insider information - at which point, your option to sell is no longer there. So... is there a way to avoid that? Like, if you accidentally stumble on insider information... what do you do? Anyway, whatever.
Anyway, a small message to David - my mom doesn't want you to use the oven anymore. So, let's say for the next 100 days, you're banned from bringing food into the house and then using the oven with them. Yes yes.. .that sounds good. So only bring microwavish stuff.
And Ambrose - you're banned from using the microwave. Just kidding :P
--------------- R E V I E W S: W H I T E C H I C K S & T A L E S O F S Y M P H O N I A --------
Okay, so starting with a review of White Chicks, starring the Wayan Brothers, seen in many other comedies such as... well, Scary Movie (Shawn, I think), and... some other movies. Toronto Star would give it 1 or 2 stars, so it's not an oscar winner or anything. I would most likely classify under 'stupid comedy'. It's not stupid, but it's not smart.
My parents laughed more than I did :P Well, we laughed about equal # of times, but I didn't keep count or anything. Anyway, the basic premise without spoilers is that... two cops (the wayans) have to 'babysit' two white rich blonde girls, like the Hiltons. The problem is that the Hiltons getting into an accident and thus can't go to the 'event', so the two undercover cops decide to dress up and use make-up and masks and everything and become the two white girls. Something like that, it's not a complicated plot, and it doesn't really matter.
So, the movie is another role reversal movie, or 'awkward situation' movie. Caveman in the city, Wild alien needs to be tamed on earth... that type of movie. Freaky Friday also was this type of movie, where the mother had to become the daughter and vice versa. So, in this movie, man becomes woman, black becomes white, and cop lifestyle becomes the lifestyle of the rich and famous.
Anyway... the movie is okay. It's not great, it's not tooo bad. It's meant to be funny, and it is, and throughout there's stuff about morals and love and forgiveness and stuff. Not sure why that's there, it's as if it needs a disney fairytale ending. But that's okay. I guess it makes the movie less stupid.
As for acting... well, while it's not horrible, there's nothing special at all. The movie pokes fun at 'stupid hot blondes', that care only about how they look, and fashion and shopping and things. Like in Freaky Friday, Lindsay Lohan had to act like a mature adult, and Jamie Lee Curtis had to act as a teenager, which seems like a pretty interesting task, and they did it pretty nicely. In this movie, mostly everyone had to act like a stupid ditzy girl.
That's something everyone can do.. it's done in grade school, and now it's done here. It's not hard to act like a ditzy blonde, so acting shouldn't be a focus of the movie.
There are girls in this movie! Girls are cool. But not as many girls as in some other movies, so that's hardly a reason for seeing this movie. Jamie King is in this movie, she's kinda pretty (she was the girl in Bulletproof Monk), but she's not thaat pretty :P
Ben Stiller will always be Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell will always be Will Ferrell, and the Wayan Brothers will always be the Wayan Brothers, doing what they do best - silly comedies.
Anyway... the movie wasn't bad. Not worth $8, and only rent it if you and a bunch of buddies really want to see it. Oh, and the wayan brothers as two white chicks isn't as scary as it sounds. You get used to it pretty early on, so it's not sick and scary then.
The jokes are pretty pg-13-rated for the most part, so it's all good.
----------- S Y M P H O N I A ---------------
Tales of Symphonia, Duy's most anticipated game this season, or so I think. Sequel to ... that other game that Isaque has... Tales of Destiny or something. RPG, with multiplayer battles. So, here starts my mini-review.
Non-gameplay elements... graphics are nice. The background stuff is 3d rendered things, similar to PSX RPGs, just nicer looking with better framerate of course. The characters are 3d, textured in an anime style. It's cool, when the characters talk, they even have anime emoticons over their heads sometimes.
During a few cutscenes, they have voices so you can hear them talk. You can't change names, unfortunately, as they're used in the cutscenes. There are also other types of cutscenes, where it's just your group having a conversation... it's just a nice addition.
Onto gameplay elements... walking around is fun... you can control how fast your guy walks, it just looks funny. Moving on. Battles are where the multiplayer is at... it's interesting. If you played the previous game, you know what I'm talking about. It's like a 3d sidescrolling battle, you move around, use different physical attacks and magic attacks...
I guess you just have to see it to understand. Or not. but I don't feel like typing too much more. Anyway, as for difficulty... it's not too difficult to kill the enemies, but sometimes they hit you for a lot. At the start of the game, you have the hero and 2 characters, the mages I guess, and they're pretty weak, so it was hard at the beginning. A little bit in a strong character joins you, so it was much more fun for me. I wasn't dying anymore. It's as if Sephiroth joined the group... he's invincible. But not.
Story's okay for now. Puzzles are... okay, I suppose. Umm... sometimes the menu is a bit confusing, there's a lot of stuff to do... umm... oh yeah, you can cook in this game. Make food, eat it, heal, stuff like that.. ummm... Oh yeah, enemies. They're not random battles, but they appear on the map. They appear as blobs or weird monsters, and sometimes even cats or sunflowers, so far. I think on the world map, they just appear as weird blobs.
Overall, the game's interesting. Would be nice to have more people come and join us.
---------------- E N D O F U P D A T E --------------
Well, that pretty much ends the update. Not much else to say right now... I'll probably update again Sunday evening. Have a nice weekend :)