MuaaHaaaHaaa

Did a super stupid thing this morning. In my rush to get out of the house, I forgot my wallet at home! And that meant I had no money, no badge to get into the office, no driving licence, no identity card and no credit card. Not even my emergency money. YIKES!

So had to be careful not to get into any situation where my ID would be required or where I would have to pay. Made it safely to office and borrowed money from a buddy to keep me going for a day.

Here's the kicker. Had to go with another buddy to pick up a HDD and an SD card so that I can help him hack his Wii. Got a super deal on a 4GB CF card for the D200 at home :D Ended up saving more than Rs 1200 :D

It's been a good day, considering.

Mua Haa Haa! :D

French Class, Prince of Persia & the MRT

What do all of these things have in common? Nothing except three seperate experiences I had.

So French classes, huh? Yep. My wife and I had been wanting to do this for a while, especially since our daughter is learning French at school and we wanted to at least understand what she was learning and to participate with her. It would also help us if we travel to some parts of Europe (we have been wanting to go there for a while now). So we picked a class that my wife found on the Net.

Our teacher (for lack of a better word) is a cute half French half Italian blonde called Letizia. She made the two hours that we spent in class a fairly engaging experience. But what I found most surprising was this: She had been living in Singapore for around 7 years and had only started to pick up English after she moved here. That fact was so evident as she proceeded to talk Singlish through the entire conversation. While speaking French, her accent was like you would expect a French person's. But while conversing in Engish, she sounded as much like a Singaporean as anyone I know. The same expressions, the same gramatical constructions. I was quite surprised about this fact.

On to the Prince of Persia. As you might have noticed from a few of the posts, I am fairly engrossed in this game. Whenever possible, I try to complete at least a level in a day so that I can feel better (why else?)

Yesterday, I finally defeated the second monster, the one who moves really fast and the one you need to slow down time to fight with. It took a while (she's cheeky to kill, but I finally did it. Problem was...it took a while before I could save tha game (there was no water receptacle in sight for a while). So obviously my wife got pissed off about me spending a lot of time on the "stupid game" as she calls it. But that was not it. After playing the game for 45 minutes, I was completely drenched. My shorts were soaking wet and so was my t-shirt. I actually had to take a bath at 11 in the night before I could get into bed. How playing a video game could cause all of this...Go figure.

Then there's the MRT and the inevitable journeys one has to take when one travels in Singapore. Most of the time people don't bother with sitting down, even when there are seats available. And a lot of time, I have seen people offer their seats to people who need them. Today, I saw the opposite for the first time.

I was sitting in the MRT going towards office. There was one seat available across from me which had not been occupied despite there being more people in the train. At the next station, two people got on, both eyeing the same seat. The guy who entered from the door closer to the seat moved towards it and had even turned to sit down when the guy, who actually entered from the door further away from the seat, rushed up to it and slid into it from behind the other guy. This guy was left standing with a dumbstruck expression on his face. I'm sure he was experiencing something like this for the first time.

Three completely different experiences, but all in the span of 24 hours. Not a bad deal, huh?

The fat guy in the Arena is dead

Before you get flustered, nobody actually died. This is a game that I'm talking about.

I am, of course, talking about playing the Prince of Persia: Rival Swords game on my Wii. As most of you who have grown up playing PoP (one of the most engaging games to come out as I was growing up) would know, the game is more about discovering your way through the palace and fighting different types of palace guards and using different techniques to get to the Princess without getting killed. As you can see here, the graphics for the original game are not as cutting edge as the games that we see today, but you have to remember, this game came out around 15 years ago. Forget the internet, most people did not have computers where I grew up. Not only was this the only thing that we had at that time, this was way better than we expected to see on the tiny yellow phosporous monitors that we had in those days.

The Rival Swords version for the Wii does not disappoint. With the same discovery oriented layout, the game also has the advantages of motion sensitivity that the Wii offers. So now, you actually have to wave your hands in a sword fight and actually make a stabbing motion when you want to cling to something with your dagger. And the interface is as good as I would want it to be. I'm sure a lot of people want better graphics for their games, but since PoP is more of a "get to a point" kind of game, the graphics are not so much the key. And for me, the graphics are just fine.

So coming back to the fat guy in the arena. I was stuck on this level for a while. The fat guy is a huge monster who is a bit more difficult to kill. The voice in the Prince's head kept saying "Go for his eyes...he cannot kill you if he cannot see you". But I was having a lot of trouble timing my speedkills (I was swinging too quickly). So after a while, mostly by accident, I realized that I need to wait till the screen changes colour and the motion slows down a trifle. There is also the distinct blade flashing. So using all those, I managed to get both the eyes of the fatso and eventually brought him down to his knees. I then had a lot more trouble timing my final speed kills. By the time I finished with the guy, I was physically exhausted.

But now that he's gone, I have moved through the temple garden and onwards. In fact, I have come to the second of the horrible monsters which were created when the leading lady of the game (Kailina) was killed. This lady moves super fast and I need to accumulate enough sand credits so that I can use them to slow time down. Haven't got rid of her yet, but hopefully tonight I will dispose off her. I know I am closer to the end. And the game has been throughly enjoyable.

Pro-er than a Pro

I'm talking about the Wii...again!

So I have the Wii Sports set of games that I got along with the Wii. Just to refresh your memory, the set has Tennis, Baseball, Bowling, Golf and Boxing which allows you to have a great time with your motion sensitive Wii-mote. While we (my daughter, wife and I) all started with Bowling, I moved to Tennis as my favourite of the games. It took me a while to figure out how to time my shots for a ball moving on TV as opposed to actually hitting a real ball on a tennis court, but once I figured it out, I was all set.

The Wii Sports package has a points system which needs you to cross 1000 points to count as a Pro. What I have managed to do is go way, way beyond that level for tennis. I have - check this out - 2134 points. The highest ranked pro on the Wii is a programmed Mii called Elise who has 2000 points. She teams up with another with 1900 points for every game I play. Now here's the deal. Not only do I have to win everytime I play them, but I have to win convincingly to increase my points haul. So basically, I have to win by holding my serve convincingly and then breaking the opponent's serve convincingly. If I have to defend my serve for a couple of points, or if I take too long to break the opponents serve, I get points docked from my total even if I win in straight sets!

Be that as it may, my points have been above the 2000 point mark for a while and the graph that shows the progress of points is - as you might have guessed - literally off the charts.

So I guess I am the Roger Federer on the Wii (NOT!)