The Tortoise and the Hare

On the Wednesday of the Third Week of December, it was a day of playing this famous story, The Tortoise and the Hare.

Alvin, Edwin, Russell and I came out for pool. Before that, we had a short session of super expensive arcade at Zone X in Dhoby Ghaut MRT. Then, had lunch at Long John Silvers. Then, we walked to the Paradize Centre for the pool. Luckily, Edwin has the Safra and we can have discount rate.

We played by 2 groups of 2, and will switch partners after each round, so we will get back the same partner after every 3 rounds since there is only 3 combinations. Edwin and Alvin are really pro-players, both of them trashed Russell and I a lot... After a few rounds, with some guidance of the 2 pros, I starting to get some hang of it. At the start of a new round, I can get a lot balls into the holes, and was expected to win quite fast. However, that was just luck, because in the end, I still lost to either Edwin or Alvin... The rest of the rounds just keep repeating with me hitting many balls into the holes at the start... Sigh. I could only get to hit the black ball once...

After around 3 hours of pool, we went the LAN shop just beside the pool. Yes, my second time playing in the LAN shop. The first time was way long ago when I was still in Secondary School... Initially, we thought of playing Quake 4 (Of course, I don't know what the hell is that.), but the shop was too lousy because they are using duplicate CD key which were not allowed for LAN playing. Hence, we played Counterstrike instead.

This time, Edwin and Russell paired with each other, and there was no changing of partners. I was so lucky to have the pro with me, Alvin is damn pro. He killed Edwin a quite a number of times. In just less than 30 minutes, the points went up to 50 to 3. For me, I really don't know how to play that game, I could only go around and shoot people (Literally, the direction keys WASD and the mouse click to fire. I know nuts about the other keys). I only get the hang of it after 300 rounds... By that time, I was already feeling dizzy. And I kept looking the time, hoping people sitting beside me would realise how late was it... We went in at 3.40pm, then 6.40pm, then 7.40pm, then 8.30pm... I could not stand it... Although Alvin could win solo, the other team's winning points finally caught us up in the end. Another Tortoise and the Hare...

Finally, when the points were evenly matched, they stopped and only then they realised they have played for 5 hours... As for me, I was nearly in drunk-state... This should be my last time playing CS...

The End of the Second Week of December 09

On this week, I need to stay away from my physical training for IPPT to train my brain. It was the week of pre-CS1102 course, where we are given more practices similiar to those we will be encounting in CS1102. Russell, Shaun and Alvin signed up for this course. So we meet up almost everyday on that week. Shaun's friend, from the Faculty of Science also joined this course, and he happens to be my BMT Orion Platoon 3 mate, Zhen Ming. What a coincidence!

The first 3 days, I tried to rack my brain so hard for the solutions, but still cannot beat the smart brains of Zhen Ming and Shaun... In the end, I spent almost the whole afternoon for games... Haha.

On Wednesday, after the course of the day, Shaun, Russell, Edwin, Ying Cong and I booked a buffet dinner in Crystal Jade in Holland V. Yes! My first time trying the Xiao Long Bao and Steamboat Buffet. It just great simply great.
On Thursday, There was no lesson, and so Yi Jia, Russell and I went down to Somerset to hunt for Tingting's belated Birthday Present. It is also a great chance for us to walk through the new Shopping malls in the city area. Nothing much actually. Almost the shops available are repetitive throughout the whole shopping malls in this small island. After walking through the whole 313 Somerset and Orchard Central, we ended up in the Heerens to get her present...
On Friday, after the last lesson of CS1102, we met up the other VeNoM members and headed to Pasir Ris Park for Tingting's Belated Birthday Party. She has a twin, and yes, you can spot the slight difference between Tingting and her sister. But when we met her sister in person, we totally could not recognise who is who. We totally embarassed ourselves... Haha. Ok, at least we still had some fun.
On Saturday, I finally had my first KBox session after the exams. But it was on early afternoon with Yvonne, Luvena and Wee Khiang. As expected, as it was still early, I sang 2 songs, totally out of tune... Haha, still able to feel good after that session. However, KBox is getting more and more expensive. Bentos are not served during KLunch anymore, it became a plate of cheapo Chicken Rice... We should just try to stop patronising it.
On Sunday, I went back to work for Kumon. Haha, glad to see some of the students still remember me! But most of them are the most mischievous ones...

Game Review: Rockman X7 / Rockman X8

6 years after the release of these 2 games, I finally have a chance to play these 2 games. As a big Rockman fan, why must I wait until this moment to play?

I remembered the last time I ever played Rockman X5 and Rockman X6 was when I was Secondary 1 and 2! And I had to go to either Derek's or Rong Teng's house to play... So at that time, I felt so pathetic when I didn't own any Playstation Consoles...

Now, I have finally got links for me to get the games to play on my laptop! Wahahaha! I don't care even it has any malware on it. I just need to play it!!! I played Rockman X7 during mugging period and Rockman X8 after my exams.

Rockman X7 discarded the old 2D platform style and changed to both 2D/3D playing style. This had created many criticisms from the fans because of the bad controls of the 3D play style. Well, I also found it quite bad because I fell into many pitholes due to the incorrect judgement of my jump, and led to parallex error... Rockman X8 reverted back into 2D platform but with nicer 3D graphics. This game had won back most of the fans' hearts, but still not as good as the X4-X6.

I personally like X8 very much, because the story was nice, and the game became very easy to play once to get the hang of it. I even completed the whole game in less than one week! I replayed the whole game in the same difficulty (which is Normal) in one afternoon! However, being the last game of the series, the whole ending to this series is a bit too abrupt. The series taking over Rockman X is Rockman Zero, the story go all the way to 200 years later after the end of x8. The main character is Zero, but no matter how you at him, he still does not resemble the Zero in Rockman X from any angle! Haha.

I have mentioned so much about X8, but not X7, because till now, I have not even completed the whole of X7!!! Not even once... Because I always get stuck on the last boss... Plus, the controls are really suck on keyboards because you cannot press so many keys on the same time... Same goes for X8, but because it is 2D so it became much more easier. But anyway, Rockman games are still the best!!!

The End of the First Week of December 09

My first week of holiday just ended so fast.

The first thing I get to enjoy after my last exams on Monday was to watch a movie with Russell and my new friend, Shaun. After loitering around Bugis, we went back to Tampines to watch Gokusen the Movie. It was a hilarious yet touching movie. Japanese movie never failed to move my tears...
Next, is a outing with the remaining F5 members and Mr Tan Chee Boon. And by mentioning the gang and the company, it is as good as saying "outing in Chinatown". Yes, that should be our regular outing place whenever Mr Tan is around. But that doesn't mean we are been forced to go there, it just came naturally out of our minds. Going there also means we can eat good food! We will always go there for the Claypot Rice, Chendol or Fish Head Bee Hoon. But because Song Guan is not with us, no one really wants to eat the Bee Hoon there... Haha. So we ate in OG Weatlake Snacks (Please translate directly into Chinese) for our dinner. As expected, Mr Tan spent another hundred during this outing.

Pok Yen heard of this bubble tea shop in Chinatown called KOI Cafe. And it is really nice, though a bit expensive. But it is really worth it!!! The amount of pearls they gave us is really a lot! Plus, health conscious people can choose the level of their sugar content for their drinks!
Next, my exercise training for my next IPPT which falls on the end of this month. Really really hope I can pass and get it done and over with. Ever since the school semester started, I have not been exercising. So after 2 sessions of jogging and 1 session of gym, my whole body is aching like and had a high concentration of lactic acid all over my body!
Just a few hours ago, we just had an official outing with VeNoM. It should be counted as official now as we finally get out of the campus zone and went out to Marina Square! We are supposed to meet at 1pm, but everyone (except Sohaila and Siti, who had exams that morning) was late! Edwin even had the cheek to wake up at our meeting time! Haha. In the end, the lunch session was with Russell, Randy, Sohaila, Siti, Irvan and me. Poor Randy, during the lunch, he told us about how packed his whole holiday is! And it is basically all about the school. Think he must really have a good rest during his trip back to his hometown.

After our lunch, we went to get the tickets for the movie, 2012. We expected lesser people to watch the movie since it has been already a month since the first day it was up on the theatre. Plus, there is only one timeslot for each cinema each day on that day. However, we were totally wrong. By the time, we got the tickets, we could only get the first row!

2012 is a story about how geographic scientists discovered the truth about the disaster that is about to occur on the year 2012. However, it is impossible to save the whole population, so the government secretly build some ships and allow the important people who can make contributions to the mankind to escape. When the day arrived, a family and their friends knew this secret and decided to get to the escape craft. So the story shown how treacherous the journey was when the whole Earth sunk, swollowed by the Tsunami, or hit by the sudden formation of volcano. But most importantly was how LUCKILY the family was to get all the way to the ships in the end. Of course, sacrifising some of their friends' lives in the process. There are many touching scenes in the movie. But just not enough as compared to the Japanese movies that really moved my tears. Haha.

End of AY2009/10 Semester 1

Finally! After 4 months of devoting myself on University stuff, it is time to break away from that life for........ Only a month...

Well, a lot of things really happened in that 4 months for me. Knowing a lot of acquaintances, learning lots of stuff and squeezing all your brain juice out... They may sound very bad, but I really enjoyed that period. But whether I passed my exams will be another issue. Because there was hardly any time left for you to study everything in depth after you have rushed and completed all your assignments... It can be very stressful when you know you will not be able to really get one subject at your fingertips... Still, that is the harsh fact studying in University...

In fact, the hardship doesn't end after the exams. It is time to face the stupid IPPT again. And it is the most suitable time to train for it before the semester starts and eats up my exercise time again... If I don't do it now, by the time after the semester 2, my birthday will be over and I will not clock for any IPPT attempts... Sigh. I don't understand why we have to do this shit... I know it is good to encourage exercising, but making compulsory IPPT just seems too overboard.