The small things

I like to find humour in everything around me and I personally subscribe to the logic that laughter is the best medicine. Except after having abdominal surgery.

Two humourous signs stood out from my walk to uni today.

The first sign is located near where I live. For those uninformed- I live near Oxford street in Sydney. One of the restaurants closed down and a poster was erected with the words 'sailors', 'old sailors' and 'dingy'. I nearly pissed myself.

The second sign was located at a cafe in the vicinity of a police station proclaiming they serve the best bacon and egg wrap.

Small things but they do make a trip to thr uni interesting.

May the 4th be with you

Happy Star wars day everybody!!!

This is the day when we celebrate all things Star wars. Being relatively new in town and wanting to  see if there are any star wars based 'happenings', I decided to head into the city. I reckoned the comic book shop to be a logical first stop. It turned out the comic book shop was having a free comic book day and the line outside the shop was way to long. Made an executive call at that point to just roam the city until 4pm and head to the AbsintheSalon. Plus I had my iPad with me which contains part of my Star Wars comic collection.

 

And there you have it- this was how I spent "Star Wars Day"- Absinthe and Comics. May the 4th be with you.

Gods among us

Spent 2 hours watching all cut scenes of the new fighting game, Injustice: Gods among us (henceforth known as Injustice). This 2D, 3D rendered background, fighting game is developed by the same studio that brought you Mortal Kombat 9-  NetherRealm studios. I was blown away with Mortal Kombat 9; the storyline and fatalities was well done. I'm no DC fanboy but based on what they did for Mortal Kombat 9, I had high hopes for Injustice.

For those who are wondering, "What in the world is Injustice?" Here's the trailer:

I do not own a Xbox or a Playstation 3 so the only way for me to get to the game is through YouTube. Face it, I don't really enjoy playing 1 vs 1 fighting games as much (more on that below) so a compilation of cut scenes illustrating the story is good enough for me. 

In my opinion, the storyline was done nicely and I must say that I enjoyed the corny moments in the script. The story is set in an alternate DC universe where the Joker tricked Superman into activating a nuclear device which leveled Metropolis. A notable casualty was Lois Lane and this drove Superman over the age. Superman killed the Joker and over the next 5 years, sets up a dictatorship to rule over mankind. Heroes and villains of the DC universe either sided with Superman or were killed. The main opposition to this regime is the Batman. The Batman of this universe transported other DC from another universe to help stop superman and this is where the story begins. Go check the video on YouTube- it's worth the 2 hours if you are interested in the world of DC.

"If I had a gaming console would I have bought and played this game? " The answer will be no. I like the storyline but injustice is still in essence, a fighting game. Don't get me wrong, I do not hate the  fighting game genre; I like to play fighting games occasionally. I grew up playing fighting games in the arcades, Street fighter, Tekken, Virtual fighter, Soulcalibur etc. 

So why the apparent 'hate' now you might ask. For starters, I feel that fighting games are way too competitive a gaming genre. There's a lot of dedication involved- learning special moves, combos, generic fighting plan, attack strings etc. Once you get those down pat for a character- you usually have go through the same process for another character. Other genres, which also possess competitive elements, does not punish you the same way as fighting games do. Look at the tempo of fighting games. It's all about tempo, tempo, tempo. You got to keep the pressure up or you are toast.  Add in a time limit and you have a very stressful environment to perform. All you have is 30 sec- 60 sec to prove your "worth". The chance of a comeback mid round is really slim and if you fail to use that window of opportunity, you get thrashed.

Fast paced action with a slim chance of a comeback sounds like a good recipe for stress.  I play video games to relax, not to put on additional stress. So clearly fighting games are not my gaming genre of choice thus spending money to buy the game might be a waste. However, if you past me a controller while playing a fighting game- I will still pick it up and play the game with you. I'm social like that.

EDIT (28 2252 Apr 2013)-- added Injustice trailer from YouTube.

EVOL

Had a rough start yesterday. Got a couple of Facebook statuses forwarded to me which were followed by whatsapp messages by various people. I usually turn a blind eye to facebook updates like this as I respect each individual's opinion, no matter how divergent from mine. However, I got really ticked off when I saw a post and this led to a facebook response.

The 'offending' Facebook post made no sense what-so-ever. The situation has changed since last year and it continued to change this year as well. Maybe others were not privy to certain information sent personally to me and this allowed a 'sympathy party' to form. I will not post any details here, or on facebook. But suffice to say- in lieu of the current situation, the messages are distasteful. Maybe the whatsapp messages could have been worded better. but no corrections were made to expand on it- I will take it as it is.

I have considered that hormonal changes could have played a majority part as well. For that, I do think my response might be harsh. Nevertheless, I still stand by my response.

I was hoping for it to be a peaceful, relaxing day yesterday. It did turn out ok- watched a couple of standup comedies, played counterstrike again and attempted to learn the "gentleman" dance. Peaceful, maybe not, but I was relaxed at the end of the day.

Jurassic Park fever

I loved Dinosaurs as a kid and I'm not ashamed to say that I have never outgrown this love. I'm still very much interested in any dinosaur news; be it from popular press or research papers.

With Jurassic Park 3D currently showing in the cinemas, I find myself surfing through YouTube with search terms like "Jurassic Park", "Dinosaurs", "T Rex" etc. One of the vidoes I found on YouTube was  a recreation of Jurassic Park, in the game "Minecraft". I've never played Minecraft as I was not too sold on the concept of the game. Nevertheless, I found this recreation to be really cool as it captured and recreated iconic locales like the visitor centre, gate of Jurassic park and the raptor pens. It brought back waves of nostalgia when I first watched the movie on the big screen when I was a kid. The video is shown below- kudos to Josh Collins for his effort in making this "Minecraft world".

Cool stuff right? Now I wish Jurassic Park 4 will be in production and released soonish. Regarding the feathers on Dinosaurs issue- I guess I'm ok with Dinosaurs in the new Jurassic Park movie not having feathers. These are genetic recreations with sequence gaps in their original DNA template, what's a little assisted priming and "directed" mutation between movie-goers? Oh and yes, If they could also develop a sequel to the park building game, "Jurassic Park:Operation Genesis" I would be ecstatic.

Come on!! GIVE ME MY JURASSIC PARK FIX!! NOW!!!!