wafblog v3.0

So, of course, as soon as I say that I doubt there’ll ever be a chess game for the PSP, I’m digging around on GameSpot and find out that Konami are releasing “Chess Battle”. From what I can see, it literally is “Battle Chess” for the PSP, but all trumped up and 3D looking! So I’m definitely going to get it when it comes out (this month IIRC). I also saw that they’re releasing Lumines II sometime this month I think. So two new games for me to look out for and hopefully will be able to play soon. This causes a little bit of a conundrum as I counted yesterday and I’ve got 15 games. I think there’s about 5 I haven’t played (GTA: LCS, Lemmings, Tokobot, Gottlieb Pinball and Lego Star Wars II) And another 5 that I haven’t played properly at all (Frantix, Mercury, Loco Roco, Koolumn and Gripshift). I’ve played Lumines, Burnout Legends, SSX, DJ Max Portable and Tekken: Dark Resurrection like crazy at some stage though. But I haven’t finished any games yet. So I probably should not buy any more games until I’ve finished the ones I’ve got. Which could easily take me a year or something. I think my main problem is that I’ll play and play and then I’ll reach a stage where I’m not actually getting any better. Happens with me for most games really. Or I start to lose interest because the games become repetitive. So I’ll pull out something else and be content with that for a while. Maybe I’ll finish Tekken though, there’s so much replayability there. But, argh… Lumines II!!!! Apparently they’ve released Lumines for XBox 360. Although I’m more interested in the old XBox… but I don’t have a TV in my room so there’s no point thinking about that yet.

Anyways. I have new music! I got Badly Drawn Boy’s “Born In The U.K.” which I hope will be as good as the soundtrack to About A Boy. Also picked up The Scissor Sisters’ “Ta-Dah” which is an awesome name, plus the ‘I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’ song is rather addictive in that can’t-get-it-out-of-my-head kind of way. I’m hoping Evanescence’s “The Open Door” will be good because as much as I like them, their songs all sound the same after a while and that becomes rather boring. Lastly I got The Killers’ new album “Sam’s Town” which I listened to on the way to work this morning. It sounds rather disappointing on first listen, but sometimes you need to give it a few goes before it grows on you. I’m hoping that will happen with this album, I’m just finding that none of the songs have grabbed me yet. Like, I remember when I first heard ‘Mr. Brightside’ I just instantly went “that’s awesome!!” and listened to it over and over. They sound different on this album - a little more mellow, a little less energy. If I don’t end up liking the album so much I guess I won’t be so disappointed I didn’t get tix to their concert or the BDO. Which reminds me, tickets for Homebake arrived yesterday! W00t. So excited!!!

I did my first sudoku puzzle yesterday. There was a certain sense of achievement having completed it, but my initial reaction was “and so?”. I’m not entirely sure what the fuss is about or why people say they’re so addictive. Maybe my skills haven’t progresse beyond the simple ‘elimination’ tactics. I have a feeling I may have just picked an easy one. Some of the harder ones are annoying obviously as you have to sort of guess but even then you can retrace your steps if you’re not sure.

I’ve found that I’d much rather have a go at crossword puzzles. Normally I’m not very good at them, particularly the cryptic ones. However, I do enjoy the challenge of thinking about the words more than I enjoy putting numbers into a grid. I guess each to their own. I’m thinking of alternating between sudoku and crosswords each day, just to give me something to do. Hopefully I won’t get bored with them. So why am I doing puzzles? Well, I wanted something to keep my brain active beyond say work or playing computer games. I’d play chess, except it’s been ultra hard to find a decent chess game for the computer and I doubt they’ll release one for the PSP ever. Apparently the DS will be getting a card game compendium type thingy which also includes chess and Othello. That’s kind of tempting. I could probably go on Yahoo! games and play, but the players there can be annoyingly juvenile.

I’ve been pretty happy lately, which is a nice change. I don’t think I’m one of those people that can stay happy for long periods of time. Not sure if that’s because I’m overly critical or it’s just some odd personality defect. Anyways, I find that I’m pretty content at the moment. Most aspects of my life have resolved themselves or are at a stage where I can’t do anything at the moment.

Mike and I are doing well. It’s still all a bit new, I guess. Obviously there’s familiarity there – considering how long we dated before. But it’s also very different. I can see we’re both putting more effort in, and we’ve both matured a bit during the time we spent apart which makes it much easier to communicate and put things into perspective.

We went to see ‘Children of Men’ on the weekend (I LOVE Clive Owen… he’s not like uber-hot, but there’s something about his gruff voice and the accent). It was a pretty good movie. Different from most futuristic movies. I think because of the way it was shot, it felt very gritty and realistic. In one of the fighting scenes, some blood splatters on the camera lens and they keep it there whilst Clive Owen is trying to not to get killed in crossfire. I thought that was a nice touch. It was kind of obvious what was going to happen at the end, but I did think it was a different take on the future. Usually there’s some sort of view that all babies will be genetically engineered a-la ‘Gattaca’ where as this explores a world where no babies are born. Scary. I like Alfonso Cuaron, although I have seen that movie that made him famous (I will…), he is the one that directed HP: POA so I think he’s brilliant.

Work’s pretty ok at the moment too. I’m still worried that I will become disenchanted with the rat race and after 5 years of slogging it out I’ll just quit and move to the country. Except I can’t move to the country because everywhere is drought affected. Anyways, work is alright. Nothing to complain about as such and I am looking forward to next year as much as I dread it being too challenging.

Parents have been pretty good lately too. It’s been good since I finished uni. I think they’re just relieved that I’ve finished and I’m now on my way to having a career and all that sort of thing. They can sort of sit back and relax. Which they are, as they’re planning for retirement now. (Gosh, retirement seems like a lifetime away from here…) I think they’ll start berating me to clean my room, play violin, go for more driving lessons.. etc etc soon but I kind of accept now that they’re just like that and there’s nothing I can do about it.

Met up with Manda for a coffee on Monday. Felt like a yuppie, but neither of us really felt like drinking. Or maybe that was just me. It was definitely great to see her though, catch up, check out her short hair :o and see how well she survived Animania. I was a bit worried things would change, but they haven’t and we easily just slipped back into our usual chat-chat-chat. Going for drinks tonight at the Arthouse so that should be fun too.

I thought I would really miss LJ, e-mail, ICQ and the like while I was away. Which I did, but I’ve found that since coming back I haven’t really felt the urge to go online much. It’s kind of odd. Like, I’ll go online to check my mail but I don’t read any of the groups that I’ve joined and I skim alot of the community posts on my friends page. I don’t think that I’m losing interest in them or anything, I’m still as avid a fan of x, y and z as before just that reading fanfic for hours on end isn’t very appealing at the moment. Maybe I just need a break from all the fanbitching and fanboying. In any case, once I get back into VM, GA and OTH we’ll see if I go scouring for stuff. I also have to make time to watch the ORIGINAL SW trilogy, cos the DVDs arrived while I was away. I have already recruited Mike to watch them with me, but maybe I’ll see if I can convince people to come and watch a marathon of all six.

I’ve decided that Tekken: Dark Resurrection is the best game on PSP. I haven’t played it since I got back but I was playing it religiously in HK. Unlocked a few bonus games like Tekken Bowl (ten-pin bowling with your Tekken character) which is rather hilarious. Trying to only work on one or two characters, and become proficient in them, before trying others. It’s too hard to remember all the combinations otherwise. Also finding it hard to use the directional keypad in fighting, but I don’t like the analog stick on the PSP, it’s too small and in an awkward position for my thumb. Plus my thumb muscles hurt a lot if I use it for too long. Current fave character is Steve Fox. He’s a boxer, so he can’t kick, but he’s amazingly fast at repetitive punching. It’s cool that you can buy different clothes and things for him with the points you accumulate.

Went to the gym yesterday. I’m not particularly unhealthy after my trip, although my legs seem to have lost some strength. That or they’re not used to being stretch the way my trainer stretched them. I was doing some lunges (2nd set) when my right leg caved in. It was a bit scary trying to walk down the stairs at Central station, cos I kept feeling like my knee would buckle and I’d fall down but I managed to get home in one piece so that’s ok.

The categories on here are very easy to use, so in the next few weeks I might be adding a few more just to make it easier to tag my entries. We’ll see. I don’t want to add too many though as it might become unmanageable.

So I finally decided to upgrade the firmware on my PSP. I got sick of having 5 (legit) games that I couldn’t play… there’s no point forking out the money for them if you can’t actually play them huh?

So yeah, I upgraded to v2.0. I figure that if the homebrew scene ever really takes off, I’ll be able to downgrade and go back to it. Considering I’d tried a few of the new game loaders that supposedly work on v1.5 for v2.0 games and they didn’t work… not much of a choice there anyways.

First game I tried out was DJ Max Portable. This is a Korean game, apparently has been released on PS2. It’s basically DDR but for songs. Unfortunately, even the Easy Mode with 1 difficulty is amazingly hard. Either that, or I’m rhythmically challenged. Or my reflexes are amazingly slow. I finally finished two of the stages at 1 difficulty. The ONLY two. Now I’m stuck – I can’t play those on 2 difficulty and when I complete the ones on 1 difficulty it goes to Stage 2… which only has songs from difficulty 3 and up. One day, I’m going to try the 6 button songs…..

Having given up on that for the time being I thought I’d try out Koloomn which is also known as Ultimate Block Party. Another puzzle game of course, it reminds me of Puyo Pop Fever, although it’s more complex because of all the specials. I’m still getting used to it, but it’s pretty fun.

Games left to try out:
- GTA: Liberty City Stories
- Gottlieb Pinball Classics
- Frantix

In the mean time, I shall try to stop buying any more games.