Caught up with Nintendo games

This is my mandatory post for the week, =P. I know I'm suppose to work on my posts that I said to be coming soon but instead I spent my free time playing games on my favourite console, Nintendo DS lite. It has always been a joy playing games that were created for this console. I had my first game boy when I was in high school, it was the big fat yellow one. The game that I played and spent lots of time on was Pokemon Yellow, and also assorted mini games.

And then I got an upgrade to Gameboy Colour, it was so cool because it has colours and I played pokemon Pearl on it. I didn't have much games to play on it because it was costly to buy the game cartridges.

               

Many years I stopped playing the gameboy colour and when I was 21 I asked my father for a DS Lite as my birthday gift. Of course I got it, it was such a beauty to me. I was captivated by how much creativity the games had utilizing the touch screen below. The first game that I bought to play was Mario vs Donkey Kong 2 : March of the Minis and I loved it.

It was a game about solving puzzle, getting the little mechanical Marios to collect coins, items and arriving at the door to march on to the next level. The point of the game is to use your brain, start the minis on a route that reaches your target of destination while collecting items. As a gamer I always try to get the highest score and earn the awards before I move on to the next level.

Lately I wasn't paying attention to what new titles are in store  for Q4 of 2010, so I didn't take note of this game until I was surfing last weekend on reviews for another game. Surprise, surprise another titles was out for this genre. I was excited when I got the game and the new title is "Mario vs Donkey Kong : Mini-land Mayhem".

Trailer : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO_h9OJ_B90

The concept is the same but it's still fun because it's a new set of puzzles, new minigames included and also Special stages are unlocked with the amount of Mario coin you have collected from the levels. There are a total of 8 attractions with 8 levels to play, and after those 8 levels there will be a level where you need to defeat Donkey Kong. I'm currently in attraction number 7, there are many levels that needed more of my time to solve it so I decided to look for FAQs and walkthroughs but I couldn't find a good one. Therefore I looked for it on Youtube and there really was video walkthroughs for it. The walkthroughs were nicely done, and all of it scores the highest possible score for each level. This group of people also do walkthroughs for other games and it's a good job. So nice of these people to share and help weak gamers like me.

The walkthrough link: http://www.youtube.com/user/mikey11190, just search for the miniland and it will result those walkthroughs.

After I'm finished with this game, probably 2 more days to go, I'm going to play my favourite game franchise, Kingdom Hearts: Re-coded. I hope it will be good.

Adults Movie in Carrefour???

One fine day I did a little grocery shopping in the said place of this entry's title. After passing the sections for electronics, car accessories I think it was the videos section. It shocked me when from far I saw Top 10 Adults Movies. I know they had made a mistake as it's not legal to sell these in this country.

As I approached closer I couldn't stop laughing at the titles that I saw displayed there. They should have placed the movies according to categories/genre.

You will have a better view if you click on the pictures. It was really funny to see that Barbie was a movie for adults and not children instead. I also don't get why Karate Kid is for adults too. Most titles displayed are definitely for general view.

I get that Carrefour doesn't really care how they label their sections or categorize their products, it doesn't matter because most people who shop there don't bother reading labels. They just walk in every aisle until they find what they need. I bet some don't even read English at all. I wonder how this country is trying to improve literacy when these major hypermarkets aren't even advised to properly label things. This can cause so much confusion to the illiterate people. 

Facebook closing down??? Nah it's just a Hoax

Facebook the social networking site that triumph over others such as Friendster and Myspace. Facebook has more than 500 million users world wide and it's increasing by the hour. The know the story and how it came to be just watch the movie "The Social Network". People use it to connect with family and friends around the world, some play games, some use it to make new friends, some even use it for bad intentions. I don't think I need to stress how widely use, many who uses the internet do own an account.

Few days ago a website states that Facebook is closing down, Here is the link to the story :Facebook shuts down. The link was widely spread on Facebook itself.

Of course this is just a hoax, who in their right mind who earns billions would decide to shut this down to have his old life back. Even if he did want his old life back, he would have sold the company away. If facebook closes down, it affects all the game makers of the social network. Many of their incomes are generated from it, example EA acquire Playfish games and expanding into social networking games. Story of acquisition. What's funny about this is the comments that were started in the thread. The picture I've captured below shows the latest comments where some people have already realised it's a hoax. When the thread was just started may thought that it will be gone and most of them are really sad.

Facebook being shut down has it's good and bad. The good it reduces crime where people were stalked using Facebook, people announcing their suicidal attempt, and also increases productivity because many employees spend lots of time on it. The bad it connects people around the world, friends and families separated by the sea which will cause many to lose methods of communication.

I like Facebook because it's one way I reconnect with my old friends and keeps me updated about their lives. Occasionally I enjoy playing the flash games that are available. If Facebook is gone it wouldn't make too much of a difference in my life unless I do business with it.

Starbucks 2011 Schedule Diary

As the title says I'm writing about this year's diary that Starbucks Msia has offered. To obtain this you'll need to drink 12 grande size drinks, 1 of it has to be Toffee Nut beverage, another would be Peppermint Mocha. The rest could be any drink that you like. If you don't want to drink so much coffee or tea, just pay RM 55 for the book.

Here are some pictures:

 This is how the diary comes, with a small bag.

Front view of the diary

 Inside - 1st page, coupons on the left side

Starts with all the months  in this format

The design for each month

Places to write notes for each month

The last page of the book, with a small space on the right to put papers.

Overall I feel last year's one is much better with sectioned areas for each day of the month. This year it's just pages and pages of lines and I would usually draw lines to separate them myself just like year 2009's diary. Oh well just a bit more work for me to do to organize things nicely. At least I get to enjoy their xmas season drinks and get a diary out of it. I know Kinokuniya have nicer ones, or even Moleskin have some nice ones but its all too costly. If I can utilize it very well maybe next year I'll purchase one instead of getting the Starbucks one.

It's a new year!!! 2011

New year, new beginnings that's what everyones says. Though many things will have new beginnings, some things are just the same so I'm gonna improve on it and make it better. One of the things that I will try to do is to post once a week about anything or everything about my life, other people's life (just joking), mostly random stuff. I have a few things planned for this year, to keep me busy.

Plans:

• Read 1 book in a fortnight and review it.
• Travel to Singapore and visit Universal studios (hopefully I will dare to sit on the roller coasters)
•  Finished my Nintendo DS games that was released since 2009
• Continue learning Japanese myself ( pick up from where I left off last year)
• Share my learning experience on blog as often as I can
• Gain weight ( a big challenge for me)
• Stay fit (eat well, drink less cold drinks/ soft drinks)
• Take more photos and learn photography

These are just some of the plans I have for myself, I hope I can really put some hard work into it and show some results.

This year could be another dull year but I hope not, there are some things that I'm looking forward to. I will be spending Chinese New Year in Singapore (grandparents can't travel back to KL), my family, my aunt and son will fly down on CNY eve and we'll spend 5 days, 4 nights. It's gonna be fun because we're spending 5 days together under one roof. Normally each year I will spend my CNY eve and the first day at my grandparents' and then travel to Segamat, Johore to visit my mum's side of the family. Unfortunately, this year we will not be visitng them but they'll come to visit on one of the weekends. I will take lots of pictures for sure, it's close just one months time to go.

The only movie that I'm looking forward to watch this year is Transformers 3 and there isn't anything that excites me so far. I saw the "Thor" trailer but it didn't interest me that much, let's hope more trailers are out and we have more action movies coming. During mid year I plan to visit Universal Studios Singapore and I will challenge my fear of heights on the coaster rides =P. Let's hope I won't puke, it will be shameful because my cousin who is 8 years old is even more daring than I. 

Well sometimes things come unplanned too and I will be ready to take on those challenges and improve in person, grow more in life (adding 1 year of age doesn't count). I better not make too much plans and goals, and then fail at them. Let's try our best this year and stay happy all the time =D.

Last Day of the year

31 December 2010, last day of the year, some people party, some people ponder, some people don't bother, I would be flipping through  my schedule diary. I like to look at what activities I've done for the year, ponder on my achievements, maybe set some goals, plans and resolution for the coming year.

My 2010 was quite ordinary, many common things happened such as friends getting engaged, getting married, and many of my friends went to Taiwan. It's funny that I have seen more than 10 friends having pictures of their Taiwan trip, it must be the trend now. I myself only traveled to Singapore twice this year to visit my grandparents, my uncle & family, at the same time do some shopping there. I found a good place for cheap stuff, if I'm low on clothes I'll definitely go there again. 

I have also evaluated myself and here is a list of achievements:

• Traveled oversea (just crossing a bridge from Msia to SG)
• Finished Professor Layton game without FAQ/Walkthroughs ( I love testing my sense of logic thinking)
• Finished reading 15 books
• Finished some DS games 
• Learnt makeup online and learnt to take better care of my skin
• Avoided conflicts (talking about pissing ppl off or get pissed at ppl)

I know these achievements are lousy but to me it meant something.

Things that I failed to achieve:

• Still haven't completed Zelda , 365/2 days game
• Still haven't gain any weight
• Failed to learn all the katakana and hiragana words
• Failed to learn simple japanese
• Still have tons of self help books sitting in my cupboard

Overall I think it was a not bad year, it wasn't great but I'm satisfied although there could be more that I should have done, so I'll leave it to next year. So long 2010 and welcome 2011 where I hope that I will do great things and achieve what I didn't this year.

PS: Went to Singapore at 15th December, will update on that once I sort the pictures.

Mid Valley Parking System is crap

The purpose of this post to increase awareness on this horrendous parking system. Firstly the management decided to increase the parking rate yet again, it has become the worst type, the money sucking type as it has no maximum charge at all.It used to be max RM 7 for weekdays and RM 9 for weekends and public holidays. With this new rate if you work there from 9-6 you'll be paying RM 9. We should see changes in maintenance of the parking but it did not improve.It is always so packed and people always park illegally. Below is the picture for the new rate:

I was okay with this parking rate until I was charge unreasonably. It was last Friday when I went for a midnight movie, I arrived at 11:30 ish and left after because the Harry Potter movie was quite long.The receipt is below:

As you can see the timing of in and out is clearly printed. I always know how much to pay for carpark because I do keep track of time, I prepared RM 3 because it was 4 hrs, so RM 2 for 1st 3 hrs and RM 1 for the subsequent hr. I was shocked when the machine asked to pay RM 5 and I could not make any complain as there wasn't anyone personnel working at that hour. I payed and collected my receipt and I found the mistake that made it charge me more. The machine calculated that I was there for 6hrs and 1 minute which was absolutely wrong. If you do the equation it would be

                                                        26:48 (02:48 adding 24hrs system)

                                                      - 23:33

                                                      = 3:16

So I was there for 3 hrs and 16 minutes and rounding the charge would be 4hrs. Last time when I went for midnight movies like this I only pay RM 2 for having been there for 4 hrs and now an extra RM 3. I believe that after they changed the system the programmers screwed up the algorithm in calculation. Another thing that got me angry was tonight when I went there for dinner the machine still make the same mistake in calculation.

If you look at the bottom it calculated 4 hrs but actually it's only 3hrs and 1 min. Even passing 1 minute they charge an extra ringgit. Stupid parking system is just like a blood sucker which can't even fit in a proper algorithm. Can't they not charge people who just exceed 1-5 minutes, since they give people 20 minute grace period to leave. you should also not charge the person extra for exceeding a mere minute. What's so hard to code it?? Just add an extra IF logic to check whether the exceeding minute is > 5 or not then BAM! you got it. I have come across a parking system which is Bangsar Village, once I exceeded by a minute but there was no next hr charged.

Tomorrow I will write an e-mail to their management and make my complaint formally. I hope they will provide me a proper explanation. I hope my friends and readers who visit there take note of the charges, let's not feed these systems blindly as RM 1 a person is a lot in a day for them.

Out of date....

I haven't been blogging for two months, eek so lazy of me. I have been reading but quite slowly, like a book in 2 months time. There are some books that I've completed but I didn't find any time to do it, soon I guess. If you ask me what have I been up to these time? Nothing exciting, just read when I can, play Sims 3 Ambitions (taken a lot of my time) and the thing that I do everyday is watching all those dramas and TV series from USA. Everything just started again since end of September, I have at least one series to catch a day. 

Another thing that I've been obsessing was my skin, I haven't been taking care of it consistently and lately I notice that the laziness is showing. Spend most weekends out with my sister looking at skin care brands. I have yet to find anything that shows me results that I'm satisfied with.  At this century many women depend on make up and I've seen many China girls who look almost like men and with loads of make up they are transformed into someone pretty. I know make up can hide flaws but I feel that I would invest in skin care to retain natural beauty, that way I don't need make up at all.

One month till the last month of the year and I bet many people are planning their holidays, Christmas parties and new year's party, time really flies. As for me I don't have anything planned, but before xmas I'll be visiting Singapore as my grandparents are there. Let's hope it will be a fun trip because my cousins are on holiday we get to do plan some activities then.