Making A Statement

Is there a proper time and place for it, or it shouldn't be restricted?

Urban Dead: Five Digit Experience Points

Yesterday I broke ten thousand XP. It only took 14 months of playing almost everyday for 50 action points.

And that's before I was revived. Left the NT building beside me at very strongly barricaded, and only had enough left to barricade the museum beside it to also VSB. This morning, my building is untouched, but I couldn't get any revivification syringes from the NT building; there were 9 zombies inside. Have to clear it out first.

Another Height by Width Game

Jewels: Cradle of Rome is another time-waster of the Bejeweled ilk. But it also has more in common with Puzzle Quest in that the sets you form are now part of your resources. Like some games found in zone.msn.com or games.yahoo.com, there is the added difficulty of having to form sets at specific locations that have to be finished by a certain time limit to get to the next level.

There are also certain blocks that have to be used twice, and there are chained blocks that cannot be moved or switched until they are made part of a set.

Resources, if enough are collected, can be used for hammers, to break blocks in corners, or lightning, for breaking 20 blocks at a time, or bombs, for clearing a 3 by 3 square.

Yeah, another distraction just before going to bed, until I find it's past midnight again.

Urban Dead: Clearing Long Ruined Buildings

Just found out what they mean when they said it takes more time to repair damaged buildings that have been standing that way for a long time. It just took me 8 action points to bring a safe house back to usability. I don't know what the ratio is though, and if it's really worth it or just to look for less ruined houses to fix.

Different Levels of Selection

If a girl starts going steady with you from all of her suitors, rejoice.

If your numbers were picked to win the million peso lottery, consider yourself extremely lucky and blessed.

But if you won in an election, don't sit on your laurels. The voting public felt that you would best represent them and their cause, so don't celebrate, because you have a lot of work ahead of you living up to their expectations of you.

Otherwise, if you start acting for yourself and begin stepping on the same people who put you in that position, they could just as easily bring you down, because if they don't look up to you anymore, they don't see you as a role model anymore, if you don't represent the majority sentiment anymore, they would turn their backs on you.

No Fans = Lackluster Play

It's easy enough to ensure cheering audience for student games. Why is it so difficult for the faculty/staff sportsfest?

Is it because the groupings do not reflect our work relationships? Would it be better as college faculty vs IS faculty vs staff vs administrators? Would the team spirit heighten or worsen?

Shaky Handheld Camcord Work

It's a stylized way of filming commercial shows right now, which I last saw in Hancock (where in supposedly tight space and "no second take" shots the blurred side image of a forefront figure isn't even removed) and Wall*E (which, in the tradition of the "outtakes" in A Bug's Life, has correctional movements when zooming in or following the subject in motion, simulating the work of a real camera).

There's also The Office, of course, and several local as well as foreign independent films.

And in case you're wondering, the camera above is real, and it's 160 megapixels. Check it out here.

Don't Look Down

Last August 17 we went to EK again, and we caught the fireworks display while we were on the Log Jam. This is a rare moment that is worth capturing, until we wait for it again next time, that is.

No More Diving

Earlier today I went to the river with the College Parents' Association officers and some Student Council officers.

I was very saddened to see that a part of the river, at the bottom of a small waterfall, where we used to go swimming because of its depth was now wading height due to vast amounts of mud deposited from the highlands during the frequent storms.


Just makes me realize how the river is not static, but evolving, and that we should take every opportunity to visit it when we can, even when the way down is muddy and slippery, because it might not look the same way the next time.

New Old Phone

Got this yesterday. Sentimental because my very first phone was the same brand, the "safeguard". I've come full circle on phones.

The Family Tree of Rice

This is one of the things I took away from the Creative Writing Talk yesterday such as the local term for the leavings of unhusked rice above, besides the fact that Michael Malabanan knows the Spanish of onion.

And... that SC President and I ask the eternal question: if a driver drives, what does an usher do?

Better Than Crystal Skull

I mean, the expectation wasn't as high as for Indy so the disappointment wasn't as much of a downer.

That's the best thing I could say about it.

Where is the Pride in One's Work?

As consumers we have a simple way of voting for what products are good or not, from what we buy often and what we avoid paying for.

But sometimes, you have to face something you'd normally pass up because either it's a gift, offered to you by the host at a party, or as part of your job.

Sometimes you can just grin and bear it. Other times, the overwhelming response is wanting to go to the factory, the source of the product, and yell at the Quality Assurance Officer "What the hell made you think this is good enough for the world out there?"

Numbered Blocks Before Minesweeper Arrived

Third game related post in a row. Thanks to Chat who talked about spending a lot of time on this game last night I went to sleep after midnight again playing this. Damn handheld consoles and how you can be lying in bed and still playing.

MALL-opoly

Since I already started talking about games yesterday, this is one that I miss a lot. We used to play this a lot in the first Playstation when my friends and I were together, but I also played the story mode solo to be able to unlock the three secret characters.

It's one of the few games that can be played by more than two players on the PS.

Just like Monopoly you can buy unowned "stalls" in the mall that you land in, and force other players to buy goods from your store if they land there, and there's an advantage to having two or more stalls beside each other, and selling stores if you don't have enough money

There's also a space that's the equivalent of Go, and of drawing luck cards.

Best part of the game is the points system, where if you collect up to 99 points, you can already claim victory (although I never did) but can also get to do cool things like open another shop for yourself you haven't landed on.

Why wasn't this upgraded for the PS3 and PSP?

I Build This City (On Rock & Roll?)

This was an out-of-the-blue buy today at Book Sale, for P5.00! I saw it on top of a pile on the floor beside one shelf as I was already on my way out with other books I had decided on getting. Will have to put off reading it until term break though.

They Have Endured

Congratulations to JP, Roy, and . First screen is overall, second is for their age category. JP's is 20 km, Roy is 10 km.

Pet Peeve of the Week

I wish a pizza could remedy everything, but it can't.

Impossible Triangle?

On the hint given by Dennis that an impossible cube construction exists on the net from paper, this is what I found instead.

The site gives a paper cutout template one can use to make one's own 3-d (or is it 4-d?) illusion to be photographed.

Great Day Today

Besides the PHINMA lab experiments, my students and I played a game called "Werewolf", a variation of the winking game Killer where they don't wink at each other, but because during the "night" part of the round the werewolves kill one of the villagers, their paranoia forces them to act like a lynch mob (thus the picture) and kill one of their own that they suspect to be the werewolf.

So it's a game of convincing the others not to kill you, and if you're the psychic, to get them to believe what you know without exposing yourself to the werewolves, who will kill you next "night" if they realize who you are.

I'll probably propose this for the next Leadership Camp.

Excited Tomorrow

This is where the class of Mavic, Claudette, Francis, Gierod, Happy etc. and I will be going tomorrow, all expenses paid by the school of course. Too bad there's no picture on the site of their electronics equipment, which is what we will be tinkering. Really looking forward to helping establish that our campus will be making full use of this "donation".