High atop a craggy cliff, guarded by an army of fierce warriors stands the fortress of the evil warlord Akuma. Deep in the darkest dungeon of the castle Akuma gloats over his lovely captive, the princess Mariko. You are one trained in the way of karate: a Karateka. Alone and unarmed, you must defeat Akuma rescue the beautiful Mariko. Put fear and self-concern behind you. Focus your will on your objective, accepting death as a possibility. This is the way of the Karateka. Beat-’em-ups, of fighting games are the staple of PC games and consoles, a trend largely inherited from the coin-op arcade forefathers. On the consoles, you have dozens…

January 27th, Saturday, which was yesterday is remembered for a few things. Googling up ‘this day in history‘ i found some out some stuff that may or may not interest people stuck on a desert island in the pacific: 1880 – Thomas Edison patented the lightbulb. If not for him, we’d still be blogging with a kerosene lamp and / or candlelight. 1910 – The man who invented and developed the flush toilet mechanism that most of us use today, Thomas Crapper, died. That’s probably where were get the term ‘crap‘. And ‘holy crap‘. And ‘crappola‘. 1984 – Michael Jackson’s hair caught on fire during the filming of a Pepsi…

Since it’s Friday, and i’ve nothing else to do, i’m going to plug some blog pinging services. We all know Project Petaling Street, it’s been around quite awhile. There were others that followed, some survived the first few months, some didn’t (remember PPS2? Project Kacang Kuda?). A few others that are still around are Planet Malaysia and sarawho. Both actually use RSS feeds, but also acts as a blog update service. The end result is pretty much the same with all the services – you update your blog, they’ll get to know about it and highlight it on their front page either through the RSS feed or an auto-pinger, or…

Top Ten Signs This Won’t Be a Great Chinese New Year for You Your neighbour’s kids have stockpiled enough fireworks to burn down a small island republic. You’re over 35 and not married. And you have 37 uncles and aunties who are extremely paat (nosy). Your parents home, where you’re gonna spend a week there, has no Astro, no internet connection, no DVD player. Only RTM1 and 2. Since last week, your parents have been dropping heavy hints that they are expecting a 12-course Chinese New Year dinner at the most expensive restaurant in town (Guess who’s paying…?). Last time you were here, your neighbour, who’s a pirated DVD kingpin,…

Last week’s post was all about real time strategy (RTS) games. Today, since the alignment of Jupiter and the moons are right, let’s talk about that other computer game genre, the FPS (that first person shooter, not frames per second). My very first FPS was undoubtedly the very first one released, Wolf 3D. I even played the sequel (more like extra levels, really) called Spear of Destiny. And of course, following Wolf 3D was the big one, Doom. I’ve you can’t imagine how it’s like, it’s worlds away from the realism of Counter-Strike and Halo 2. Doom was such a hit game that until today, all FPS are called Doom-clones.…

“Horrendous.” “What’s up, dawg?” “Ghastly.” “You’re the sweetest.” “Keeping it real, dude.” Yeah, baby, American Idol is BACK. In the interim months, you can have all those pretender filler shows like Aka-lamey Fantasia, or your One In A Million, but AMERICAN IDOL is the REAL DEAL, the big daddy of ‘em all. If you’re new the series, some things to look forward to… Simon Cowell’s man boobs bulging out of his tight, tight black baby tees. How has-been popstar Paula Abdul tries to keep sober every episode. Ryan Seacreast two day old stubble. (I can just hear the fanboys going “rowrrrrr…”) How many time per episode Randy Jackson does that…

Dang, my internet connection is out completely, that explains the lack of updates here. In the meantime, while Internet-less, I’m left with watching anime to pass the time between work and sleep (some eating and toilet time in between). I’ve currently still watching Black Lagoon, although the latest story arc (Roberta the killer south American maid) isn’t up to par with the start of the season. But apparently Season 2 is better. let’s hope so. I’ve just got Gunslinger Girl too, haven’t watch it except the intro to Episode 1. Seems like these European themed anime are pretty popular these days. I’m also in the midst of getting Last Exile,…

I’ve just got my new PC up and running, so If you see less and less around here, you should know what I’m doing instead of blogging… I’ve played quite a lot of games over the years since the mid-80’s, and I have had lots of favourites, spanning Apple, PC and Playstation (and Gameboy even). These days real time strategy (RTS) games are dime a dozen – you see so many of them at the shops. You have them based in medieval Rome, exploring the New World, outer space (Starcraft!), global domination, almost every thinkable historic or fictional scenario for a RTS, its probably been done before. Basically, the concept…

Yep, I’m buying a new PC. My home desktop, if you can believe it, is almost 7 years old. It’s a Celeron 433, I remember clearly I opted for it over the 466 to save something like RM40. Along the way, I’ve changed the motherboard and mouse once, and only a few months ago changed the 17” monitor. This is not to mention the countless re-formats over the years. It runs Windows 98 perfectly well, and it still has those addictive window games that were once the staple of bored office workers, like WordZap and TetraVex. Anyway, I’m getting a new one soon. It’s not going be a kick-ass one,…

If you’ve been reading the papers recently, they’ve been doing a series of interviews with loads of people from different industries about their job, i think it has something to do with some Education Fair. They always end the interview with a question about whether you can be a millionaire by the age 30. Oh, sure, everybody wants to be a millionaire by 30. Heck better still, most people regret they didn’t win the genetic lottery and be born as Bill Gates’ kid. But then of course, you and I know it’s far more difficult than it seems, unless: You do it via the less-than-legal way, You’re a hot chick…