Roses may be red

Violets could be indigo

This all doesn’t rhyme.

The first time I saw a Taiko no Tatsujin game was at the arcade. It was this huge setup with 2 drums you’d associate with lion dances (I’m not sure if there’s an equivalent if you’re not Asian) and a giant TV screen. Onscreen prompts will indicate when to beat the drums. I’ve never tried the game out though, chiefly because it’s one of the more expensive machines around (the same reason why I’ve never tried out Percussion Freaks at the arcade

 How can characters this cute be so boring?

I caught sight of a DS version released some days back and got to satisfy my curiosity. I was told before that that the game sucked because all you did was to tap the drum over and over again (said commentary was for the PSP version so I had hoped the DS version was slightly different because it has a touch screen to play around with). 3 songs later, I concurred. The game’s fully in Japanese but unless you’re retarded, you will understand what’s going on within minutes - see drum, hit drum. It’s simple as that.

When you do well for a song, you’ll be rewarded with costumes to dress up your cute-as-a-button Drum character with. I’m not sure which self-respecting adult would get his kicks from that but I’m guessing those same people would find great pleasure in tie-in  merchandise like this -

Uh yeah.

LocoRoco is so entirely retarded, it’s astounding (and very intriguing). It defies all common rules on how to make a kickass game - it’s got no violence, no action as defined by modern adventure games, no real genre, simple controls and an almost childish use of a bright and cheery color scheme. Yet, it’s so appealing.

I got a PSP on loan from the office on Thursday and the first thing I asked was if there was LocoRoco. As it turns out, there’s a copy of it lurking around so I’ve now got the game for the next 2 weeks at least. By Friday, I was at the last stage, quitting only because the battery ran out and the charger’s still on my desk. In the office.

My cousin (who’s 3) enjoyed watching the sights and sounds (and music) of the game a great deal, laughing when the little blobs merged or divided. To be fair, I smiled at the same moments myself while in the train, garnering quite a few stares. My mom was curious enough to want to try it but didn’t because I was hogging it.

Contrary to what I had assumed earlier, the PSP does have its pros.  For one, it’s not as heavy as I had imagined and I really appreciated the Stand By function it has. Instead of turning the console off and having to reset the game and start off from a Save Point, you can just put the console on standby and have it switched on to where you left off previously - Great for when you’re transferring between trains. Weirdly enough though, the first time I started up a game, my finger instinctively went ahead to poke at the screen much like what I’d do on my DS.

Tags: PSP, Games, locoroco, loco roco

We each had a nice gift in the office today. Who knew that what my mom and pop spent on certain movies 30 years back would one day contribute towards a spanking new watch? The collecting freak in me says ‘Yay!’ and jumps around a little.

Comes with a note of appreciation from George Lucas too. I can’t help but feel a little undeserving though, especially since I started work barely a month ago.

Tags: star wars, limited edition, watch

It’s been almost a month since I did any unicycling other than bland ol’ riding and hockey.

I made a vid.

Tags: unicycling, video, unispins

More details here

Ubisoft has this new game, called - get this - Imagine: Figure Skater. The description is as follows -

“Take on the role of a professional figure skater and use the stylus to perform jumps, spins, and a variety of skating combinations.”

Instead of making cheap shots at the title on my own, why don’t YOU GUYS poke fun of it all you want? Comment below.

Tags: ubisoft, figure skater, figure skating, videogame

Tomorrow’s Monday.

That will be in four hours.

Friday’s in 5 days

It started with a sudden interest in reading up on Washington, specifically, I hadn’t known previously that America was British before Washington. Then I began reading up on Washington and finding out that John Adams was his Vice-President and Jefferson, his Secretary of State. I knew that Adams was the 2nd President of the US and Jefferson, the third so I became sort of curious to see how it all irons out. So I wiki-ed Adams.

Then I found out that Adams was stationed in this little town called Quincy a lot. And I knew that the 6th President was John Quincy Adams and it all clicked together. I wiki-ed John Quincy Adams and found out that him and John Adams are father and son and that quite a few US presidents are related by blood, including the grandfather-grandson pair of William Harrison and Benjamin Harrison. Which reminded me that William Harrison died 30 days into his term and that piqued my curiosity to find out how he died.

So apparently, Wikipedia tells of this rather funny (or so I think) anecdote. The guy gave a long inauguration speech, underdressed for the weather, caught a cold and never recovered from it. And then I chanced upon what is termed ‘Tippecanoe’s Curse’. In case you didn’t know, that’s Harrison’s nickname - I know that from this They Might be Giants song called Tippecanoe and Tyler Too (the Tyler in question’s John Tyler, his Vice-Prez who would later become Prez).

Wiki-ing ‘Tippecanoe’s Curse’ refers to how every President that is elected to office in years ending with a 0 (i.e. every 20 years) would go on to die in office. The ‘curse’ is apparently broken by Ronald Reagan who lived to be the second-longest living President. I remembered reading about Reagan’s popularity so I wiki-ed him. And reading about his affable nature made me wonder who were considered the least popular Presidents. And then I found Warren Harding. According to Wikipedia, his writing skills suck so much speculation is rife that he’s got Aphasia.

What the hell is aphasia you ask? Well, whaddaya know, so did I. So I wiki-ed it.

At this point in time, I’ve managed to wiki my way to Genghis Khan and how in a survey in 2004, 0.5% of all males on the planet can trace their ancestry to him.

Disclaimer: If any of the above info is incorrect, it’s because it’s all from the top of my head without reference to Wikipedia. So whatever is in Wikipedia is probably still correct. I’m wrong.

Tags: American presidents, USA, history

A reprint of an email I received and replied to today:

I’m particularly anal and obnoxious these days. Note the words in caps.
Cheers and happy hoildays!

JH
^_^

From: “************”
To: **********

Subject: info
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2007 09:57:00 +0800

its more for the sponsership (SPONSORSHIP) for our nov event. my cosin (COUSIN), ********, is workin (WORKING) for south east district community. if u need any info, email to (SEND AN EMAIL TO) ********* . tell her its me n regardin  (REGARDING and NO ‘n’) the sponsership (SPONSORSHIP). ok?

I bought a remote-controlled car. It’s the length of my index finger. It’s a Lamborghini. Which I can surprisingly spell. But that’s not the point.

It’s awesomely cute.

Tags: remote control, flashy cars, japanese, toys

Why stop at a mere candybar?

Tags: chocolate, candy, recipes, cadbury crunchie

People knit in their spare time. Others play bridge. Sometimes, when I feel like it (or have some time on my hands), I like to memorize stuff. As in stuff like pi and the states and capitals of the US and the PokeRap. Whatever.

Anyway, over the weekend, I tried memorizing the Gettysburg Address. The first line goes,

“Four scores and seven years ago, our forefathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the preposition that all men are created equal.”

For some reason, the ‘dedicate’ part throws me off course and my mind perceives the text as

“…conceived in liberty and dedicated to fighting crime and the forces of evil!” after which the Powerpuff Girls theme song will play (ta da da da da da!).

It’s a good thing Lincoln never got to watch the Powerpuff Girls.

———–

I received a YouTube comment the other day that went -

” you spelled “practise” its practice”

 It occurs to me that I’m anal and prissy when I actually could point out that while ‘practice’ is used in American English, ‘practise’ is used as a verb and ‘practice’, a noun, in British English.

This from the same person who spells ‘color’ and ‘maneuver’ just because they contain less letters than the British spelling.

Tags: Gettysburg, grammar, english

Quick Poll to the 5 of you reading this (which I’m guessing includes a stalker, my clone, 2 FBI agents and me).

What do you like reading about best here, what should write more about and what bores you to bits?  Choose one or more of the following and comments are welcome.

- Food

- Videogames

- Random stupidity

- Fiction (as in, I write stories and you read them. And hopefully, they don’t begin with “It was a dark and stormy night”.)

- Juggling and/or unicycling

- My life (or lack of one)

- Others

Hurry, hurry hurry! Before I get it in my head that everyone likes reading about knitting tips.

Yesterday, I pooped.

Today, my abs hurt a lot.

What a good workout.

Tags: haiku

I’m happy to announce that I’ve *finally* finished reading American Gods. The story’s pretty interesting though the ending’s a little too glib in my opinion. I’m not going to spoil the book for anyone who hasn’t read it because it’s definitely worth a read. That leaves me with 312467 more books to read before I clear out my shelf of unread stuff.

And that brings me to my topic of choice: Graphic Novels. As some of you might know, I went on a comic buying spree recently and have a couple of them in my possession now including Gaiman’s Sandman Book 9 (book 1 was unavailable). I’ve not read that yet but I HAVE read the first few issues of Fables and also Book 1 of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

These few days, I’ve also the luxury of reading Alan Moore’s Lost Girls and some issues of Y- The Last Man. Lost Girls is essentially an attempt at porno literature but apparently, it’s unfinished because of publisher problems (or so I read from Wiki). I’m not sure if it’s great but it’s interesting to me because it’s novel. It’s not like hentai where there’s porn for the sake of having porn but it’s not unlike hentai either because well, it’s porn in comic form. I’m intrigued by the concept of having popular characters like Alice (i.e. Alice Through the Looking Glass), Dorothy (Wizard of Oz) and Wendy (Peter Pan) front the story. It’s almost like Moore’s enjoying a dig at the more controversial characters from Children’s fiction.

I’m not sure if I enjoy Lost Girls though, because the art’s not exactly fantastic to me. It takes on a typical classical, oil-painting look but it doesn’t seem like the most apt of styles to use given the characters involved although I understand what sort of feel he was trying to create.

Y-The Last Man was a more engaging read. The story tells of how all the men on Earth have died off except for this one guy who later finds himself very sought after for all imaginable reasons. In the meantime, all sorts of what-ifs come into play - supermodels end up clearing rubbish because there aren’t men around to appreciate them anymore; lesbians have a field day; America’s no longer a superpower and so on and so forth. I’m appreciative, especially of the humor and sly digs at current affairs and pop culture that’s prevalent in much of the conversations.

Next Up: Watchmen, Sin City,  The Spirit and more of Y-The Last Man.

Tags: graphic novels