Wednesday, December 5, 2007

GestaPo

Pat got this little jokebook which consisted of amusingly illustrated examples of common english language mistakes. For some reason, I was a lot more annoyed than amused. In an ideal world, such a list should be presented as an exam, not as humor. Perhaps I simply have the heart of an editor.




Oddly, a similar topic came up in a forum that I frequent. Here are some other things to think about; see if you know when to use each.

Ensure vs Insure vs Assure

Compare with vs Compare to

Damages vs Damage

That vs Which vs Who




Comic from Sinfest

Sunday, December 2, 2007

Now Loading...

I would have wanted to write something detailing how much I am enjoying WoW.

Unfortunately, I have already spent all of my free time playing WoW.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Exploran

Last weekend was good for gaming. I spent most of Saturday finishing up Zelda: Phantom Hourglass on the DS. It's a lot simpler than I recall Ocarina of Time being, but it's still amazingly fun to explore each new town and dungeon, to get each new tool and figure out what you can do with them. Zelda is a game filled to the brim with "Wow!" and "Ah-ha!" moments, and I really have to love it for that.



Note to self: I should set up an emulator for N64 and play some OOT.

****

On Sunday, I went ahead and bought World of Warcraft. Pat and I had previously played trial accounts; WoW is superior to any other MMO that we've tried, and we decided it would be worth paying the full price.

I got the WoW Battle Chest, which had an installer for the base game, another for the Burning Crusade expansion, and neat glossy illustrated guides for each. Plus smaller B&W manuals for each. Bought it at Data Blitz; it was significantly pricier than the MSRP would have led me to expect. But for some reason there aren't many stores that sell original software! Huh.



Mmm, time for some GRINDAN.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

Serious Magics!

Lorwyn released last month, and I've been playing a lot of Tournament Sealed (which is to say, every other weekend). I've been getting solid results so far: 3-1 in the prerelease, 4-3 in a GPT and 5-2 in a PTQ. However, sealed deck (where you play with fresh, unopened packs) is expensive if you weren't actively looking to buy packs to start with.

Of course, I was trying to gather packs; I also put together a Casual Limited set, meaning four of each common and two of each uncommon, shuffled up and repacked into 40 boosters. Now that I'm done collecting, I might just go play Constructed instead.




I mentioned a while ago that I was playing FF: Chocobo Tales. Now, the nice thing about playing a Final Fantasy game is that they can reuse the good, nostalgic music from their previous games... and Chocobo Tales reuses old music shamelessly. This is a positive thing overall; this is good music.

The net effect being that as I finished the game, I had the nagging urge to play some the good parts for myself. On the piano! A bit of digging around revealed some sheet music here. Initially was leaning towards the boss music, but I eventually settled on the slower 600AD song from Chrono Trigger, with much better results.


Kurikinton Fox, The Decisive Battle (FF6)

Monday, October 29, 2007

Chocobo Tales

I don't know if I even mentioned that I already got a DS a few months ago. Poor blog, I have been ignoring you cruelly. I'm very very happy with what I got, a snappy portable that I can fit into my pocket, that I can play all sorts of games on. The DS has a wide enough selection of games that I can pick the ones that tickle most my fancy.

Yes, in case you didn't get it, I'm telling you to buy one. Go! Buy one! Yes! I'll wait here!


*Ahem* In any case, one of the games that I've been playing recently is Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo Tales. It's pretty good! It's like your usual FF, except the "battles" are either in the form of minigames or a collectible card game. At first, I wasn't impressed by the idea of a minigame RPG the first time I heard of it. Then I played it and I was impressed. Graphics are quite good too.


The minigames can be a bit frustrating here and there, mostly because I have generally poor hand-eye coordination (too many books and not enough vidyagames when I was a kid, heh). If a particularly difficult minigame was in the way of the story, I'd have to bang my head against the wall until I could solve it and allow the RPG to continue. It's a bit stunning to realize that the average ten-year old is probably better than me at this kind of thing. Despite the difficulty issue though, this game is (surprisingly) a must play.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Return of the Mexican

Pat and I ate at Trinoma last week... at Mexicali!

And it was pretty good, yo! Not perfect, but I'm quite happy with what we got. Jalapeno and cheese quesadilla, cheese enchilada, and steak burrito.

The burrito was the best value for money, although it was mostly stuffed with rice. The Quesadilla was actually kinda too expensive, but it was simply great.

I should remember to ask Pat to take pictures, now that she has a camera in her new phone.

Would eat at again! :p



Recently I've been eating a lot at Komoro Soba when I'm at work. I guess I haven't mentioned that one of the best things about working at HP is that it's right next to Megamall and I always have choices for lunch... well, it just so happens that the correct choice is often Komoro Soba.

I realized that after a while, I was enjoying their Kaki Age a lot more than the Katsudon. While I must assume that you know what Katsudon is, I should probably explain Kaki Age (as they serve it at megamall). Briefly put, it's tempura, except instead of seafood you put in a bunch of chopped veggies... resulting in a deepfried veggie pancake. Yum! I can actually be quite happy with two side orders of Kaki Age and a bowl of rice... a meal that should garner Alekos' approval.


Hm, between Enchiladas and Kakiage, I think I might be able to go vegetarian! :P Hm, do I smell a challenge?

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Enter, Stage Left

A new blog, and a new beginning.

Just to recap, I'm leaving my old blog. Pat will do her thing over at her multiply site, but personally I'm not into the social networking thing so I'll be starting fresh on this site.

Also please try to remember that it's just gaeb.blogspot.com, and not gaebril.blogspot.com.

Let's go!