Never gets old

I love the mountains,
I love the clear blue skies
I love big bridges
I love when great whites fly
I love the whole world
And all its sights and sounds
Boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da
Boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da
I love the oceans
I love real dirty things
I love to go fast
I love Egyptian kings
I love the whole world
And all its craziness
Boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da
Boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da
I love tornadoes
I love arachnids
I love hot magma
I love the giant squids
I love the whole world
It's such a brilliant place
Boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da
Boom-de-ah-da, boom-de-ah-da

2008 - In Review

What did 2008 bring for me? Well, a lot, I guess. This post turned out to be longer than I thought it would be. To be honest, half this stuff I've already mentioned here over the course of the year. However, like a low-budget sitcom episode where you have flashbacks from previous episodes, I will dare to repeat myself: I feel that putting everything together in one post will put things in perspective.

WoW
December 2007, I started playing WoW with Pat. I continued to play for the first several months of 2008, grinding my shaman Foluzar up to the mid-60s. My interest petered out at that point, and I stopped playing WoW for a while.

Harvest
I was also the OM IT Row Leader for Japan Harvest. In truth, half the time I had no idea what I was doing, and I spent a lot of extra time running around just to make sure things went right on the project. Harvest finished with an excellent cutover though, so in the end I can say that I picked up a lot of good experience from this.

Singapore
One particular high note in the Harvest was spending a month working in Singapore. At first I was hesitant, because it meant the uncertainty of travelling alone and the sadness of leaving Tesla and Pat behind. It worked out great though, particularly with HP paying for the trip. I didn't get to save any of the pocket money, but I got a lot of books, comics and food out of it.

Obama
One of the things that took up a lot of my mindspace was Obama's election. I read Dreams from my Father a couple of years ago, and felt a connection. I watched Obama as he struggled through the primaries and the general, savored each victory and raged at each loss. Obama made me believe the crazy idea that maybe there are a handful of people out there who are genuinely interested in making this thing work. I despair at the thought of trying to find honest men in the fetid swamp of Philippine politics, but for Hope, I'll give it a shot.

Loss
Speaking of filth, my wallet was stolen this year, at the Luzon bus stop/overpass. Huuuge loss. Ironically, I went home early that day because I was feeling sick; now I actually feel safer commuting late at night.

Boardgames
On the lighter side, 2008 also brought Boardgames. Celsus already had a huge bunch of Settlers of Catan, but finding Gamecrab introduced us to a plethora of board games, most of them good. Puerto Rico was the runaway hit from our first play (although the lack of random/expandable elements stops it from being highly replayable). From Po's shipment, I got a bunch of other games too. Carcassone is pretty, simple, and easy to get into, while having it's own subtle grace. Blue Moon City was enjoyable the first few times I played it, but unfortunately I never got around to playing with my copy yet! San Juan has a superficial resemblance to Puerto Rico, but is a good game in it's own right; unfortunately it's overshaowed at the office by the very similar Race for the Galaxy. I really wanted to buy Descent, but the NG price increase stopped me. In the end, I'm glad Arnold bought it, because it's much more suited to the Ameritrash crowd at work - Descent really has issues with downtime and game length. I'm looking forward to 2009 and the new games that it will bring in.

Essential X-Men
I've always loved the X-Men, and when I saw these books in Singapore, I had to have them (I was flush with my per diem, after all). They're just in black and white, but this is truly the good stuff.

TF Animated
Transformers Animated was released this year, meaning a new show and a new line of toys. The cartoon is pretty decent, although around half the episodes are fluffy filler. The toys had the same clean, stylized look of the show, directly contrasting with the fiddly look from the movie. The style makes it doubly wonderous that they transform so well. I bought a bunch of these, and they're just great. I should take some pics.

Busou Shinki
A cute little toyline that's fun to play around with and display. Well, I guess it's not a time sink, really, but I spend a solid chunk of cash on this, so in the list it goes.

LEGO
One of my bigger hobbies this year, I actually started on Lego because Pat asked me to look into it. Good thing, too: this means Pat pays for half the stuff, which is a rare bonus. A thoroughly enjoyable toy experience, in a year that I got with a lot of toys. Only downside is, the price difference between the US SRP and the local prices are so huge, we ended up ordering a lot online - an activity whose timing disrupts my spending patterns.

Ikariam
This browser based game takes just a few clicks at the start and end of each day, but still it's pretty engaging. Honestly, I can't believe I'm still playing this. It must be that good.

Other Games
The DS is still going strong, although I tend to play 10 minuite games now (like Layton, N+ and Ninjatown), instead of playing RPGs (I am sure I blame WoW for this). As for card games, well, nobody plays the WoW TCG anymore, and while Magic started strong with Morningtide, I stopped being interested after that. Considering that the office is a full proxy environment, that's a bad sign.

WoW: WotLK
Did I already mention WoW? Well, I'm going to mention it again, because when Wrath of the Lich King released this November, everyone scrambled to upgrade... myself included. With a brand new Death Knight on a new server (Dark Iron), I might actually hit cap this time.

Onwards!

King's Castle Siege

King's Castle Siege is the largest set in Lego's current Castle lineup, with 973 bricks, divided into 7 parts. We got this off Amazon for 100 USD.

The first part is just the minifigs. There are 6 human and 4 skeleton minifigs, and a horse and dragon. Three of the skeletons aren't minifigs in the traditional sense; they're just made of specialized bricks. The humans all have unique faces, and there's more than enough weapons for everone, not even counting the extra weapons found in the actual castle.

The dragon is pretty huge, a lot bigger than it looked on the box. It's built from several large parts, which gives it a decent amount of articulation, with some particularly good range on the head and neck. There's four studs on the back for a minifig to ride, and there is in fact some construction used to attack the wings, but it would be a stretch to call this brick built. The result is a bit duplo-ish, but overall it does look quite good.

The second section is the front gate. There's some playable features here: a drawbridge that you can lift using a lever and chains, and a portcullis that you can drop by pulling out its support. Note also the technic pins and holes at the bottom; this is how each part of the modular design attaches to each other.

The third section is a pair of towers. There's some nice detailing here: small catapults, flags, shields, torches. There's space for minifigs on top of the tower, and also inside the tower, perhaps to shoot out throught the arrow-slits.

The fourth section is a simple wall. There's a large catapult on a rotating platform, and a weapons rack with two swords and a spear, in case those minifigs want extra weapons.

The fifth section is a wall and tower. Another play feature here: part of the wall can be pushed in. You can also see that the top floor has a small jail cell.

The sixth and seventh sections are the rear gate and the king's tower, respectively. The rear gate has a neat double door, but is otherwise unspectacular. The king's tower has a lot of shiny parts, a golden sword, treasure chest, and throne. It even has a sniper's post up on top! It is pretty airy though, being supported by arches instead of walls.

Overall, it's a pretty nice set. It's mostly built with regular bricks, so it's easy to modify if you have extra parts (explaining why some people end up buying multiples of the set). And I'd say it's justified! If you're just going to get just one Castle set, it had better be this one.

Manila Papers

We went to Komikon 4 this weekend, at Bahay ng Alumni. Going in, I made it a point to really set aside a budget for this; still, it's a little hard to take a plunge on the very indie ones. I did end up spending a lot of money though, and I guess that makes this a success for me!

One highlight would be Zsa zsa Zaturnnah, with a personalized autograph for just 200 php.

Another good one is Elmer, which is a well written SF story about chickens gaining intelligence en masse.

Haven't gone through the rest yet. I'll get back if anything is particularly good.

Kool Aid

For the past few months, I've been following the American presidential elections. This is going to sound odd, but I got my news mostly from the Penny-Arcade forums. They're surprisingly good at aggregating all sorts of news and analysis.

I'll pass on talking about the politics, but I have to admit that I became addicted to Obama's message of change. Some have called Obama messianic, and it's true! Listening to him talk about making things better, hearing it echo in the Penny-Arcade community, I caught a glimpse of faith and hope.

Is it okay to believe?

Haul

A huge box of Lego arrived today! I bought it online, then had it shipped through my aunt in California. Alright! Now, let me revel in my indulgence...

King's Castle Seige ($100) - Notice how this box is opened and kinda bent? That's because it wouldn't fit in the balikbayan box, so my aunt had to set loose the contents and fold this box.

Skeleton Castle ($50) - A counterpoint for the King's Castle.

Exo-force Golden Tower ($32) - From their anime-style line, I had to get this one because it has a character named Hitomi that dual wields a pair of golden katana.

Exo-force Assault Tiger and Chameleon Hunter ($15 each) - Who doesn't like mecha? ...Well, a bunch of people apparently, since this line will be gone next year. Actually, I just hope they replace it with a better space/mecha line in the future.

Star Wars X-Wing ($50) - Iconic Vehicle, most of the main characters from the original trilogy... nice set. It's noticably smaller than the other $50 sets, though... you pay dearly for that Star Wars lisence.

Star Wars Imperial Dropship ($10 each) - Basically, this is for building an army of stormtroopers. Let me tell you how overpriced LEGO is in the Philippines: This is sold at a local SRP of 1,500php... and it gets sold out.

Cargo Copter ($20) - From the Creator line, another multi-builder for Pat to play with. It has a motorized winch!

Duplo 15"x15" Baseplate ($15) - Something for Tesla! It's a good focus for her playing with her regular bricks. Also we got two Lego 10"x10" green baseplates for $5 each, but I seem to have misplaced the pic.

Doctor and Patient ($3) - A couple, for populating Pat's Creator house. We're not really interested in the City line, so we just got minifigs.

Brick Separators ($1.6 each) - A pair of newfangled devices for separating those tricky bricks. I'll tell you how that works out.

Mercedes Lackey Books ($24 for the 4) - One of Pat's favorite authors. May contain gay.

Wayne Barlowe Artbooks ($35) - Hellish illustrations from Dante's Inferno, by Wayne Barlowe. For Ruben.

Total damage: Including a balikbayan box cost of $40, some additional US taxes and shipping, and it adds up to 22k php. Whoa, indeed! Note that we would have paid almost twice as much for the Lego, had we bought it locally... No regrets! ^_^

Busou Shinki: Tigris and Vitulus

I got a pair of Busou Shinki last month! I bought it from a specialty store in Greenhills that does Japanese imports. These two were bundled together since their equipment combine.

First up is Tigris. Her primary armor configuration is basically to have most of her stuff attached to her back as a large jetpack, while she carries a huge sword up front. I suppose the idea is that she charges forward like a powered-up lancer. It looks bad-ass and all, but I'm kinda disappointed in this mode because the backpack design is kinda simple.

In contrast, this second mode has an extreme amount of part-swapping. Tigris swaps her legs for the large jets that formed her backpack, and swaps her arms for the claw and plating parts. It's lighter and uses less parts, but I feel it's more interesting in terms of showing off the design space of the toyline.

Here we have Vitulus, designed to provide long-range cover fire. You can see here that she has a lot of big guns. In her primary mode she's riding a small, well-armed hoverpod. All in all, a relatively interesting mode.

Vitulus can also just ride the large gun separately. It's okay for what it is, but this mode blurs the line from armor to vehicle, to "part of a fortress playset".

As I mentioned, these two are a pair since the armor parts join together. In this case, it forms some sort of hoverbike vehicle. The idea is nice on paper but the parts feel a bit as if they were just mashed together.

A large mecha mode! It's somewhat oddly proportioned, but it's okay -- just okay.

Overall, I like Tigris and Vitulus. There's a lot of different modes, a lot stuff to do. True, some of the modes can be funny looking, but the variety makes up for it. Busou Shinki have a lot of small parts, so you can't absently manhandle them like you would a Transformer; you have to be careful and give attention to your Shinki. On the upside, they look really good on a shelf. I'll be getting more of these.

Armed God Princess

Busou Shinki is a videogame/toyline from Konami. The gimmick of the line is that when you buy a toy, you get the corresponding character and equipment for the videogame.

The game is a turn-based fighting game with MMO elements such as leveling, equipment, and online play. I guess it's like Pokemon? Depending on how much you get to talk to your Shinki, it might also be part date-sim. There's also a mode called Diorama Studio, where you can pose your characters in various settings. Unfortunately, the game is hardcore Japanese so I doubt I'll be playing it.

The figures are very well articulated, relatively stable, and fun to pose. Unfortunately there's a lot of visible joints, pins and screws; it's forgivable though, as they sort of blend in with the designs of the characters. Each figure also comes with an array of equipment, the desgins of which vary widely across each character.

Donut Break

Decided to try one of the chocolate flavors from Mister Donut. Ugh. Big mistake. It tasted like chocolate colored bread. Good thing I only got a single; I was a hair's breadth away from buying an 8-pack.

Go-nuts donuts is getting kinda disappointing too. Over the past year, I've seen them fare pretty badly against Krispy Kreme. They went low... way too low. They somehow managed to raise prices, drop quality, and dilute their menu with frivolities. Poor Go-nuts!

Unfortunately, this leaves Krispy Kreme as the last donut shop standing. Unfortunate because they're the most expensive; unfortunate because Go-nuts was a lot cheaper than them, with almost the same quality. That was a year ago though; today I welcome our new overlords.

Beach House - part three

Here's a photo review of LEGO set 4996: Beach House from the Creator line. This is the third and last official mode of the set.

It's a nice, two story american-style house. In terms of overall appearance, it's the least imposing of the three builds, but I find it very charming.

The rear roof opens up to show the interior. You can see that the second floor is pretty small... I can't say that it's minifig scale anymore.

Unlike the first mode, you can't take off the top floor. If you peer in through the roof, you can see some sort of oven and a coffee machine! Nice accessorizing, too bad you can't see it so easily. I like this mode the best despite it's flaws.

Overall, this set is pretty good. No minifigs, but you can easily get those elsewhere. Like the other sets of the Creator line, it's best for those who'd want to build and rebuild their Lego.

Beach House - part two

Here's a photo review of LEGO set 4996: Beach House from the Creator line. As I mentioned previously, there are three ways to build this set. Here's the second way: a high-rise apartment. It's three stories high, but kinda narrow. There's a lot of dead space on the baseplate (and a lot of extra pieces leftover after building as well).

It's in Lego "scale". A minifig can just fit on the balconly, but if I were him I'd feel bad living in such a cramped apartment.
There's some sort of picnic table outside, but it still seems anemic compared to the stuff in the first mode.
In this mode, the back is open. I hear this is standard in most lego play-houses.

It has some decent furniture, (more than the first mode, at least). There's some brick built sofas and chairs, an office set, and a mailbox.

It's interesting just because it's a pretty tall set, but I'd say it's overall less interesting than the first mode. Stay tuned for the last mode.