Monday, October 27, 2003
Time for the Weekend Update (like SNL's Weekend Update, except all about me and not funny):
• It was Diwali this weekend, so cue lots of praying and boredom. Usually you can stomach this even if you're not terribly interested, but this time we had to sit in my aunt's office and wait a good hour for her to even show up to her own prayers, and then another hour while she got everything ready and performed the actual thing (something that we managed to do in less than 20 minutes). It was around 4pm by the time we finished, and then we had to go get lunch... which had to be vegetarian, of course, so we went to one of those funny Chinese vegetarian restaurants where they make "mock" meat dishes. You know the sort -- the ones where everything is made out of tofu and everything tastes like the original only in the sense that you could imagine getting the real thing and it tasting like this, but if it did you'd send it back for being rubbish. By the time we finished THAT it was 5:30. This is important because we had a big dinner scheduled for... 7:30. On the bright side, that wasn't too bad, since I managed to watch the Liverpool game there (Liverpool comes before everything else in my rather warped sense of priorities).
• And speaking of which: Liverpool won 3-1, which made the entire day worthwhile and allowed me to begin Monday's work with a smile for the first time in months. Owen scored too.
• I spent Sunday doing the usual lazing-around-playing-games thing. I nabbed Star Wars: Rebel Strike on Saturday with my Diwali money (there is an upside to it!) and I'm liking it so far. It's the sequel to a long-running series of Star Wars flying games set in the Classic Trilogy. Not as good as the first two, but still fun. All the Star Wars action there though just made me want to play Knights of the Old Republic again... so I did. I really don't know why I stopped playing. I don't know if I ever described it before, so I'll go ahead now. It's an adventure/role-playing-game set in the Star Wars universe thousands of years before the movies (during the time of the Old Republic that the prequel trilogy shows the end of). It's set far back enough that although there are familiar themes, planets and creatures, there's complete plot freedom for the game. You're a Jedi, and in your battle to save the Republic from the Sith (the evil cult that would eventually dwindle to the Emperor and Darth Vader) you can pretty much choose between the Light and Dark sides of the Force, and thus become good or bad. There's also tons of stuff to do and unlike most video games, you can actually progress in the game and grow stronger through non-combat solutions (like using Jedi Mind Tricks, or hacking computers, etc). Great, great game.
• Major props are in order to both John R and Gazunta. John, being an insanely lucky bastard, managed to win one of those fancy and super-cool Famicom-styled Game Boy Advance SPs Nintendo was offering in EXTREMELY limited quantities over the summer. He's got some pictures of his amazing catch here. And as for Gaz, he managed to get his pet project (What Was That Game?) in his all-time favourite magazine, EDGE, with a snap of the glorious event here. Just remember me when you go all Jeff Bezos on us, alright Gaz?
• We also got a new car. It's probably going to be "mine" when I actually get my damned license, and I won't complain. It's a pretty simple Toyota Corolla (we needed to replace the Demio that the driver uses for little things like picking up the kids or going to the market) but it's outfitted nicely and feels comfortable enough. Mind you, it won't really be "mine", but probably the car I'd use most. I'd never be allowed to touch my dad's car or my grandfather's car, the van is too unwieldy for a rookie like me, and I don't even want to go near my mom's car (it's French, and therefore is awfully cramped, smells funny and is lacking in basics).
That's all of the Old Business, so now on to New Business. Which is, er, not much. So instead I present to you a new Interesting Link of the Day, which is Forbes' list of the Richest Dead Celebrities. Elvis (boo! hiss!) is a solid #1, followed by the creator of Charlie Brown and Snoopy, Charles Schultz. Predictably, J.R.R. Tolkien is third (if you're in the middle of the BIGGEST MOVIE TRILOGY OF OUR TIME you'd figure he'd be rolling in it... wait, that sounds awful), and John Lennon only fourth, but it's great to see George Harrison in fifth. Supposedly his album sales are trouncing Lennon's (which shouldn't be a surprise), but there's also the fact that he's entitled to a quarter of the Beatles' royalties. That helps.
And finally... right now in Asia it's Tuesday, October 28th. The season premiere of the third season of 24 is just hours away. This is an awfully good time to cue that bleep-BLOOP, bleep-BLOOP, bleep-BLOOP clock that runs during every cliffhanger.
Posted at 11:42 PM
