Updated as often as I can manage

 



Tuesday, March 27, 2001  

Again, sorry for the lack of updates. Haneal finally left today, and it was an interesting day, to say the least. He was originally booked to leave on Saturday, but wanted to spend the weekend here and went to the BA Travel Centre in the mall on Thursday to change his booking to Monday. He said after a lot of hassle (including them not finding the booking for a while) they finally changed it for a £10 fee, and all was good. Or so we thought... but more on that later.

Anyhow, the day started in the usual-ish manner... I went to my early morning lessons and skipped the afternoon ones to help Haneal pack and generally spend a bit of time with him before he leaves. Lunch at the Italian place at the corner, Bagatti's (yes Rina, I had Fried Mozzarella), last minute shopping... and then three solid hours of Liverpool vs Man U on Winning Eleven 5 until the minicab arrived. That game is the best, really. The fact that we're pretty even makes it very competitive, and though I managed to win most of the games over the last week, it's always the last game that counts. It's the one you always tease the loser about for however long it is until the next game is played. Haneal's Man United took an early lead minutes in to the final game when Sheringham found space in the box and finished smartly. They then defended en masse and held it at 1-0 until the 72nd minute. Nicky Barmby sprinted down the wing and crossed for Michael Owen to head home the equaliser at the far post. Six minutes later, I wrapped up the game when Robbie Fowler scored with a spectacular diving header from Berger's corner. Liverpool 2, Man United 1. Awwww yeah.

Right, where was I? After wallowing in the glory of that come-from-behind win, we set off for Heathrow's Terminal 4. Heathrow may be the busiest airport on Earth, but it really doesn't look like it. Each of the four terminals are small, crowded and ugly. I'm too used to massive, beautiful structures like Singapore's Changi or HK's Chek Lap Kok. You know, airports that WORK and don't force you to wait over 30 minutes just to check in. Then, when we got to the front... we were faced with a puzzled (but cute) trainee, who politely explained that his booking was cancelled by the travel agent. Cue confusion, followed by thoughts of "dumb trainee", followed by her equally puzzled supervisor coming down to say that, well, the booking really is cancelled. To BA's credit, they managed to find him a seat on a flight leaving five minutes later, and in the confusion also managed to miss the fact that his bag was 9 kilos over the 20kg limit.

Terminal 4 is the smallest of the ugly, smelly and crowded Heathrow terminals, and with an hour and a half before flight time there seemed to be little to do other than laugh at people joining the back of the check in line. Then, salvation. An arcade, filled with ancient games (Virtua Cop? Virtua Striker 1? Behind Enemy Lines or whatever?), pub games, and a brand-spanking new game... Confidential Mission. Think Virtua Cop with a James Bond theme. I put a £20 note into the change machine, expecting to be given a choice of denominations... and I get 20 £1 coins. As I bend down to pick up my haul, suddenly every single card in my wallet decides to fly out and scatter on the floor. D'oh. Still, we got in plenty of games of Confidential Mission, where Haneal showed off his Army skills by being very accurate and I showed off my skill of always managing to hit a civilian, no matter how obvious it is that the person in front of me is not a bad guy. "Dude, you just shot an old lady with white hair and a walking stick". "She looked like a terrorist! Honest!". We finished playing with 30 mins left before his flight leaves, and on the way there notice a free Daytona machine. Risk missing the flight, or play Daytona? What do YOU think we did?

(Oh, and he won, damnit)

Lastly, instead of a £5, one-and-a-half hour Tube journey home I decided to spend £20 on a 25 minute taxi ride home in one of London's ultra-professional black cabs (and no matter how much I dislike this place, I'll never stop praising black cabs--they RULE). Right from the start, my driver decided to go like a bat out of hell, leaving me sliding across the back seat in an experience reminiscent of being on the MTR at off-peak times. As we stopped outside my house, I noted the meter read £19.40 plus a £0.60 surcharge for some reason or another. I figured a £20 note would cover the fare, and I'd add a pound coin on top for a tip (which normally does the trick). By the time I fished the money out of my pockets and got out to pay, I saw the meter had crept up slightly--obviously he forgot to switch it off. I figured the cabbie would realise the meter showed a lower fare before I got out, and if not, I gave him enough to cover it anyway. I gave him the cash, and took a couple of steps away before he called me back. "I still have to give you change". I told him to keep it. Then he seemed to get a little mad. "I don't need your charity! This is rubbish! Take your damn change! I can't buy shit with this, not even a cup of coffee.". I was puzzled, especially since £1 is about HK$12 back home, which buys quite a lot (I still have to convert £s to HK$ to have any sort of idea of quantities), and I know you can DEFINITELY buy a cup of coffee for less than a pound. So I'm standing there while he counts out pennies into my palm, trying to figure out just what the hell is going on here. Is he some cheeky ass who doesn't like being tipped? Then he stopped at 20 pennies. "So what do I do with this?". "It's yours! Keep it! I don't want your dirty money!". I still look puzzled. "You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?" he says. "See, the meter says £20.20, you have to add the 60p, that means you only left me with 20p for myself". Cheating ass kept the meter running and is charging me for it! So screw it. I paid the fare I was legally obliged to pay, so I just walked away. It did annoy me though, especially since black cabs had a spotless record in my mind and really impressed me with their professionalism. I'm not going to regard them all as evil sods now, but I'm certainly not going to be so free to sing their praises.

OK, rant over. Now that I have a lot of time on my hands, I'm going to be updating frequently with details of what happened over the last two weeks. I also got the brilliant Metal Gear Solid 2 demo (I have it Gaz, jealous?) which makes me really, really want the final game. Also on my desirables list is the wonderful new Game Boy Advance, which is out but not yet in my hands. Oh, Gaz, did I mention I got the MGS2 demo? And lastly, Anand and Rina, keep fighting! Go on! I want more Star Trek/Star Wars fights! Since both of them are so similar anyway...

Currently in my...

Consoles: Winning Eleven 5 (PS2), MGS 2 Demo (PS2)
DVD Player: GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies
Toilet: Edge

Posted at 10:04 AM



Wednesday, March 14, 2001  

Sorry for the lack of updates--I've been a bit busy in the last few days. As I've said a gazillion times, my cousin Haneal came in on Saturday and we've been rather busy playing Winning Eleven all day long....

Seriously though, it's been fun so far. For a start, I've been eating better. For some bizarre reason, I'm getting up really early--including 8am on Sunday--and thus eating a THIRD meal ("breakfast", apparently) has become a bit of a necessity. And by some coincidence, I've discovered a Japanese restaurant right here where I live in Kingston. A nice place, with great food, but unfortunately it's one of these weirdo New Age places with no reservations, minimalist design and stupid "healthy living" slogans ("POSITIVE EATING--POSITIVE LIVING"). Still, they have good food and a take-away service, so all is not lost.

What else have we been up to? Well what I said earlier wasn't far off. Watching football, reading about football, buying various football-related products, all mixed with bits of playing football games on PS2 at home.

Speaking of home... I've had a bit of a problem with my stupid, stupid cleaners. They were supposed to come and clean the house on Saturday morning, before Haneal arrived in the afternoon. I DID say that it might be cutting it too fine, but they said they'd be here at 9am, and with Haneal arriving at 5pm I suppose there's more than enough time to clean a small two bedroom flat. I forced myself to stay up the night before, worrying that I wouldn't wake up in time to open the door for them in the morning. 9am came and went without the cleaners. As did 10am. And 11am. By this time, I finally reached them on the phone, and they told me their car broke down. Grr. It's annoying, but I suppose something like that is out of their hands, right? Just horrible, bad luck, right? Things started to go slightly pear-shaped when calling them later to arrange another day for them to come over. "Maybe we can send one person there Tuesday morning, 9am, but cannot bring vacuum cleaner". "But I don't have a working vacuum cleaner!". "This is problem then". What the hell? One day they claim to be sending me the soon-to-be-broken van with three cleaners and equipment and suddenly it's down to one girl and nothing else? Still, something is better than nothing, and maybe they can figure out the vacuum cleaner. So I wait for Tuesday morning, and it's another no-show, except this time I can't even get them on the phone. What's going on? Whatever it is, I'm getting a new cleaner.

Right now I'm watching Touch the Truck. It's a new gameshow with an amazingly ridiculous premise. Basically, you have 20 contestants who have to keep at least one hand on the truck at all times, with the last one remaining winning the truck. There are only two other rules really, one being you're not allowed to sleep, and the second is that you can't lean on the truck so much that it's solely supporting your weight. (Before you ask--they have 10 minute toilet breaks every two hours). I'm not entirely sure how they turned this into a watchable TV show, but they did. Maybe I'm just amused by the fact that they even have "truck-touching experts" rating the chances of the contestants (though, with in-depth analysis like "David's weird, so I don't think he'll make it" I begin to doubt about this expert status--surely you have to be weird to spend a week touching a truck?).

Oh, and my MP3 player has broken down. I don't know how or why, but it refuses to play music properly and the computer won't recognise it anymore. I'm not sure what's going on with it, but the fact is it DOESN'T WORK and I'm annoyed.

Lastly, looking at the discussion in the previous entry, it seems to be a minor success. The highlight of it has to be the amusing fight between my cousin Anand and my sister Rina, who obsesses over Japanese/Taiwanese actor Takeshi Kaneshiro constantly (as if you couldn't tell). She also ought to listen to me and catch Lugia right away.

More in a few days--now go pick on somebody and start a fight by clicking the Discuss button.

Currently in my...

Consoles: Winning Eleven 2000 (PS1)
DVD Player: The World Is Not Enough; Wedding Singer
MP3 Player: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING (GRRRR)
Toilet: World Soccer; Edge

Posted at 6:58 AM



Friday, March 09, 2001  

Another update! I'm impressed with myself, really.

My parents called today to say they were out at a club and saw former F1 driver Gerhard Berger. Being the F1 freak that I am (I stayed up until 6am to watch the Aussie Grand Prix last weekend--which, mind you, isn't saying much since I'm up until then most of the time ANYWAY...), I asked if they got an autograph for me... but of course they didn't. D'oh. This is the second time they've done something like this. Last year, my dad casually noted that he saw Pierce Brosnan walking down the street next to his office. I love James Bond films, have all the movies, all the books, all the DVDs and all the trivia (stored in my head, that last one)... and yet, he didn't seek the autograph of the person I consider to be the best 007. Rats.

Liverpool were on the BBC today playing Porto in Portugal, making my life so much happier for two hours. We didn't lose, but we didn't win either--a decent 0-0 draw that'll prove useful when we play them again in a week's time (again on the BBC!). Of course, the last time we drew the first leg away 0-0 we ended up losing at home, so we have to beware of Porto's capability to score an away goal. Still, I'm confident for a change...

Tomorrow I have to go to Central London for the first time in weeks to pick up some stuff from my cousin, Anand. The highlight of going into town will of course be... getting some KFC. See, for some bizarre reason the part of London that I live in has absolutely everything I could want within 5 minutes walking distance EXCEPT KFC. I love KFC! It's one of the few fast foods that can serve as a whole meal, really. Popcorn Chicken is also fantastic. It's basically tiny bite-sized bits of Original Recipe Chicken (like small McNuggets, except not as disgusting). Mmm. KFC. Mmm.

Other than that, not TOO much has been happening. This is the calm before the storm--Haneal arrives Saturday, and as soon as he leaves my dad is coming, just before he leaves my mom is coming, then I have a couple weeks off for study leave, a couple weeks more for exams, and I'm all done for the year.

One last thing--as you can see I added a "Discuss" thing at the bottom. Click on it and you can all comment on how lame this journal entry is. Mind you, I'm not sure anyone's reading this, so I don't expect too many comments... surprise me!

What's currently in my...

Consoles: Madden NFl 2001 (PS2); DDR EuroMix (PS1)
DVD Player: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
MP3 Player: U2
Toilet: Edge; N64 Magazine

Posted at 8:54 AM



Wednesday, March 07, 2001  

Finally! It's all up and working now. Blogger is incredibly hard to set up right, but incredibly easy to update with. Basically, I go to their site, type what I want to say into a box, hit Publish, and presto, my site is updated. Much easier than fooling around with FTP and stuff like that.

As you've already seen, the black and white have gone, to be replaced by... grey. I'm horrible at matching colours and this is much less harsh than before. Plus, I rather like QuickTime 4's metallic look and thought it all goes together rather nicely.

So what's new over here? Haneal, my best friend, will be coming to visit me on Saturday, so I have to finish up on a lot of university work and get the apartment nice and clean so I'll have a lot of free time when he comes down here. Of course, all our wacky antics will be posted here when the time comes, as well as pictures--lots of pictures.

Other than that, aside from some horribly boring uni work that I really don't want to get into, I haven't been doing too much. Playing a few games, watching a few DVDs, but nothing special (except Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon--a great film despite the awfully dull desert interlude). This month will be mad though, because there are a flurry of games I really want are coming. Conker's Bad Fur Day, the South Park of video games (cute characters who swear and drink and all that...) is out this week, as is the demo of Metal Gear Solid 2 (THE BEST non-Nintendo GAME EVER™), followed a week later by ace football game Winning Eleven 5. And at the end of the month... Game Boy Advance. Ooh. Aah.

That's all for now, I'll update again later.

What's currently in my...

Consoles: Pokémon Puzzle Challenge (GBC); Madden 2001 (PS2); Paper Mario (N64)
DVD Player: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon; Licence To Kill
MP3 Player: U2
Toilet: The First Quarter: A 25 Year History of Video Games; Edge; World Soccer

(Before you start wondering--this a roundup of everything I'm playing, watching, listening to and reading. Yes, reading, hence toilet. Get it? I hope so.)

Posted at 4:50 PM